In his memoir “Surprised by Joy,” C.S. Lewis recounts how he became a Christian. While it was preceded by years of reading and deliberation and conversation, the actual moment of conversion was so uneventful as to be almost unnoticeable.

One September Saturday, Lewis rode in the sidecar of his brother’s motorcycle as they traveled to the zoo. As Lewis writes:

“When we set out I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did. Yet I had not exactly spent the journey in thought. Nor in great emotion. ‘Emotional’  is perhaps the last word we can apply to some of the most important events. It was more like when a man, after a long sleep, still lying motionless in bed, becomes aware that he is now awake.”

So it is with many of our unexamined beliefs. At any moment, they can gently fall away to reveal the truth beneath. And once you know the truth, it’s hard to understand how you were ever able to ignore it in the first place.

There were a number of reasons that led Josh Slocum to reject the liberal credo “guns kill people”: His small town’s increasing crime and disorder, government overreach during COVID, and an acknowledgment of prejudices inherited from his chaotic upbringing.

But it wasn’t until he brought home a gun (a rifle borrowed from his handyman) that Slocum had a true change of heart. That night, the 47-50 propped against his bedroom wall, Slocum couldn’t get to sleep; he ended up taking the gun to the living room.

The next night he tried again. This time he made it, coming to the conclusion that “it’s not good coddling yourself; confronting reality is the cure for fear.”

Confronting reality to cure fear is also a pretty good précis of Align’s mission statement. We’re glad Josh Slocum chose to share his “conversion” with us in his excellent piece “How I Stopped Hating Guns – and Embraced Self-Reliance.”

Best,

Matt Himes, Align managing editor