On Saturday I wrote about my deep concerns with the president’s choice to not name the particular evils of white nationalism, neo-Nazism, and the alt-right movement. Two days later, he did that. I’ve spent 24 hours reflecting on all of this, sincerely eager to root out my own biases and see the good in Trump’s decision and his words. And the words are good; refusing to acknowledge that would be, for me, obstinate cynicism. Despite my strong reservations about Trump’s character and leadership, I am daily praying for him, hoping for wisdom, goodness, and mercy. So I’m sincerely thankful for something other than a continuation of the void that stretched from Saturday to Monday morning.

And yet: the void. His refusal to be specific for those two days, certainly set against a backdrop of some history I mentioned on Saturday night (and a lot I didn’t), will remain troubling for me and for many others. I won’t belabor the reasons why that mattered so much, but it did. It does. And if you still don’t think it does, I plead with you to spend some time sincerely listening to people of color explaining why it matters. There are many who are as theologically and socially conservative as you who are happy to do so. Don’t just watch CNN or FOX and let the divisions grow deeper. Have a conversation with a real person.

And, of course, since Monday morning we’ve had multiple head-shaking presidential twitter moments that torpedoed most of the patience and trust Trump surely aimed to buoy with his more specific statement. [Literally as I wrote this, Trump walked back to his Saturday language.]

Wait, don’t leave. I promise I’m not going to do a twitter play-by-play. Who has the energy for that at this point?

I mention those tweets because of what they reveal about the striking contrast between Trump’s spirit over the last 24 hours and the spirit of Heather Heyer’s father, Mark. If you haven’t already seen this short video, please pause for three minutes and watch it:

That, folks, is your leader this week.

As I said when I tweeted this video Monday evening: This is other-worldly forgiveness. I’m a father to two daughters. This isn’t natural. It’s supernatural, the power of the cross among us.

Mark Heyer is reminding me that it’s safe to love and forgive, that it’s safe not to hate.

Despite my many years of relative political ambivalence, I think it’s a shame that the President of the United States is not only not modeling that same spirit, but he’s undermining his own words about hate and unity. The difference between what the two men have lost since Saturday is unquantifiable, yet one is angrily focused on his own mistreatment while the other is courageously modeling redeemed humanity.

As Mark Heyer points to the self-sacrificing Jesus of the cross and forgives the white supremacist who murdered his daughter, the president tweets about how he is being picked on by his “truly bad” enemies and then shares with the country a picture of a train emblazoned TRUMP running over a reporter two days after Heather was run over by a car. I mean, good grief, man.

So here’s my confession: it makes me kind of want to hate Trump. Just a little, but it’s there.

See, that’s our cycle. That’s my cycle. Even when it’s love or tolerance or grace we say we value, all it takes is a little hate to make us want to hate. Maybe all it takes is a little them…a little of the other who isn’t like me, who I don’t like, who I don’t understand.

But here is Mark Heyer, undone by the murder of his child yet unmoved by the hate that killed her. Here he is, an old man in a food pantry t-shirt on his front lawn, acting like the leader of the free world.

People need to stop hatin’, and they need to forgive each other. And I include myself in that in forgiving the guy that did this. He don’t know no better. I just think of what the Lord said on the cross, ‘Lord, forgive ’em. They don’t know what they’re doin’.

Thank you, Mr. Heyer, for reminding me that as I labor to oppose evil in the world and call the the Church to purity in her allegiance to Jesus, my first audience is me.