“Every one of these people are ours,
Just like we are theirs.
We belong to them
And they belong to us.”
Nikita Gill, poet and playwright
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have the great good pleasure of time with my first-grade grandson before school.
We play board games, read books, and Felix dines on his favorite breakfast food: Grandpa Cooper eggs.
When the time comes, I walk or drive him to school, depending on how cold it is outside. Minnesota winters are not for the faint of heart.
Lately, due to the unrest caused by ICE vehicles circling local schools, his mother dons a reflective vest and whistle and stands watch at her son’s school.
Recently, as I dropped Felix off, we spied his mother down the block. He was taken aback – he had already said goodbye to her that morning and there she was again; his most favorite human in a place he did not expect her.
We went to see her and hug her, and that is when the tears started. Having connected with his momma, Felix did not want to let go of her.
Even as it came time for him to go into his school – a school he loves – he did not want to leave his mother.
I took him by the hand and led him to the door and the tears continued. The staff at the school saw his distress. They allowed me to accompany him into the lunchroom where he could opt for a waffle and some string cheese, and all the while he held my hand tightly and all the while, the tears fell.
The other children were concerned and respectful. He chose a place to sit by his friend. He held my hand as he opened his waffle package and then his friend saw his distress and moved over to sit by his side and he patted Felix on the shoulder and offered him part of his waffle and I was able to leave. The tears were still falling but I knew that Felix was in the care of a tender soul.
What is being wrought around us? As our city is occupied, parents and children and each and all of us are prone to weeping. How could it be otherwise?
All of us feel the pain of this occupation: Our children and our neighbors in hiding, our church folk and our civic leaders. There is no one who is not affected by violence meted out without warning or reason.
This occupation has caused us to know the power of being neighbors: neighbors who deliver groceries, neighbors who join the Singing Resistance, neighbors who pray and who look each other in the eye when they meet on the street. Since the Metro Surge by ICE in the city of Minneapolis, Hennepin Ave. UMC has hosted a legal observer training for 900, a Singing Resistance gathering of 1400, and lunch support for short-staffed bilingual area schools. As a church seeking to cultivate reverence, resistance, and repair, we distribute whistles for ICE alerts, offer worship that sustains, and a community witness that all are our neighbors.
We share an awareness of the fragile power of our freedom and our shared humanity.
I thank God for the church I serve in downtown Minneapolis. We open our doors every day in order to be a neighbor, because we belong to this city, and this city belongs to us.
Prayer:
Gracious God, hear our prayer. We pray for the noose of terror to loosen its grip in the so-many places in this world where power is abused. We pray for our children, for our nation and for a world where power has run amok. Keep our hearts soft, we pray, and our resistance to evil, injustice and oppression sustainable. Grant us the wisdom and courage for the living of these days. In the power of your love, we seek to live. Amen
The Rev. Elizabeth Macaulay serves as the lead pastor of Hennepin Ave. United Methodist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
