Heart-wrenching. Needed words in a dark time, especially for us in the Minneapolis area. And if we call ourselves people of faith, there is an implicit call to love the sojourner (foreigner) among us, to love and care for the weak and needy, to feed the hungry among us. It is simply having and showing compassion. It is for the sake of the Name.
Abs, I sobbed reading this. My heart is broken every day. A member of our church has been detained for being “illegal” as a human in our country for more months than I can remember. This man always sat in the back, brought his own Bible, and was gracious when my son tried to take it off the table during fellowship hour. I’m gutted by what I hear on the daily about what my MN friends and family are dealing with. I had amazing neighbors from Mexico who lived across the alley in South Minneapolis. Know what they did during the May Day Parade? Shared their homemade Elote grilled corn. Just walked over and gave us this delicious food. I pray for their safety. I pray for the resistance to end this madness. Jesus would have been detained by these monsters. Thank you for your words. Sending love to you and yours. From a sad sack stuck in Maryland. ❤️
Thank you for sharing your story. I am so sorry to hear about your friend. Text me with the details if you'd like to try to help him. We are all in grief, cousin. Hate what is evil and cling to the good.
I have his address where he’s detained in Louisiana and have written to him. He has communicated he appreciates hand written letters. I finally got holiday cards and will send him one, along with a George Kindergarten picture and another picture drawn by George. Our Pastor and our Senator Van Hollen have been advocating for him and doing what they can. We miss him and pray for him every Sunday. You have such a gift for articulating *gestures broadly* all of this. I love your how you choose to use your voice, your deeply thoughtful words, and your love of Christ and the kindness and love he taught us. I needed to read this today. Love you, my beautiful cuzzin!!
Thank you for your words and sharing others; giving voice when all I seem to be able to do is shake my head and pray bewildered. Thank you for pointing out the truth in beauty and beauty in truth and faithfulness.
Hey Abbey, my daughter lives a couple blocks from the falls, it's a small world with lots of suffering people packed in between. I spent about 12 years in the Cities as a northern suburbanite, and bailed out after I retired, but return often to visit family and friends. I think that perhaps what troubles me is that the roots of the problem can get lost when we forget, ignore, or maybe just don't see what is really going on around us. Beauty is of course all around us, but some times we, or at least me, get blinded by it and forget about the dark ugly stuff lurking below the surface. That perhaps is the beauty of these times is that if you don't see the shit now than there aint much hope, if that says anything about my views on beauty. What is going on in the world is definitely what those in power planned for, and falling into traps that we or again maybe just me fall into will not make things any better, for what ever that is worth. One other critique, was regarding Jesus giving the nut tree another year to produce nuts before whacking it. As much as I find some of Jesus's talk worth paying attention to, that one seems to be Jesus only finding beauty in creation when it gives him something to eat. That sort of beauty is the beauty that chops down perfectly fine beings if they are not profitable, which is I think part of the root of the problem, for whatever that is worth. Nice chatting and much peace and sanity your way in these troubling times. Tom
More soon, friend along the way. I would love to speak with you at more length in a better format. As Buber said, I and Thou, face to face. No more mic drops, just real talk and real presence. I would like that.
Hey Abbey. Sorry for dragging you into my dark take. Always up for real talk. Can be reached via email at placesiam@substack.com for voice or face time alternatives. Otherwise be well in the City!
Abbey, just an FYI. I came across your piece “Minneapolis as Forest”, that struck some sore spots with me. I have been struggling the past couple months with trying to come to terms with the horrors that have been unfolding in the Twin Cities and around the world the past couple months and trying to make some sense out of it all. When I read your piece, it reminded me of how easy it is to forget about the skeletons that our cities our built on. Minneapolis was never a city designed as “a special gathering place that that can connect us to universal Beauty” no matter how many poems you write or prayers you pray. I have come to that conclusion from my previous experiences working as a civil engineer, and from looking into the real history of places like Minneapolis. Cities like Minneapolis were build by the rich and power to produce profit. The way to do that is to pack as many people as you can into a small area, so you can control them. And by the way before you can develop the prime real estate, or pilfer the resources, you need to launch a genocide to clear the land of inhabitants not willing to submit to the insanity. Anyway, I borrowed some of your quotes in my alternative telling of how what is unfolding today in our world, is the same shit that has been unfolding since power-full people started planning and governing Cities, which you can find at this link if you interested https://placesiam.substack.com/p/minneapoliss-saint-anthony-falls . Tom Jablonski
Oh, Tom. I feel honored that you felt moved to engage with my little witness to what is happening over here.
My appreciation for your dialogue means I fully feel and understand the force of your critique.
I live a mile from St. Anthony. I have sat in the potters field where unnamed people rest forever. I often think of the blood in the ground of our brothers and sisters with darker skin and how it cries out.
It could be that a reckoning must be total. It could also be that we must work humbly in the ruins and love our neighbor.
I don’t actually know. But I do think a forest it remains, however ravaged, however much the microscopic network of roots is communicating to the next acre, “here it comes”! I think I need to remain.
In an interesting twist of fate, my father’s name is Henry Lewis and he is also a writer and a painter!
Abbey, you weave these words with beautiful attention to the space between them which holds ferocious love, fury, grief, silence, fear, tenderness . . . and, heart to heart, tends to the kind of hope in action that can make a new thing.
❤️🔥 What has been happening in Minneapolis is helping other places to proactively prepare. Here in the Detroit area, the onslaught has been less visible, but is growing, as are resistance activities. I went to our Cathedral in the city yesterday to support an interfaith press conference coordinated in part by our Bishop. Next week I will attend a County meeting with numerous other advocates to urge commissioners to adopt a resolution to prohibit ICE and CBP from entering county buildings without a warrant.
Each day we all must open wider our eyes and hearts, even as we feel fear, rage and lamentation.
You have inspired me to take sister Simone down from the shelf . . . Thank you 🙏
There is nothing I can add. You (and Simone) said it all so articulately❤️In tears.
Heart-wrenching. Needed words in a dark time, especially for us in the Minneapolis area. And if we call ourselves people of faith, there is an implicit call to love the sojourner (foreigner) among us, to love and care for the weak and needy, to feed the hungry among us. It is simply having and showing compassion. It is for the sake of the Name.
Abs, I sobbed reading this. My heart is broken every day. A member of our church has been detained for being “illegal” as a human in our country for more months than I can remember. This man always sat in the back, brought his own Bible, and was gracious when my son tried to take it off the table during fellowship hour. I’m gutted by what I hear on the daily about what my MN friends and family are dealing with. I had amazing neighbors from Mexico who lived across the alley in South Minneapolis. Know what they did during the May Day Parade? Shared their homemade Elote grilled corn. Just walked over and gave us this delicious food. I pray for their safety. I pray for the resistance to end this madness. Jesus would have been detained by these monsters. Thank you for your words. Sending love to you and yours. From a sad sack stuck in Maryland. ❤️
Thank you for sharing your story. I am so sorry to hear about your friend. Text me with the details if you'd like to try to help him. We are all in grief, cousin. Hate what is evil and cling to the good.
I have his address where he’s detained in Louisiana and have written to him. He has communicated he appreciates hand written letters. I finally got holiday cards and will send him one, along with a George Kindergarten picture and another picture drawn by George. Our Pastor and our Senator Van Hollen have been advocating for him and doing what they can. We miss him and pray for him every Sunday. You have such a gift for articulating *gestures broadly* all of this. I love your how you choose to use your voice, your deeply thoughtful words, and your love of Christ and the kindness and love he taught us. I needed to read this today. Love you, my beautiful cuzzin!!
So glad you can communicate with him! Love you tons Sommer!
Thank you for your words and sharing others; giving voice when all I seem to be able to do is shake my head and pray bewildered. Thank you for pointing out the truth in beauty and beauty in truth and faithfulness.
Oh, my dear. I miss you!
Hey Abbey, my daughter lives a couple blocks from the falls, it's a small world with lots of suffering people packed in between. I spent about 12 years in the Cities as a northern suburbanite, and bailed out after I retired, but return often to visit family and friends. I think that perhaps what troubles me is that the roots of the problem can get lost when we forget, ignore, or maybe just don't see what is really going on around us. Beauty is of course all around us, but some times we, or at least me, get blinded by it and forget about the dark ugly stuff lurking below the surface. That perhaps is the beauty of these times is that if you don't see the shit now than there aint much hope, if that says anything about my views on beauty. What is going on in the world is definitely what those in power planned for, and falling into traps that we or again maybe just me fall into will not make things any better, for what ever that is worth. One other critique, was regarding Jesus giving the nut tree another year to produce nuts before whacking it. As much as I find some of Jesus's talk worth paying attention to, that one seems to be Jesus only finding beauty in creation when it gives him something to eat. That sort of beauty is the beauty that chops down perfectly fine beings if they are not profitable, which is I think part of the root of the problem, for whatever that is worth. Nice chatting and much peace and sanity your way in these troubling times. Tom
More soon, friend along the way. I would love to speak with you at more length in a better format. As Buber said, I and Thou, face to face. No more mic drops, just real talk and real presence. I would like that.
Hey Abbey. Sorry for dragging you into my dark take. Always up for real talk. Can be reached via email at placesiam@substack.com for voice or face time alternatives. Otherwise be well in the City!
Abbey, just an FYI. I came across your piece “Minneapolis as Forest”, that struck some sore spots with me. I have been struggling the past couple months with trying to come to terms with the horrors that have been unfolding in the Twin Cities and around the world the past couple months and trying to make some sense out of it all. When I read your piece, it reminded me of how easy it is to forget about the skeletons that our cities our built on. Minneapolis was never a city designed as “a special gathering place that that can connect us to universal Beauty” no matter how many poems you write or prayers you pray. I have come to that conclusion from my previous experiences working as a civil engineer, and from looking into the real history of places like Minneapolis. Cities like Minneapolis were build by the rich and power to produce profit. The way to do that is to pack as many people as you can into a small area, so you can control them. And by the way before you can develop the prime real estate, or pilfer the resources, you need to launch a genocide to clear the land of inhabitants not willing to submit to the insanity. Anyway, I borrowed some of your quotes in my alternative telling of how what is unfolding today in our world, is the same shit that has been unfolding since power-full people started planning and governing Cities, which you can find at this link if you interested https://placesiam.substack.com/p/minneapoliss-saint-anthony-falls . Tom Jablonski
Oh, Tom. I feel honored that you felt moved to engage with my little witness to what is happening over here.
My appreciation for your dialogue means I fully feel and understand the force of your critique.
I live a mile from St. Anthony. I have sat in the potters field where unnamed people rest forever. I often think of the blood in the ground of our brothers and sisters with darker skin and how it cries out.
It could be that a reckoning must be total. It could also be that we must work humbly in the ruins and love our neighbor.
I don’t actually know. But I do think a forest it remains, however ravaged, however much the microscopic network of roots is communicating to the next acre, “here it comes”! I think I need to remain.
In an interesting twist of fate, my father’s name is Henry Lewis and he is also a writer and a painter!
Abbey, you weave these words with beautiful attention to the space between them which holds ferocious love, fury, grief, silence, fear, tenderness . . . and, heart to heart, tends to the kind of hope in action that can make a new thing.
❤️🔥 What has been happening in Minneapolis is helping other places to proactively prepare. Here in the Detroit area, the onslaught has been less visible, but is growing, as are resistance activities. I went to our Cathedral in the city yesterday to support an interfaith press conference coordinated in part by our Bishop. Next week I will attend a County meeting with numerous other advocates to urge commissioners to adopt a resolution to prohibit ICE and CBP from entering county buildings without a warrant.
Each day we all must open wider our eyes and hearts, even as we feel fear, rage and lamentation.
You have inspired me to take sister Simone down from the shelf . . . Thank you 🙏
Such crucial work, Michelle. We must stand up for the downtrodden no matter how they got there. All strength to you in those endeavors.