The face of God showing up in Minneapolis

I just returned home from Minneapolis, having answered a national call to clergy to come join in solidarity and support of a city protesting the federal government’s ICE occupation, deportations, and cold-blooded murders taking place there. 
There is no sitting at home when violence rages at your door, abducts your neighbors, or baits your children. And close to a thousand of us responded to the call. Many, perhaps, sense as I do, the cellular memories of our ancestors’ histories awakening—of the Brownshirts, Gestapo, slave patrols, or other vicious paramilitary groups—as we watch the cruel tactics of ICE unfolding on our screens.

I return so inspired by the power of community! The city of Minneapolis felt like a unified body standing in opposition to the federal government’s brutal murder of innocent, the takeover of their streets, the abduction of their neighbors. 

I took part in two actions: One at the airport in seriously cold weather, (-19) with hundreds of other faith leaders— singing, praying, and protesting ICE's brutal deportations. 106 clergy were arrested (not me.)

The second was at the Target HQ downtown where hundreds of us stood in unified song and oratory in the rotunda foyer, as Target officials and police listened to the eloquent call of ministers and rabbis on begging corporations like Target to stand with the people, the shoppers, the citizens of Minneapolis and the nation right now, rather than bow to the trumped-up charges of this administration's immigration roundups.

What moved me most? being a cell in this living, singing, unified heart-body—along with hundreds of other clergy members who weren’t afraid to pray from our depths through a megaphone, kneel down on frigid concrete,  voluntarily be arrested, sing  hymns without a trace of cynicism. May Minneapolis and all of us throw off the yolk of this Pharaohic tyranny soon!

The ancients understood that in every era and in every person, God—the unnamable Mystery— shows up uniquely.  A theophany is when the face of God shows up in a form that is real and accessible to our human perception. In the Torah, the Burning Bush was a theophany. So was the sound of the cosmic Shofar blasting at the quaking Mount Sinai. A theophany shakes us and takes us by surprise. Perhaps God is the name for this urgent feeling, the moral demand within us, to show up in defense of those who cannot defend themselves.  

In Minneapolis, God takes the form of strangers huddled, warming one another in sub-zero weather, singing songs of protest and protection in harmony, watching friends of the cloth kneel down on frigid concrete to be voluntarily arrested, answering in unison the cries of prayer through a megaphone, the blast of whistles alerting neighbors of danger, the sounds of hymns sung in harmony without a trace of cynicism.

Connection. This may be God’s current face—the blurred lines of coming together, the unexpected hyphens and hybrids and held hands showing up everywhere. In this time of schism and fragmentation, reach out to grab someone’s hand! 

And If you, like me, are looking for further ways to support the brave communities organizing in Minneapolis, to provide food for neighbors and more, here are trusted channels to donate.

May all of us be strengthened by our togetherness to leap over the hurdles of fear and terror that are encroaching. May we experience God’s face in our neighbors, and act, sing, and move forward together in harmony!