What a heartbreaking week, the heartbreak of the killing of Alex Pretti coming right after the heartbreak of the killing of Renee Good.
I collect lines of poetry and lyrics of songs in my head, and they pop up often when I least expect them. This week, two dissimilar songs have vied for space. One was a Carly Simon song that came out when I was in high school. She did a cover of it this past year with Alanis Morrissette – Coming Around Again. Just a beautiful, haunting song. It was written about the experience of romantic heartbreak, but the larger message is hitting home with me this week.
I know nothing stays the same
But if you’re willing to play the game
It’s coming around again
So don’t mind if I fall apart
There’s more room in a broken heart
And I believe in love
But what else can I do
I’m so in love with you.
My heart is breaking for our world, our country, the hateful things we are seeing right now. When Alex was shot, a bystander can be heard screaming in anguish at the ICE agents, “What is wrong with you???”
Yes. There is something so terribly wrong with anyone who would do that, and a government that would endorse the violence.
As I learned about who Alex Pretti was, the kindness that was so much a part of him that he died protecting someone else, I remembered that I am also so in love with humans. So many people right now are sacrificing in order to protest, to feed vulnerable families, to shine a light on what is happening. Before the shooting of Alex, many of my colleagues had traveled to Minneapolis to bear witness to the evil being done there, but also to be witness to all of the people coming together in community to care for each other. Former Intern Minister (now minister at First UU Austin), Rev. Carrie Holley-Hurt wrote of the hope she found there, pasted below.
The other piece of music in my heart is a recent song I’ve heard at so many protests and rallies: Lead with Love.
Lift up your eyes! Don’t you despair. Look up ahead. The path is there.
You’ve got to put one foot in front of the other and lead with love…
Friends,
I know you’re heartbroken.
I know you’re overwhelmed.
I know you’re exhausted.
Let me give you permission, not that you need it, to put your phone down, to turn off the news. Drink water, eat something delicious. Look at something beautiful. Listen to something soothing. Tomorrow, we go back to work, one foot in front of the other.
“So don’t mind if I fall apart, there’s more room in a broken heart.”
It says something good that our hearts can still break. We are human, the kind of humans who carry empathy in the bones of our bones.
And we will lead with love.
—
I Went to Bear Witness in Minneapolis, Rev. Carrie Holley-Hurt
“I am a Unitarian Universalist minister in Austin, Texas, and like hundreds of clergy from all faiths and from all around the country, I answered the call to come and bear witness in Minneapolis last week — to see what it looks like when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) floods a community with violence and how that community responds.
The whole country has now seen videos of federal border patrol officers killing Renee Good and Alex Pretti. We all now know that everyday Minnesota residents are working together to support each other, and that means they are often in harm’s way.
But going to Minneapolis showed me that their resistance isn’t limited to big, dramatic moments on the street. There are hundreds of small things, too, that the people of that city have banded together to do for each other. That care is the foundation for the resistance.
The call I responded to came from MARCH, a multicultural and anti-racist organization of clergy and faith leaders who work for freedom and liberation in Minneapolis and St. Paul. This amazing organization has been at work for many years and through many crises. Now, in just six short days, it created opportunities for hundreds of us to come to their city, learn, train and see for ourselves what Minnesotans are dealing with.
We heard first-hand accounts of everyday people patrolling and advocating for their neighbors as ICE descended on them. One woman told us that the day before she had responded to an alert that ICE officers were trying to detain a pregnant woman. She asked rushed to the site and asked ICE to hold off until the woman’s attorney arrived. ICE agents responded by repeatedly tear-gassing her.
We also heard stories of people organizing to help meet basic needs like food, diapers, medication and rent (because to be evicted in -20 degrees is a death sentence). Some people organize car rides for kids so they can get safely to school.
Others do neighbors’ laundry so that they won’t have to risk being taken or harassed at the laundromat. One woman explained that she was late to our training session because she’d had to pick up and deliver donated breast milk to give to an infant; after detaining the mother, ICE officers had left the baby in a car.
Against a backdrop of border patrol officers’ violent, cruel and unconstitutional actions of ICE officers, regular people like these are working to meet basic needs.
On Friday, January 23, while over 100 of my brave clergy colleagues were being arrested protesting at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, I volunteered at Pastor Sergio Amezcua’s church, Dios Habla Hoy. Pastor Amezcus said because of the crackdown, many people, including citizens, are terrified to leave their homes even for groceries. A few weeks ago, the church aimed to supply around 10 families with food for a few weeks. But now, astoundingly, it’s serving around 30,000 families.
This modest church is using almost all of its space to store and organize food, diapers, and hygiene products. More than 4,000 volunteers have packed boxes and delivered them to those who need them.
My wonderful friend and I stuffed toilet paper into bags. We put food into a rotating line of large boxes. We acted as part of a human chain moving these boxes out of the sanctuary and into the loading dock. It was normal, everyday volunteer work, but the scale and the purpose was unlike anything I have ever experienced.
It was people who just said yes — a very holy yes — to doing whatever it takes to help their neighbors.
And that is why, even after the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, even knowing that our government is protecting the brutality and running roughshod over our Constitution, I have hope.
I have hope because all of us can give that holy yes. All of us, regardless of age, ability or circumstances can do something.
And that is more powerful than the rage we feel. The love and care we have for one another will sustain us. Will make us brave. Will keep us resisting the pull to give away our freedoms, to abandon the ideals of our constitution, to turn out back on our neighbors. I know that in the days and months to come, we will all be given the opportunity to answer the call to be with and for one another. I pray that we all say yes.”