I Am a Minneapolis Mother and Pastor, and I Know Where I Stand
In the America of 2026, we are sold a cheap, brutal, ugly, superficial and violent worldview.
We are told that our world is one in which you #FAFO. One in which failure to obey an armed man means certain and justifiable death.
We are told that this world is the only possible one. And sometimes it seems true, as I write to you from Minneapolis, where on Thursday I found myself retracing my steps: traveling less than five miles from my Minneapolis home to a neighboring south Minneapolis neighborhood. Less than six years ago, I rode my bike here, wearing my clergy collar, to attend a clergy protest and prayer service after the killing of George Floyd.
Half a mile from this murder, this week another murder was committed by a uniformed officer. This time, they killed a 37-year-old white mother. Then they descended on the high school next to my church, where students were tear-gassed and two teachers were taken away, the school windows smashed, the teenagers in tears.
We lit candles that evening at church. Again, the next day, Thursday, we put on our clerics and stoles and bowed our heads. How could we? How could we not? Even though my kids are coming home from school because the Minneapolis school district has deemed our streets unsafe for children because of ICE. Although as I write this, I am late to pick up my son.
We are told that there isn’t something for everyone, so you have to take as much as you can, for as long as possible, and if that means deceiving others, well, it’s you who’s smart and the others, those who can’t afford to pay their heating bill: they’re idiots.
We are told that our only protection is dollar bills and pieces of metal, that our best knowledge and wisdom are housed in cold, expensive data centers. That what is most beautiful is the most expensive and the most altered, by surgeons’ scalpels or digital filters.
We are told that we don’t know any better and that there are evil people trying to take what is rightfully ours and so we must purge ourselves of them and their blood.
The blood we share.
What have you done? Listen; your brother‘Blood screams at me from the ground!
Kill or be killed.
More for me.
We drown out the sounds of internal screaming with caustic laughter and memes. We use throwaway words intended to distinguish them from Wereal humans.
Domestic terrorists. Antifa. Mad. Disarticulated. Crowd. Riot.
They slow down the video and watch it die, frame by frame. It’s not so much what they say they see but what they don’t see, what their eyes protect them from so that the inner terror doesn’t take over, doesn’t make them understand that the call is coming. from inside the house.
They analyze tire tracks and footprints.
His blood is all over the airbag.
As a mother, I have long known that when you have children, your DNA is irrevocably changed. Your blood is forever mixed with their blood, your genes completely altered. And so the blood on the airbag is not only hers but also theirs, those who live without her; the one who has to go back to elementary school without his mother, her and his blood still runs through his veins, even if now his fingers are cold as ice.
The murder scene is marked by tire marks and bullet holes, as well as stuffed animals. One looks like a white unicorn, its turquoise mane flowing in the frigid air. There is a brown bear with sad eyes.
As a mother, I know these animals had names. Have names.
They moved with their mother and child across the Midwest. So she persevered and earned her English degree from Old Dominion University in Virginia, much older than her classmates, but with an undeniable talent as a writer.
As a poet, she won the 2020 American Academy of Poets Prize for this work, On learning to dissect fetal pigsin which she describes donating Bibles to thrift stores and mentions “the tiny stream of my soul.”
As if she knew that in America today, you have to fight for your soul. Especially as a woman. Especially as a worker. Especially as a mother. And yet, even though her soul resembled a “tiny stream,” she nonetheless claimed it. So that no one could say she was disposable, even if they did, and so that no one could take away her humanity, even if they tried to, right away, and didn’t let the doctor check her pulse or clear the way for an ambulance.
Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, and if there is anything worthy of praise, consider these things.
The apostle Paul wrote these words to the Church at Philippi, in what is now northern Greece, about 30 years after Jesus was executed, by crucifixion, by a cheap, brutal, ugly, superficial and violent Roman Empire, ruled by arrogant, insecure and authoritarian white men who compared themselves to gods but paid homage to religion when it suited their quest for power.
When Paul wrote these words, he was a designated enemy of the state, and although the state had not yet killed him, he was surely seeking his humanity. They called him an agitator and a rioter, a dangerous foreigner who practiced a minority faith. More than once, Paul had to prove his citizenship to escape Roman prosecution, and yet he wrote most of his letters in chains, under house arrest, or in prison, until they finally executed him, by beheading, about five years after he wrote those words.
So Paul’s command here is not a flowery platitude, nor an excuse to look away from the carnage, blood, bullet holes, stuffed animals, and orphaned children. Rather, His truth, His honor, His righteousness, His purity, His pleasure, His praise, His excellence, and His praise are reserved for that which they root in reality, pain, sacrifice, and hard-fought grace.
It’s true: Renée Nicole Good did not deserve to die.
It’s honorable: The Minneapolis community came together that night, the next day, to defend our humanity and uphold our commitment to our neighbors.
It’s just: That those who kill violate the Sixth Commandment and are outside the bounds of law and morality, and therefore must be investigated and held accountable.
It’s pure: That children are naturally born loving every human being they encounter.
This is nice: We have inherited from the Black Church in America, through all the injustices it has faced and all the lies told about it, a vision of Beloved community. We have seen, fitfully, in Spirit-filled visions and awakenings, a promised future, and what we see we can believe.
This is commendable: 24 hours after Renée’s murder, clergy from a wide range of religious backgrounds, hundreds of us, came to stand up at the Minneapolis site and cry out for hope, justice, peace and love. We embraced each other and held true to the truth that perfect love casts out fear.
This is excellent: A local elementary school, not far from the shooting, was returning from school Thursday due to security concerns related to the presence of ICE in Minneapolis. It’s not great. But the excellence was the parents of this small elementary school in south Minneapolis, who gathered their children and marched through the neighborhood to support their immigrant neighbors. Because children know that we are better together. Even though these are the same children who witnessed a school shooting just blocks from their home at Annunciation Catholic School less than five months ago. Because we will not let ourselves bear our pain alone.
This is commendable: True bravery triumphs over its cowardly imitator every time. The pen is mightier than the sword: the biggest assault rifle, the heaviest body armor, muscles rippling to mask a crippling insecurity within. You can’t pretend to be brave. This is how ordinary Americans, mothers, fathers, children, teenagers, immigrants, pastors, gather their bodies and form a line against the onslaught of tyranny.
Where are you? With them, or with the lie?
