It is ironic that the Minnesota ICE contingent is based in a building named after the Rev. Henry Benjamin Whipple, the first Episcopal Bishop in Minnesota, who advocated for Native Americans and welcomed the thousands of immigrants who settled there.
Known as “Straight Tongue” by the Dakota and Ojibwe for his honesty, Bishop Whipple also worked with the many new immigrants settling the upper Midwest. He established schools, supported literacy programs, and fed the poor, no matter their ethnicity or race.
In such a time of so much anger and turmoil, we need to remember that we are all immigrants, children of the immigrants who came to this Nation seeking a life better than the one they left, from countries where it mattered how you were born. Some of us have forgotten our ancestry. The people of Minnesota, however, have not forgotten theirs.
Prayer for the Day
Called a beacon of light in the darkness, a city on the hill,
We ask, O God, what has happened to our moral vision;
Told we are the envy of the world for our freedom and prosperity,
We ask, O Lord, how should we use our material fortunes.
There is more than enough for all when we share what we have,
For greed and hate lead to poverty of the soul.
In the name of the One who opens his arms to all,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
I cannot support the national Republicans’ stated retribution on the citizens of our state, nor can I count myself a member of a party that would do so…. Operation Metro Surge has expanded far beyond its stated focus on true public safety threats.
Republican Tom Madel on withdrawing from the Minnesota governor’s race
All we want in Christ; we shall find in Christ. If we want little, we shall find little. If we want much, we shall find much; but if in utter helplessness, we cast our all in Christ, He will be to us the whole treasury of God.
Bishop William Benjamin Whipple (1822-1901)
As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.
Paul in his letter to the Galatians 3:27-28