I live in Minneapolis. It is hard to find words to describe what it is like living here at this moment. I have thought often that I've now joined a long line of humanity that has lived under a violent, fascist regime. So much of what happened to Renee Good haunts me. Including that Renee and her wife Becca moved here for safety, for belonging. I see so much courage all around me. The rapid responders, the mutual aid, the noisemakers outside the hotel of the ICE agents, the businesses that refuse to serve ICE, the pastor who told ICE to "take me instead" saying he was not afraid and when they did he refused to bow to their demand to say he was afraid, the protesters who show up on street corners and bridges, or to march on icy streets, the Somoli immigrants who bring tea and sambusas to the protesters. Courage is alive in this beautiful, hurting city. It will be a balm to attend your event here on Friday....
I attended a vigil in Kansas City yesterday for Renee and all of the victims of ICE. I went with a group of friends cobbled together from various parts of my life, each of us with the desire to honor the lives senselessly lost and to stand up for our flailing democracy. It was heartening to see the signs and listen to the voices as we marched through the streets at the conclusion of the vigil. I am grateful to the folks who organized the vigil and to those who showed up and will keep showing up and doing the necessary work to take our country back.
Moments of power seen in the life of another: Renee Good herself, saying through an open window with an open heart "I'm not mad at you, dude" as the literal agents of fear and death encircled her. "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do" echoing strongly in her last words. "What dies there" in both events demands our attention.
Diane, thank you for sharing your courage and insight. I lost a reference from a commentator recommending support for a Minnesota organization. Perhaps you know it - something like UNIDOS? Please let us know.
And bless you, Padraig, for sharing the beautiful poetry of this precious young woman. !Presente! Renee Nicole Macklin Good.
I've often visited Minneapolis and agree, it's a beautiful city and not the violent hellhole you would think if you watched the news in 2020 and 2026. I pray for its inhabitants of whatever race, color, and political persuasion that they may once again live and work together in harmony.
Courage, resistance, truth, and deep, deep love were my supervisor-turned-business-partner-turned-most intimate friend. Stan died unexpectedly in June. I got 17 years with him. How often and how well ovum and sperm came together in him. I did not know him during my years in the church but while I was very busy being close-minded, judgmental, and frightened of everything, Stan was across town, a deacon in his own church, acknowledging whatever life handed him, holding people in his blue-eyed gaze and encouraging them every time he was able, and suing the state of VT for the right to marry his beloved husband. The balm of his life poured out everywhere, and it found me in my lostness and just kept repeating in dozens of ways, "you are okay. you are lovely. you are loved." I would still really rather not live in a world without him, what died there was unspeakable grace and forgiveness. I spend every day trying to live forward his life. You are okay. You are lovely. You are loved.
Hi Lyn, likewise, I am always glad to see you here and grateful that we met at Omega, reading and writing poetry with Padraig, sharing meals, and walking in the woods there.
I, too, have found myself thinking of and praying for Stan and Peter often this week. It would’ve been the 10th anniversary of Stan’s ordination on Epiphany. I was fortunate to be one of his deacon siblings. Stan led with love, and I pray that all of us can lead with love.
Thank you for this heartfelt memory of and appreciation of Stan. I knew him too, as a fellow deacon, and our whole deacon community shares your sense of gratitude for his courageous actions and grief that he died as soon as he did.
This is my go-to death poem. Yes, I have a go-to death poem that gives me comfort each and every time I read it. I send it to close friends who are in early grief. I suggest reading it out loud so it moves through the body. Thank you, Mary Oliver:
Dear Padraig, thank you for the link to the grim Guardian article about the 32 people who died in ICE custody in 2025. It’s important to acknowledge their names and stories.
Yesterday, brave people here in Northwest, CT protested the current regime of cruelty while standing on icy ground. At the time, I said it was an ironic danger to protest ICE while standing on it.
Later in the day, as I reflected on the commitment of our community to truth and compassion, hoping no one had fallen, I wondered whether standing on ice was more appropriate than ironic: people standing together in power.
I was participating in a poetry sharing yesterday with a small group of dear friends. And I am always struck by the sheer power of poetry. Poems so often invite us into something deep — something real. Each poem shared yesterday had a vibrancy of its own; I was particularly moved by the poem “With Astonishing Tenderness” by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. I was first struck by the title of the poem. How we long for tenderness in our world today! Her simple words, around loss and suffering, resounded with clarity and beauty. Here are a few lines from her poem: “this is your chance for your most gentle voice—/the one you reserve for those you love most—/to say to you quietly, oh sweetheart,/this is not yet the end of the story.”
Michael, thank you for sharing this beautiful poem. I just read it in its entirety. "...this is the chance for your most gentle voice..." So very lovely. And, YAY, for sharing poetry with a small group of dear friends.
What will I do when I meet my own dying? In 2013, my beloved partner died, after dealing with cancer for six years. After radiation treatments for a brain tumor, Monica lived in a rehab center, supposedly to regain her strength. Each morning I arrived to spend the day with her. We never talked about dying and death. Even in the face of growing weaker, Monica always greeted me with notes and plans she wrote during the previous night; plans for the work she wished to do “once she was healthier and ready to return to her beloved work”- Monica was a kindergarten teacher in a Waldorf school. One morning she asked me to go online and order new clothes to wear when she returned to work. Though I somehow knew this was not to be, that she was dying, I agreed to order these new clothes. Every day there were projects to create more Beauty, gifts to be made. This was Monica’s choice in meeting her own death. To create more Beauty, gifts to be made. At our home vigil, our living room filled with flowers, an open casket, Monica wore the lovely dress ordered online for her “next life-work”. Even in death, Monica was ready to go to work-to create more Beauty, gifts to be prepared. 🏮
What a wonderful account. I especially honor your ability to recognize and support your beloved Monica's desire to face her death in her own life affirming way. Often it feels to me that the pendulum has swung too far and we try to force everyone to speak of their death or that of others in a detached medically accurate way as if this were somehow "the best'.
I also wrote about Renee Nicole Good on my substack this morning. Her death has also got me thinking about what you ask about today, Pádraig. When I turn to your question, my memory is filled with acts of courage and creativity and compassion but also with moments of fear and cowardice and abandonment. We are capable of so much and I hope that my work has supported people to choose the risks of acting courageously when called. One pattern of friends (and teachers) that I've noticed in my life is that of women who were afflicted by chronic pain or cancer or other diseases but who continued to live vitally in the world. One friend, a scholar-philosopher suffered kidney disease and chronic pain but still taught fiercely and beautifully to change the world for the better. I remember her playing a tango on the piano that I knew she wanted to dance but for the limits of her body. Another dear friend and mentor, lived (and theorized) a reframing (or re:framing) of her experience with cancer - resisting the then dominant (virtually universal) habit of framing cancer as a fight or a "war against..." She wrote and talked about "living with" cancer and she lived well. I still use her work and stories in my teaching more than 30 years since she passed. And i miss her still.
Thank you for this beautiful balm of a reflection. Movingly written as always. “And poetry is capable of carrying us with sombre language. Poetry does not make promises, and it does not seek to solve. Poetry is a place where sharp turns of language can exist alongside metaphors of sweet love. Poetry changes time and time changes poetry…”
I kept thinking this past week of a woman I got to meet a few times whose daughter and grandson were murdered and who eventually formed any relationship with the man who killed them, forgave him, and co-authored a book with him. She was a fierce advocate for restorative justice/against the death penalty, and one of the most extraordinary people I've ever encountered. I feel so angry at ICE, our police state in general, and the people who support it. Agnes died in 2020 of COVID, but I imagine she'd be angry right now, too. I keep holding both things together: I can be mad as hell and air that anger, and also hope for and trust in the possibility of restored relationships one day.
On one of my signal chats this, by Daniel Hunter written on Jan 8th, 2026, has been shared several times: "the task is not to extinguish anger, but to channel it in defense of life." His words express so well what I have been feeling and what I think I hear you saying.
My life has become a mix of faculty obligations and recovery meetings. I venture to say that recovery meetings offer more meaning and grit, but both hold their places. In these two settings, I saw two people who have shown resistance, courage, compassion, and concern this past week. Person one: We live in Noem country, and the pressure to adopt Orwellian Doublespeak is high. We have propaganda all over town discussing how a new water park will bring business opportunities and be a sign of freedom and God's special blessing. A colleague of mine wrote an articulate letter to the newspaper, detailing the tax structure and how it brings advantage to a few while burdening many. He could experience repercussions considering where we live. Person two: I visited a woman in the ICU this week. I met her four or five years ago when life seemed untenable for me. Even though our circumstances have changed and I hadn't seen her for a few years, she has randomly messaged me from time to time, "Has anyone today said, I love you? I love you." It's too much to explain what this has meant to me. In short, she has offered compassion and kindness to me. She lives in government housing, and somehow has found the will to be sober and clean for 10 years after a 30 year struggle with addictions. Her life now hangs in the balance. This week, I was able to visit her and thank her for loving me.
In graduate school, I "met" a Jesuit priest through an essay he had written. He was long dead by the time I was reading it, and writing about death. There was one passage that has stayed with me—I honestly can't even remember his name—but it was as though his eyes were in mine, and he was speaking right to me. He said that if we spend this life practicing death—if we allow ourselves to die many times in life—then, as we face our mortal end, we will have experiential knowledge to guide us. He said we could face our death knowing that, each time we die, we become more of ourselves on the other side.
I have a thousand things to say about this, but this morning I'm considering the impact of how often and how well we die and transform as we live—and, how seldom I consider these words in the context of being murdered.
It matters to me what happens after we die. Not that I ever need to be certain of it, but I believe it is a passage modern culture neglects. How my heart prays that Renee's passage be well supported...What happens when, within a day after you die, your name is being broadcast across the world? Does it help or hinder your passage? What happens when it is not?
I hope the grief of the collective can help her spirit move along whatever roads she finds in front of her now, at whatever pace is healing for her soul and the souls of her beloveds. And may this be true for all the beloved souls who find themselves suddenly, and violently dead.
Thank you Padraig—the pen can feel so feeble compared to the sword—but then I think of the Bible always simmering in the backwaters of my childhood—and I think of Bob Dylan winning the Nobel Prize
Many years ago, I wrote a 7 part poem based on my railroad conductors paternal granfather's death from an abscessed tooth and my abscessed relationship with my father. The last verse of the 7th part reads:
Beautiful, thank you for this meditation on the precious mysteries of life and death. And how poetry accompanies us through our contemplations of both. I think of Rilke’s great poem, “Archaic Torso of Apollo,” particularly the final lines that, when first I saw them, became a mantra of sorts:
“for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.”
I live in Minneapolis. It is hard to find words to describe what it is like living here at this moment. I have thought often that I've now joined a long line of humanity that has lived under a violent, fascist regime. So much of what happened to Renee Good haunts me. Including that Renee and her wife Becca moved here for safety, for belonging. I see so much courage all around me. The rapid responders, the mutual aid, the noisemakers outside the hotel of the ICE agents, the businesses that refuse to serve ICE, the pastor who told ICE to "take me instead" saying he was not afraid and when they did he refused to bow to their demand to say he was afraid, the protesters who show up on street corners and bridges, or to march on icy streets, the Somoli immigrants who bring tea and sambusas to the protesters. Courage is alive in this beautiful, hurting city. It will be a balm to attend your event here on Friday....
I attended a vigil in Kansas City yesterday for Renee and all of the victims of ICE. I went with a group of friends cobbled together from various parts of my life, each of us with the desire to honor the lives senselessly lost and to stand up for our flailing democracy. It was heartening to see the signs and listen to the voices as we marched through the streets at the conclusion of the vigil. I am grateful to the folks who organized the vigil and to those who showed up and will keep showing up and doing the necessary work to take our country back.
I'm in awe of the people of your city and lift them up for clearing the way to a new country, a new world.
Moments of power seen in the life of another: Renee Good herself, saying through an open window with an open heart "I'm not mad at you, dude" as the literal agents of fear and death encircled her. "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do" echoing strongly in her last words. "What dies there" in both events demands our attention.
So powerful Diane. Keep writing the Truth!
Such brave and good people. Stay safe, be strong, yet soft, kindness will win in the end.
Diane, thank you for sharing your courage and insight. I lost a reference from a commentator recommending support for a Minnesota organization. Perhaps you know it - something like UNIDOS? Please let us know.
And bless you, Padraig, for sharing the beautiful poetry of this precious young woman. !Presente! Renee Nicole Macklin Good.
Yes, Unidos is great! Here's a link to multiple organizations doing important work in Minnesota https://mnnoice.com/
I've often visited Minneapolis and agree, it's a beautiful city and not the violent hellhole you would think if you watched the news in 2020 and 2026. I pray for its inhabitants of whatever race, color, and political persuasion that they may once again live and work together in harmony.
It is a very ugly evil time in the USA!
Courage, resistance, truth, and deep, deep love were my supervisor-turned-business-partner-turned-most intimate friend. Stan died unexpectedly in June. I got 17 years with him. How often and how well ovum and sperm came together in him. I did not know him during my years in the church but while I was very busy being close-minded, judgmental, and frightened of everything, Stan was across town, a deacon in his own church, acknowledging whatever life handed him, holding people in his blue-eyed gaze and encouraging them every time he was able, and suing the state of VT for the right to marry his beloved husband. The balm of his life poured out everywhere, and it found me in my lostness and just kept repeating in dozens of ways, "you are okay. you are lovely. you are loved." I would still really rather not live in a world without him, what died there was unspeakable grace and forgiveness. I spend every day trying to live forward his life. You are okay. You are lovely. You are loved.
Dear Lyn, how beautiful that you “live forward” your friend’s life. How sad that he died, but how profound that he lived!
Hi Emily. Stan's life was beautiful. I miss him so. I'm always glad to see your name here in all the comments.
Hi Lyn, likewise, I am always glad to see you here and grateful that we met at Omega, reading and writing poetry with Padraig, sharing meals, and walking in the woods there.
I, too, have found myself thinking of and praying for Stan and Peter often this week. It would’ve been the 10th anniversary of Stan’s ordination on Epiphany. I was fortunate to be one of his deacon siblings. Stan led with love, and I pray that all of us can lead with love.
Hi Mary. Nice to meet you in the comments. Peter was just saying to me how much he loves it whenever anyone speaks Stan's name. Thanks for this.
Thank you for this heartfelt memory of and appreciation of Stan. I knew him too, as a fellow deacon, and our whole deacon community shares your sense of gratitude for his courageous actions and grief that he died as soon as he did.
Thanks for this, Deacon. I love that you knew him, too.
This is my go-to death poem. Yes, I have a go-to death poem that gives me comfort each and every time I read it. I send it to close friends who are in early grief. I suggest reading it out loud so it moves through the body. Thank you, Mary Oliver:
The Cricket and the Rose
In fall
the cricket
beneath the rose bush
watches
as the roses fall
to the very ground
that is his kingdom also.
So they're neighbors,
one full of fragrance,
the other
the harper
of a single dry song.
We call this time of the year
the beginning of the end
of another circle,
a convenience
and nothing more.
For the cricket's song
is surely a prayer,
and a prayer, when it is given,
is given forever.
This is a truth
I'm sure of,
for I'm older than I used to be,
and therefore I understand things
nobody would think of
who's young and in a hurry.
The snow is very beautiful.
Under it are the lingering
petals of fragrance,
and the timeless body
of prayer.
thank you for this!
deep wisdom beautifully said
Dear Padraig, thank you for the link to the grim Guardian article about the 32 people who died in ICE custody in 2025. It’s important to acknowledge their names and stories.
Yesterday, brave people here in Northwest, CT protested the current regime of cruelty while standing on icy ground. At the time, I said it was an ironic danger to protest ICE while standing on it.
Later in the day, as I reflected on the commitment of our community to truth and compassion, hoping no one had fallen, I wondered whether standing on ice was more appropriate than ironic: people standing together in power.
My sign said:
When GOOD gets gunned down, GOODNESS rises up.
The power of daylight MELTS ICE.
I was participating in a poetry sharing yesterday with a small group of dear friends. And I am always struck by the sheer power of poetry. Poems so often invite us into something deep — something real. Each poem shared yesterday had a vibrancy of its own; I was particularly moved by the poem “With Astonishing Tenderness” by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. I was first struck by the title of the poem. How we long for tenderness in our world today! Her simple words, around loss and suffering, resounded with clarity and beauty. Here are a few lines from her poem: “this is your chance for your most gentle voice—/the one you reserve for those you love most—/to say to you quietly, oh sweetheart,/this is not yet the end of the story.”
How hard it is to be tender to ourselves, thank you for sharing this poem. I especially like the line about not fighting what is real.
Michael, thank you for sharing this beautiful poem. I just read it in its entirety. "...this is the chance for your most gentle voice..." So very lovely. And, YAY, for sharing poetry with a small group of dear friends.
What a wonderful poem! Thank you for posting and sharing. I have taken it into my heart.
What will I do when I meet my own dying? In 2013, my beloved partner died, after dealing with cancer for six years. After radiation treatments for a brain tumor, Monica lived in a rehab center, supposedly to regain her strength. Each morning I arrived to spend the day with her. We never talked about dying and death. Even in the face of growing weaker, Monica always greeted me with notes and plans she wrote during the previous night; plans for the work she wished to do “once she was healthier and ready to return to her beloved work”- Monica was a kindergarten teacher in a Waldorf school. One morning she asked me to go online and order new clothes to wear when she returned to work. Though I somehow knew this was not to be, that she was dying, I agreed to order these new clothes. Every day there were projects to create more Beauty, gifts to be made. This was Monica’s choice in meeting her own death. To create more Beauty, gifts to be made. At our home vigil, our living room filled with flowers, an open casket, Monica wore the lovely dress ordered online for her “next life-work”. Even in death, Monica was ready to go to work-to create more Beauty, gifts to be prepared. 🏮
What a moving tribute to your beloved Monica. She approached death on her own terms and you accompanied her so tenderly. Beauty, indeed❤.
Beautiful.
What a wonderful account. I especially honor your ability to recognize and support your beloved Monica's desire to face her death in her own life affirming way. Often it feels to me that the pendulum has swung too far and we try to force everyone to speak of their death or that of others in a detached medically accurate way as if this were somehow "the best'.
tender and loving
Thinking about God is easier than praying
Perhaps the longing is the answer
We search until we are found
No words but “thanks”, no prayer but “here”
Perhaps the longing is the Answer
I mean, what is there to say to the One who knows
No words but “thanks”, no prayer but “here”
Maybe grace will say us
I mean, what is there to say to the One
Shut up. Suit up. Show up.
Maybe grace will say us
We are not even the center of our own story
Shut up. Suit up. Show up.
We search until we are found
For we are not even the center of our own story
Thinking about God is easier than praying
Charlie Summers 1/9/2026
You are a true poet, Charlie!
Yes, Charlie, yes! Thank you for this poem.
I also wrote about Renee Nicole Good on my substack this morning. Her death has also got me thinking about what you ask about today, Pádraig. When I turn to your question, my memory is filled with acts of courage and creativity and compassion but also with moments of fear and cowardice and abandonment. We are capable of so much and I hope that my work has supported people to choose the risks of acting courageously when called. One pattern of friends (and teachers) that I've noticed in my life is that of women who were afflicted by chronic pain or cancer or other diseases but who continued to live vitally in the world. One friend, a scholar-philosopher suffered kidney disease and chronic pain but still taught fiercely and beautifully to change the world for the better. I remember her playing a tango on the piano that I knew she wanted to dance but for the limits of her body. Another dear friend and mentor, lived (and theorized) a reframing (or re:framing) of her experience with cancer - resisting the then dominant (virtually universal) habit of framing cancer as a fight or a "war against..." She wrote and talked about "living with" cancer and she lived well. I still use her work and stories in my teaching more than 30 years since she passed. And i miss her still.
Thank you for this beautiful balm of a reflection. Movingly written as always. “And poetry is capable of carrying us with sombre language. Poetry does not make promises, and it does not seek to solve. Poetry is a place where sharp turns of language can exist alongside metaphors of sweet love. Poetry changes time and time changes poetry…”
I kept thinking this past week of a woman I got to meet a few times whose daughter and grandson were murdered and who eventually formed any relationship with the man who killed them, forgave him, and co-authored a book with him. She was a fierce advocate for restorative justice/against the death penalty, and one of the most extraordinary people I've ever encountered. I feel so angry at ICE, our police state in general, and the people who support it. Agnes died in 2020 of COVID, but I imagine she'd be angry right now, too. I keep holding both things together: I can be mad as hell and air that anger, and also hope for and trust in the possibility of restored relationships one day.
On one of my signal chats this, by Daniel Hunter written on Jan 8th, 2026, has been shared several times: "the task is not to extinguish anger, but to channel it in defense of life." His words express so well what I have been feeling and what I think I hear you saying.
My life has become a mix of faculty obligations and recovery meetings. I venture to say that recovery meetings offer more meaning and grit, but both hold their places. In these two settings, I saw two people who have shown resistance, courage, compassion, and concern this past week. Person one: We live in Noem country, and the pressure to adopt Orwellian Doublespeak is high. We have propaganda all over town discussing how a new water park will bring business opportunities and be a sign of freedom and God's special blessing. A colleague of mine wrote an articulate letter to the newspaper, detailing the tax structure and how it brings advantage to a few while burdening many. He could experience repercussions considering where we live. Person two: I visited a woman in the ICU this week. I met her four or five years ago when life seemed untenable for me. Even though our circumstances have changed and I hadn't seen her for a few years, she has randomly messaged me from time to time, "Has anyone today said, I love you? I love you." It's too much to explain what this has meant to me. In short, she has offered compassion and kindness to me. She lives in government housing, and somehow has found the will to be sober and clean for 10 years after a 30 year struggle with addictions. Her life now hangs in the balance. This week, I was able to visit her and thank her for loving me.
From Dylan Thomas: “Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
Peace Whenever Possible,
Dwight Lee Wolter
In graduate school, I "met" a Jesuit priest through an essay he had written. He was long dead by the time I was reading it, and writing about death. There was one passage that has stayed with me—I honestly can't even remember his name—but it was as though his eyes were in mine, and he was speaking right to me. He said that if we spend this life practicing death—if we allow ourselves to die many times in life—then, as we face our mortal end, we will have experiential knowledge to guide us. He said we could face our death knowing that, each time we die, we become more of ourselves on the other side.
I have a thousand things to say about this, but this morning I'm considering the impact of how often and how well we die and transform as we live—and, how seldom I consider these words in the context of being murdered.
It matters to me what happens after we die. Not that I ever need to be certain of it, but I believe it is a passage modern culture neglects. How my heart prays that Renee's passage be well supported...What happens when, within a day after you die, your name is being broadcast across the world? Does it help or hinder your passage? What happens when it is not?
I hope the grief of the collective can help her spirit move along whatever roads she finds in front of her now, at whatever pace is healing for her soul and the souls of her beloveds. And may this be true for all the beloved souls who find themselves suddenly, and violently dead.
Thank you Padraig—the pen can feel so feeble compared to the sword—but then I think of the Bible always simmering in the backwaters of my childhood—and I think of Bob Dylan winning the Nobel Prize
Many years ago, I wrote a 7 part poem based on my railroad conductors paternal granfather's death from an abscessed tooth and my abscessed relationship with my father. The last verse of the 7th part reads:
Now, I am the guardian
angel of my teeth.
To tend this small white flock
standing in quiet decay.
To gently brush them, floss them,
crown them, humble, meek teeth,
with familiar silence
that they may protect
my burning tongue
and bless my
words, accepting loss.
Beautiful, thank you for this meditation on the precious mysteries of life and death. And how poetry accompanies us through our contemplations of both. I think of Rilke’s great poem, “Archaic Torso of Apollo,” particularly the final lines that, when first I saw them, became a mantra of sorts:
“for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.”