Prayer for Alex Pretti and Family - Creator's Prayer for Protectors, for Justice, for the Courage to Stand for Community

Creator, like other ELCA congregations, embraces our community and generally finds the following: Being a citizen of a country involves all who participate in the ongoing work of a pluralistic democracy, seeking freedom, justice, and belonging for themselves and for others. 

ELCA Presiding Bishop Yehiel Curry We Will Not Grow Weary

On Minnesota - What Is Yours To Do? 

On the Streets of Minneapolis Bruce Springsteen “There were bullets where mercy should have stood.”    Reaction to On the Streets of Minneapolis 

Holy One of justice and mercy,
You who hear the cry before it becomes words,
You who know grief before we dare to name it,
We come to You carrying a sorrow that is older than this moment
and sharper because it has arrived again.

You tell us through the prophet:
Learn to do good. Seek justice. Correct oppression.
Bring justice to the fatherless. Plead the widow’s cause.
Not as a slogan.
Not as a metaphor.
But as a way of life.

We confess how often we have wanted grief to be new,
so that we would not have to face its lineage.
How often we have wanted violence to be an exception,
so that we could avoid reckoning with the systems that authorize it?
Forgive us for the comfort we have mistaken for peace.

Grief has found us again.
It has found us in Minneapolis.
It has found us in the names we carry.
Names that refuse to be reduced to statistics,

Names that settle into our bodies and will not let us sleep.

This grief is not only private.
It is communal.
It is ancestral.
It is the grief of those who know what it means
to be watched, targeted, disappeared,
and told that this is the cost of order.

And yet, Holy One,
From this ground of grief, You are calling something forth.

We thank You for protectors,
For those who refuse to stand apart,
Who chooses presence over distance,
who stand shoulder to shoulder in the cold
because abandoning one another is no longer an option.

Bless their courage.
Bless their anger when it is born of love.
Bless their fear when it sharpens care rather than cruelty.
Bless their refusal to let state power have the final word
on whose life matters.

Teach us to understand that protection is holy work.
That standing-with is a form of prayer.
That justice is not an abstraction,
but a practice learned in streets and kitchens,
in shared warmth and shared risk,
in communities that organize not from hierarchy,
but from relationships.

Where empire insists on control,
Teach us connection.
Where law is used to erase dignity,
Teach us to plead the cause of the vulnerable,
not from pity, but from solidarity.

Make us people who do not look away.
People who know that grief can orient us toward responsibility.
People who understand that love, when it becomes communal,
is a force strong enough to interrupt violence.

Give us the imagination to see one another clearly.
Give us the humility to follow the wisdom
of those who have been naming this truth for generations.
Give us the endurance to stay present
long after the headlines move on.

May we learn to do good, not someday, but now.
May we seek justice, not in theory, but in practice.
May we correct oppression, not with silence, but with our bodies,
our voices, our shared life.

And when fear tells us to retreat,
remind us that protection is what love looks like
when it refuses to be alone.

Amen.

At the Deathbed. Edvard Munch, 1895.

My Brother-In-Law Bill Davie Readiing this on his Poetry Break  (19:42)

Jan 11, 2026 Sharing Lit Candles Past and Present Through A Wedding at Cana and A Vigil in Minneapolis

The Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee Vigil 
near the for Renee Nicole Good Jan. 7, 2026.

“Truth has stumbled in the public square, and uprightness cannot enter.”  Isaiah 59:14

This week, a clarion call was heard for empathy and morality. Our scripture offered us a vision that stands in painful contrast to the world many of us currently inhabit. Another shocking moment, reminiscent of George Floyd's, moved our nation.

Both grief and hope are accumulating faster than we can metabolize them..When the steward remarks, “You have kept the good wine until now,” during the wedding at Cana, he names a reversal. In God’s economy, the best is not hoarded by the powerful or consumed early and wasted. It emerges precisely when a community is on the brink of embarrassment and loss. Glory, in this story, is not domination or self-display. It is relational abundance. Shame is spared. Joy is restored. The celebration continues. 

That vision stands in painful contrast to the world many of us are inhabiting now. 

Many of us are still reeling from the murder of Renee Nicole Good, a life taken by a federal ICE agent, followed not by humility or accountability from national leaders, but by a manufactured narrative designed to justify the unjustifiable. Within hours, she was labeled a terrorist, despite video evidence that clearly contradicts those claims. Truth did not matter. Control of the story did. The opportunity to spread intimidation is taken. We're shown the bloody airbag. Don't try to protest or resist; otherwise...

Before that grief could even settle, more blood was spilled. In our own East Portland neighborhood, two additional people were shot by federal agents during an immigration enforcement operation. Once again, officials claimed necessity. Once again, communities were left stunned and terrified. Governor Tina Kotek named what many feel in our bodies: the federal government is causing chaos in our cities and shattering trust across the nation.

Power rarely admits its own violence. It re-frames it. It renames the dead. It insists the victim deserved what happened. James Baldwin warned, “It is not permissible that the authors of devastation should also be innocent.” And yet innocence is precisely what this administration claims, through repetition, spectacle, fear, and declarations of absolute immunity. When the state kills and then lies about why, it asks the public to participate in unreality. That demand is itself a form of violence. In such moments, lament becomes refuge for the sane.

In the Hebrew scriptures, lament erupts most fiercely when truth is under assault. The psalmists cry out not only against suffering, but against falsehood. The prophets rage when injustice is paired with deception. “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil,” Isaiah says, not as poetry, but as a diagnosis.

This moment carries many layers of sorrow: the killing of innocent people; the terrorizing of immigrants; the erosion of law and accountability; the steady drumbeat of a masculinity that confuses domination with strength and cruelty with order. These are not separate events. They are expressions of the same moral corruption, the replacement of truth with power and care with control.

Grief, in this context, is discernment. As Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote, indifference to evil is more insidious than evil itself. Lament is the refusal of indifference. It is what keeps conscience awake when institutions fall asleep. It is what keeps us human when lies attempt to numb us.

Anger, too, is warranted. Rage rises when accountability is mocked, and victims are erased, something our African American and Native American siblings know all too well. But lament gives rage a different shape. It slows it. Grounds it. Keeps it from becoming what it opposes. Lament says: This mattered. This life mattered. Truth matters.

Faith traditions do not rush toward closure. They let lament linger. They understand that before repair comes truth-telling, and before truth-telling comes the guttural cry: How long, O Lord?

So let us say plainly: calling Renee Nicole Good a terrorist does not make it so. Repeating a lie does not transform it into justice. Defending violence with propaganda deepens the wound it claims to heal.

Cana reminds us that the common good is not secured by control, scarcity, or performance. It is discovered when we notice one another’s needs, submit ourselves to shared practices, act together, and trust that God’s abundance is meant not for isolated selves, but for all of us, together.

We are allowed to cry.
We are allowed to rage.
We are allowed to say this is wrong, without qualification.

And we are allowed to keep believing in the long, unfinished work of goodness and justice, not because outcomes are guaranteed, but because surrendering to lies would cost us our souls.

Be kind to your tender hearts. Let them grieve. Let them tell the truth. And then, together, we return to the slow, necessary work of building a more just and generous world.

Bishop Curry Issues Statement on ICE Shooting in Minneapolis 

Sermon from a Sister ELCA congregation in Minneapolis 

Reflection on Creator's 1/11 Worship 

Today I stood inside a sanctuary filled with song, liturgy, memory, and the gift of generations, all supporting this worship through service. So many moments in the service were profound 

Wednesday's Scripture Reflection

Sermon 

Pastor Emillie's sermon was heartfelt. She preached how John writes of signs rather than miracles. Jesus began his ministry in a public celebration of joy. He blessed it with an abundance of the best wine. She helped the congregation understand this was the beginning sign of a ministry that would end on the cross. She also lamented the present temptation to let our hearts grow numb. We offered thoughts and prayers for Renee Good. This was something no one from this administration did. We did not allow the death of Renee Good to become background noise by asking, "Really, what business is it of mine?" We acknowledged and understood the poet, wife, and mother who has been taken away from us, and responded. It matters. 

Kelly Carlisle, a former Creator Music Minister, played piano to our appreciative congregation. Old memories were shared, voices blended singing familiar music about light and Christ. The Gathering Song, in fact, was "Christ, Be Our Light" and the selected Sending Song was "This Little Light of Mine", His performance was, at times poignant, at other joyous. When Kelly played "All That I Have" the congregation sang with a special and familiar reverence.

Creator hosted a MIGRA training after worship, with Storyline facilitating. We learned more about what is going on in our community and how to respond to ICE actions. This training was open to all and felt particularly relevant to what happened this week.

We're in this together. 

October 4, 2025 - Rev. Yehiel Curry's Installation: The ELCA’s new presiding Bishop

Today Rev. Curry was formally installed as presiding bishop of the ELCA at Central Lutheran Church in Minneapolis..In this role, he succeeds Bishop Elizabeth Eaton, who served as the fourth presiding bishop and was the first woman in that office. The installation is historic: Curry is the first Black presiding bishop in ELCA history, marking a significant milestone for a denomination that is overwhelmingly white in membership and leadership Curry’s election and installation broke not only historical barriers. it carried deep symbolic weight.

Service       Worship Booklet

Witnessing the installation of Rev. Yehiel Curry as the ELCA’s new presiding bishop is a moment rich in theological, ecclesial, and cultural meaning. 

The service included liturgical acts typical of a bishop’s installation (e.g. the presentation of the pectoral cross), and ecumenical participation, including representatives from the Lutheran World Federation and the Episcopal Church.

He said before the installation:“I’m hopeful that, if presence matters, me being here does something for allowing others to consider, ‘Someone who looks like me could take on a similar role...’ and ”That hope is itself a ministry: to open imaginations, to invite possibilities, to widen the circle of who is seen as “church leadership.”

He was so overcome with emotion that, as he was recognized in the opening of the service, he couldn't immediately follow his written words to the assembly. This caused Bishop Eaton, instead of standing opposite him, to move to his side and support him. Suddenly, this became more than a perfunctory service

The installation is also a reminder that leadership change is both continuity and disruption. Curry inherits from Bishop Eaton a church shaped by her priorities: ecumenical engagement, theological reflection, and social witness. He does not start with a blank slate; the ELCA already affirms a public role in justice, in global mission, and in inclusion of LGBTQ+ persons.

However, with a new “first,” expectations are high. Some will see in his leadership the possibility of structural change; others will watch to see whether the church can move beyond symbolic gestures toward deeper equity in governance, resource allocation, and culture.

Declining membership, particularly among younger generations, forces renewed attentiveness to mission, relevance, and vitality. Tensions around identity, theology, social justice, inclusion, and intergenerational change remain real. Any leader must navigate competing pressures, from congregations wanting stability to voices pushing for prophetic disruption.

In that sense, the installation is not a climax but a beginning: the church entrusts Curry with both stewardship and innovation.

The Reverend Kevin Vandiver, senior pastor of the Lutheran Church of the Reformation in Washington, D.C. gave a spirited message to the assembly at Central Lutheran, which inspired a response from those in attendance that I found unusual in a Lutheran context.

He preached about this moment of the church being on a precipice. There is a tendency to push people over the cliff. I believe he was warning that symbolic firsts sometimes get burdened with disproportionate expectations. Curry will likely shoulder pressure not just to “be the leader,” but to “fix the system.” That’s a heavy load for one person, where there may be resistance to change, overt or subtle, especially in churches.

Balancing unity and diversity: a church that wants to be broad and inclusive must navigate the tensions of theological pluralism, conflict over social issues, and expectations from different constituencies. Yet there was a vibrancy in mission that echoed in that Lutheran crowd's reception of his message that conveyed energy and hope over simple institutional maintenance.

Today I saw this church was outward-looking, risk-taking, and adaptive, which fueled a hopefulness I pray will move forward.