Minnesota Bleeding

Thomas Aquinas has something to say about ICE. He writes: “The first effect of Love is melting.” Let love win the day, we pray. Non-violence and not violence.

ICE has unleashed in the streets of Minnesota not only violence, but what the saintly Brazilian Bishop Helder Camera called, “the spiral of violence.” Things are spiraling ever more dangerously–now Trump is talking of sending the military into the streets of blue cities in America–and only blue cities—people who did not vote for him and MAGA. Retribution is his god.

I spent three hours yesterday in the emergency room at Kaiser Hospital because, two hours before I was to deliver a Zoom talk on my book, Western Spirituality: Historical Roots, Ecumenical Routes, I slipped on a small puddle, both feet went up in the air, and I fell headfirst on the concrete.

A retired doctor who hangs out at the pool daily was present and came to my rescue, helped me out, and told me I would need stitches and that there was no way I would be delivering my talk.

That was too bad, as I definitely had something to say about that book of mine, which contained some wonderful articles by wonderful writers. An esteemed faculty member at UCS, Jeremy Taylor, who taught “Dreams as art as meditation” with us for years and was a UU minister, told me on several occasions that that was my most important book. “Why?” I would ask. “Because it demonstrates without a shadow of a doubt that creation spirituality is not something you invented but is what you say it is—a tradition and lineage that has been forgotten.”

I have always had a soft spot for Minnesota. Growing up in Wisconsin, my state shared a border with Minnesota—and a river. Minnesota is the birthplace of the great Mississippi River that feeds the Midwest of the US right down to New Orleans and into the Gulf of Mexico.

When I was a boy and my father was football coach at the University of Wisconsin, we would play Minnesota every year, and they always had excellent football teams. Sometimes my father would come home angry from losing a close game to them, and I always respected them for their success.

I attended my first two years of college in Dubuque, Iowa, where the Dominicans sent young men interested in entering the Order, and to get there by bus from Madison meant crossing the Mississippi River, for Dubuque was just on the other side of the bridge.

And I spent my first year as a Dominican at the novitiate in Winona, Minnesota, where we learned the rudiments of community living and community prayer, rising early in the mornings and doing lots of meditation and rosaries and the Office and Mass and more. The cemetery for our deceased brothers was there, as well as rolling fields that we would hike and play ball on during recreation respites.

It is there that I underwent my initiatory rite of passage, and took on a new name, “Brother Matthew,” putting aside my street clothes and original name, “Tim.” At the end of the year, my sixteen classmates and I took our “simple” vows for three years and traveled by train in clerical collars to River Forest, Illinois, for our three years of philosophical studies.

Another soft spot I carry for Minnesota is that I met a number of fine people while conducting workshops and retreats there over the years. Mary Plaster, who oversees our Facebook page, resides in Duluth and it is she who creates the marvelous giant puppets for our Cosmic Masses that bring Hildegard of Bingen, Mahatma Gandhi, Rosa Parks, MLK, Jr., and other notables, along with hand-held puppets of birds and beasts, to accompany our dancing and praying, including at our most recent masses at the World Parliament of Religions in Salt Lake City, Toronto and Chicago.

Of course, I have a soft spot for Minnesota. But today, Minnesota is bleeding, and this morning at 4 AM the following response came to me in bed.

Minnesota Bleeding,
Democracy reeling,
Justice receding,
Necrophilia feeding,
Fascism succeeding,
SCOTUS achieving,
Antichrist seeding,
Reptilian brain achieving,
Patriarchy preening,
Violence screaming,
Lies & untruths beaming,
Humanity needing.
Hearts cold?
Or feeling?

Banner Image: Minneapolis anti-ICE Protest, January 10, 2026: Thousands of people protested against ICE in Powderhorn Park, marched down Lake Street, and stopped at the spot where ICE killed Renee Good three days earlier. Photo by Fibonacci Blue on Flickr.

Queries for Contemplation

What are you feeling as you watch Minnesota bleeding on television?

Related Readings by Matthew Fox

Sheer Joy: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality, pp. 112f

Western Spirituality: Historical Roots, Ecumenical Routes

Confessions: The Making of a Postdenominational Priest

Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth

A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice

Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul & Society

Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ

Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet