Beloved Community
Minneapolis
January, 2026
This time it came at five in the morning. 4:45 to be exact. I'd been tossing and turning, checking the time on my old-fashioned clock.
"What is yours to do?" I heard the calm, familiar voice penetrate my anxious brain.
"How can you ask me that? Why are You allowing this? It's time to stop it. Past time!"
A pause. Then, "Stop the horror? Or the evolving Beloved Community, where everyone sees love in action?"
My turn to pause. "I see how people are standing up for each other. Forming human chains around schools. Blowing whistles. Chasing ICE. Delivering groceries to twenty-five thousand families a day. I know! But throwing tear gas at people, kidnapping a preschooler, little five-year old Liam, shooting and killing, abducting random brown and Black people. Wrecking thousands of lives. How long are you going to allow this to go on?"
"Allow it? Joan, people have free will."
"Well, that was a big mistake in the original design. Why can't people just be good?"
"That would have been a different planet," the voice says, gently. "That's not the intention for this one. More freedom is permitted. Total freedom, actually."
"That was a big fucking mistake," I shout.
"Oh, would you like to be constrained? Predetermined. Not your choice to be tender, but rigidly forced into that?"
"Maybe," I mutter, "that would be better than this hell. Everybody I know is either scared of being picked up by ICE or they're in grief watching it happen. Nobody feels safe. Fuck free will. That seems like a luxury. What's the point of You if you can't even keep people safe?"
"I am Love, pure Love. The Spirit of Life. I exist in all people. You can choose to exemplify me if you wish. You people are my hands. My voice. My human consciousness."
"Well, can't You sneak up on everyone, so everybody will choose to manifest You?"
"You're so focused on what I should do. How about focusing on yourself. You, one drop in the ocean of humanity. How can you affect the next wave?"
"What can one little drop do, compared to You, who's in every single drop?"
For a long time I don't hear an answer. I'm drifting into a fitful slumber when I hear, "Ah, one drop is not separate from every other drop. You are indivisible from the whole. What you do affects it all. I return to my original question: What is yours to do?"
I'm two thousand miles from Minneapolis yet my attention is drawing me to it. So this is how prayer works, I think. It's Love traveling anywhere on the planet. Instantly. "I sent a check to ACLU Minnesota yesterday," I say softly. "But how can my one small contribution save someone from a torture center?"
"The size of a gift does not determine its value. Maybe you can use it as a magnet gathering other donations."
"I thought of that, I'm starting to ask my friends. But even if I send two thousand dollars…I wish I could send two hundred trillion!"
"Hmm, that would be lovely," God chuckles. "Nearly all the money in your country. But even then, cash would not solve it. It's people who dismantle structures."
"Money makes the world go 'round," I chant.
"Returning again to my question, Joan. What is yours to do? Once you know, accept it and stop lacerating yourself for not erasing the world's suffering. Your name may be Joan but you are not Joan of Arc. And even she, in the end, didn't single-handedly save France." God giggles. "That's the trouble with you white people, you think you're in charge of everything. You're one of 8.3 billion people. Do your part. Keep sending out kindness, writing, demonstrating, raising money, all the things you do. And then relax. Trust others to do their part. They are perfectly capable of solving problems. You are not the only one."
"Well, you have to subtract the ICE people from the 8.3 billion. All the fascists. They're not going to send out kindness."
"Don't be too sure. Things are not always as they appear. Expect the best and go back to sleep. Your sleep is important. Stop torturing yourself. You're not an ICE agent."
I hear a suppressed giggle and the Presence is gone. As I ease back into sleep I do sense some release of the responsibility mantle. Even my covers feel a bit lighter. Could it be that, despite my name, I am not responsible for the whole world?
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