The Enemy is Everywhere

Peace, all. Much love. I was fortunate to be in Minneapolis a couple of nights this week with some friends and family. Very briefly. Here's some brief feeling that came out. Hope they're helpful. Peace. ~Tom 

[ Photo taken at the February 7, 2026 Not On Native Land Rally and Ceremony ]

The eggshell-walking. Back or neck tight, twisted. The nights where sleep exhausts us. The dizzied timelines, memories floating and fractured. Many of us have known and felt these things, those that accompany the aftermath of explosions (or of pressure building that we wish would at last release). Abusive homes. Police violence and harassment-patrols. Neighbors throwing bullets or stones. War. A simple burglary. Or a federal invasion. These impact us. Convert us. Re-form our hearts. Even if only for a moment. 

“The enemy is everywhere.” In our bodies this sentiment becomes nothing but true. Every neighbor, a suspect. Every encounter, hairs and blood pressure stand. At attention, upright, beyond our command, our control. Lamps lit. Stayed-awake. Prepared. For foe. For flight. For Sister Death. For the glory or the terror of the coming of something Unknown. 

In something-similar, many of us have also experienced something of the sacred. In mourning: Healing, stumbling, finding her way to our door. Angered lament: an in-breaking of laughter and joy, even if only afloat or hovering, “alighted” (as the gospels proclaim the work of the Dove) onto pain and wounds: or intangible–yet casting cool shadows or warm flame–as clouds or pillars by night. An inkling of a hunch of a wondering of hope of a desire of a renunciation of what is and a dream of what might become–and one that is *not* anticipation alone. But also more. 

One that is participation and relation. A “thief in the night.” The appearance of magi beneath the stars. Of kings bowed down. Three thousand or three. Relinquishing crowns for care. Hope for the poor, the infants, the refugees in hiding, the animals “asleep on the hay.” 

The arrival of the Could Be, the Should Be, the Might Be, the presence of the Not Yet in tongue of fire and dried-up bone. 

~~

“I have spent many days downtown looking through people. But tonight I spent my time with all of you looking for them.” These are the words of my friend and colleague Rene, to which I often return. She said them maybe a decade ago–after a night out at our weekly food delivery with neighbors to neighbors who could use some food. I love these words. Because they say something beautiful and something true. And something that is difficult to say. Because saying it involves more than words. It also involves the body. Hairs and blood pressures at attention. The experience of other and other and other and One. 

“The enemy is everywhere?” Often, our body knows this as true. And so it is (in potentiality). And also, our body teaches, so is our neighbor. Our family. Our co-creatures. Our kin. (Also in potentiality). And there: in every space between every one of us (in every space within every one of us) is an opportunity, a possibility, an “opening” for justice and love and the fruition of the family of God to take place. Even if only for a moment.

 

There is nothing good about the terrorizing work of the death squads known as ICE taking place in our cities and towns. Indeed, they are a real enemy to us and to our neighbors, with guns and masks and the permission to injure and kill. Any “accomplishments” about which they may boast are not worth the cost of human life and human rights and human freedoms. Certainly some of those “agents” might be converted to love one day, but that cannot be our focus when what is pressing is defense from their racist and violent and incarcerating attacks. The enemy is everywhere. 

And so are spaces that our communities have filled with justice and love and the family of God. Listening to my friends in Chicago and Cicero at the height of their occupation (we love you all so much!) and again this week, as I got to spend a couple of days in Minneapolis, bearing witness to the incredible work of communities on the ground, connected, through schools, through churches, through love, into works of community defense, rapid response, mutual aid, prayer, protest, real solidarity. In the flesh. Hairs and heart at attention. Tense. Lamps lit. Whetted whistles. And instructions: “if ICE comes, turn off the heat in case they deploy some kind of gas or irritant.” LORD! Lord. Lord, have mercy! And Yet: looking for, looking out, looking to, but never looking through each other.  

If there is hope, it is alive here. In these spaces. Of enemies. Of potentialities. And of neighbors. Let us give thanks for those who fill them. With justice. With solidarity. With love. And may our hearts and bodies be filled with and take part in the same, as the body allows and as the Spirit moves. 

Amen.