“Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Psalm 139:23-24

“Joy is resistance…humor breaks through the fear and inspires courage.” Dr. Maria Stephan, interviewed by Stephen Colbert.

Not long ago my wife and I attended a Bruce Cockburn concert. Bruce has been singing for 55 years, and predictably, members of the capacity audience frequently called out favourite song titles from his lengthy repertoire for him to perform. After the third call for “If I had a rocket launcher,” he paused reflectively and said, “That song is not right for the season we are in now.” He didn’t elaborate, but one could tell that the Hamilton, ON audience understood. 

As I’m writing this, close friends in Minneapolis tell me their city feels like it has become a banana republic police state. A 60-ish woman interviewed on the news calmly said, “I must be on the streets as a witness and a protector, and if I am killed next, well, I’ve had a good life.” As multiple thousands of protestors marched down city streets, no one was singing “If I had a rocket launcher.” 

Instead, their protests are being shaped by prayer vigils, frog costumes and origami rabbits.

More than 1500 years ago the Benedictine Rule of Life included the call to “ora et labora,” pray and work. Minneapolis churches gather the faithful for prayer, and then send them out to buy groceries for newcomers who don’t dare leave their homes, escort children home from school and take cell phone videos of ICE activities. Ora et labora. 

Why do they begin with prayer? Because violence and injustice harm the human soul, and responding to evil with love requires soul care to refine and restore one’s inner being. As Rev. John Ames, the fictional narrator in Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, meditates on the command to love our enemies, he writes, “If you confront insult or antagonism, your first impulse will be to respond in kind. But if you think, as it were, this is an emissary sent from the Lord, and some benefit is intended for me, first of all the occasion to demonstrate my faithfulness, the chance to show that I do in some small degree participate in the grace that saved me, you are free to act otherwise than as circumstances would seem to dictate...you are freed at the same time of the impulse to hate or resent that person.” Ames’ reflections are the “flip side” of Melinda Gates’ observation in The Moment of Lift, “The loud voice of a man who has no inner life and is a stranger to his own grief is never a voice for justice; it’s a voice for self-interest, dominance or vengeance.” 

If I had a rocket launcher, I would need a prayer vigil. 

And prayer vigils lead to…frog costumes? Maria Stephan’s quote noted above reminds us that evil cannot bear “tactical frivolity,” a public declaration that the desire of evil to evoke paralyzing fear is partially overcome by humour and joy. Tyranny cannot abide laughter because it has no choice but to take itself very, very seriously. 

Prayer vigils also lead to origami rabbits. After ICE detained five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, hundreds of school children made origami rabbits in honour of Liam’s middle name (which literally means “rabbit.”) I am married to an origamist, and I have marveled at the countless ways that wafer-thin sheets of coloured paper intricately folded can embody almost any shape imaginable. Origami paper is so delicate, so fragile, yet it can be formed to create shapes of exquisite beauty and power. Origami declares to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). 

And that takes us right back to prayer vigils. Yes, there are prayer vigils, frog costumes, and origami rabbits in Minneapolis, but the fear remains and thousands will remain traumatized for years to come. The old hymn declares, “For tho’ the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet,” which puts me on my knees: “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”