Last weekend, Israel bombed Iran in an unprovoked attack. Before we could wrap our minds around what that might mean for global relations in the region, we learned that Minnesota state Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband were murdered in what many officials have described as a political assassination. State Senator John Hoffman and his wife were also shot.

Just one week later, the Trump administration unilaterally decided to bomb Iran, without congressional approval. Now, as of this writing, Iran has bombed the U.S. base in Qatar and while a tentative cease-fire has been declared, who knows what else might transpire by the time you are reading this?

All this is occurring while Israel continues its now twenty-month-long genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, a genocide our tax dollars are funding. 

We can hardly come up for air before the next wave of catastrophic news crashes over us again. Indeed, if we don’t turn away, it can feel like we are all drowning.

Even so … Do you hear the people sing? 

Also last weekend, millions of people (rough estimates claim between 4-6 million total) took to the streets in over 2,000 cities and towns all across this nation (as well as some additional locations) to protest the authoritarian actions and trampling of the Constitution that mark these first five months of the Trump administration. 

You read that right. It has only been five months.

I live in Colorado, a very purple state, where there were over 50 registered protest sites throughout the state, according to the organizing group “50501 Colorado.” When the Denver protesters at the state Capitol began to march, they covered the length of eight city blocks.

Concerned about the potential safety risks of such a large gathering at the Capitol, I chose to take my 2-year-old with me to a smaller showing of like-hearted souls in the nearby suburb of Arvada. A mere 15-minute drive from the 15,000 people (according to organizer tallies) assembled at the Capitol, over 3,000 more lined a busy street, flying U.S. flags with other creatively messaged signs, chanting and waving at the cars driving by as drivers honked and waved their support. 

With my toddler in tow, we admittedly arrived about 45 minutes after the start time. As we drove under the overpass, where masses of people were chanting and cheering, it felt as though we had just entered a dream world. It felt like the America I find my soul longing for—the one where even some of those who voted for this are beginning to understand that this is not the America they want either.

I instantly felt a lump in my throat and my eyes welled with tears. I had not expected to see nearly as large a crowd gathered here when they could have joined the masses at the Capitol just a few miles away. I had not expected to feel the collective beating of their hearts drumming so loudly as we drove through the “tunnel” created by the overpass.

Even so … Do you hear the people sing? 

In my former home of Dallas, Texas, every Monday morning, a group of clergy gather in front of an ICE detention center located on a major thoroughfare. There, they hold a prayer vigil lamenting the current state of immigration in this nation and demand justice for God’s most vulnerable, who are being held (often without proper cause) in ICE facilities or living in fear of being deported.

The Rev. Ashley Anne Sipe, lead pastor at Vista Ridge United Methodist Church in Lewisville, near Dallas, described the sounds of the vehicles—including numerous 18-wheelers— honking their approval amid the hum of relentless Dallas traffic as “a kind of roadside hymn…a choir of cars offer[ing] its praise.” I have stood in front of that same facility praying and demanding justice with many of those same clergy colleagues during the first Trump administration’s cruel family separation policies.

Now, across the miles from my home in Denver, my heart still sings the hymn with them as they gather each Monday morning.

And so … Do you hear the people sing?

This week, we also witnessed the reuniting of Mahmoud Khalil with his wife and their infant son, who was born while Mahmoud was illegally detained in an ICE facility in Louisiana. Where things once seemed hopeless, not so long ago, hope has been restored for this family who stood on holy and righteous ground in protesting the genocide in Gaza.

I was initially inspired by Mahmoud because he was an undeterred leader in the student movement to free Palestine amid extreme threats from the Trump administration. But now, as a parent who struggles to strike a balance between an ethical and faithful call to seek justice and the responsibility to protect my child, I think I am perhaps more inspired by his choice as a parent to resist evil and injustice, even when it caused him to miss the final days of his wife’s pregnancy and the most precious moments of their child’s entry into this world. Mahmoud understood that his child is not safe in a world where he is not safe to speak out against the suffering and killing of innocent children. 

When he was released from the ICE facility where he was held for over three months, crowds gathered in the Newark airport to welcome him home. Shoulders wrapped in a keffiyeh, he raised his fist and shouted, “Free Palestine!” 

And the people cheered. It was a kind of public hymn; a choir of protesters offering their praise.

Do you hear the people sing? Are the drumbeats of their hearts calling out to yours?

Will you join the chorus?