Has There Ever Been a More Difficult, Tender, Horrifying, and Beautiful Time in Our Lives?: Everyday Magic, Day 1,132

The Walk for Peace with Aloka, borrowed from the Facebook page.

Everyday we call and often text our son in Minnesota. While he lives in a St. Paul diverse neighborhood not under attack from ICE, he works at a food co-op in the Somali community in Minneapolis where fear runs justifiably high. That business, along with hundreds of others, is closed today in support of the general strike to protest ICE.

Over the last few weeks, our son has been trained and issued a whistle and instructions on what to do if/when ICE rushes the store, where many Somalis work and shop. He has reached out to many in the potential path of danger, sometimes arranging rides to work to keep them safer and mostly, just listening to anyone who needed to be heard. A patient and loving human, he is doing what he can, telling us in each call, "We just need to keep helping each other."

I've been trying to write this post for a while, and even now, I begin to cry. What is happening in Minnesota and other parts of this country is so beyond my worst dystopian nightmare. Five-year-olds have been taken by ICE agents as bait to draw in their families. A 37-year-old mother of three, just after she told an agent, "I'm not mad at you, Dude," and smiled as she steered her SUV away from the agents, was shot point-blank three times. Hundreds of videos and photographs abound of people thrown to the ground, grabbed while putting gas in their cars, snagged from Target or school yards or their own homes, early morning in sub-zero temperatures.

Each night before bed, so I can sleep and remember the innate goodness also present in this world, I go to the Facebook page for Walk for Peace to see the latest on 19 Buddhist monks who have embarked upon a 2,300-mile journey from Texas to Washington, D.C. with only one message: cultivate peace in your heart and life.

It's astonishing but I also know that it's much more than any coincidence that the timing of this peaceful walk across the South aligns with the horrendous actions of government officials in Minnesota and other places.

The response to the monks keeps blossoming and growing: tens of thousands of people throughout the deep south and beyond have shown up to listen to their often-daily talks, to walk behind them or hand them flowers as they pass by (which they then hand to others along the way).

I'm so deeply moved by a photo I saw of the monks bowing and chanting a few feet away from members of an Evangelical Christian church praying and raising their arms to the heavens, all of them focused on peace. By all the sheriffs and other officials, even boy scout leaders, pinning badges onto the head monk's sash. By the monks pausing to bend down and listen to people in wheelchairs or elders or small children. By the overflowing crowds listening to the monks and both witnessing and modeling what peace can look like.

Of course I also follow news about Aloka, the Walk for Peace dog devoted to the monks and the trek across the country, and like many others, I followed his recently minor surgery and I cheer on his recovery.

Each day, following what the monks recommend, I step outside for a little prayer, as I've done for years, spread my arms and say, "This is my peaceful day." And wish this for this everywhere, especially in the deep freeze of Minnesota, where today it's well below zero and people are gathering from all over the country to walk, advocate, and pray for peace.

Has there ever been a more difficult, tender, horrifying, and beautiful time in our lives?

The monks continue on, likely in the path of some weather from the snow and ice readying to sweep across a swath of the county. People in Minnesota, along with hundreds of faith leaders from all over the country, are out today (high of -8 without counting wind chill) to sing, walk, pray, and call for peace in this state.

Meanwhile, I just flew home this week from Orlando, where immigrants are everywhere, and so are reports of ICE approaching. A young man from Chile, my Lyft driver, was so excited to tell me about how, after years of partying and doing nothing much with his life, he met the woman who changed everything, joined her church, got married, and had a baby less than a week ago. Now he is working two jobs and beaming about his love and purpose in his life. At every stoplight, he lifted up his phone to show me more photos of his newborn son. I did not say it aloud but my mind ticker-taped: "I hope you're okay" over and over. I left him a generous tip.

I hope we're all okay. I hope we -- our individual selves and our communities -- can also end our days saying, "This was my peaceful day."