Singing into Our Vulnerability
By: Rev. John Chang-Yee Lee, DMin
4/17/26
“A friend is someone who knows the song of your heart and sings it back to you when you forget.”
-Reverend Chuck Goodman
My brother-in-law is from the South and he often says these aphorisms that ring so clear and true. This one has stuck with me recently. Over the last six months, federal agents from immigration and customs enforcement were very prominent in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota. Their overwhelming presence and numbers along with countless acts of brutality, cruelty, capriciousness, and lack of accountability or due process has been well documented in the national news. The deaths of Renee Goode and Alex Pretti sent shock waves throughout our community and throughout the world. What we were experiencing and witnessing felt dystopian and reminiscent of 1933 Germany rather than 2026 in Minnesota.
As thousands of Minnesotans gathered to protest this occupation in sub-zero temperatures, there was a unique response within these movements that became more prominent: paperless and acapella music sung by many; expressing what was being experienced along while calling everyone, including the agents, back to something important in this moment.
“Oh oh oh, it’s OK to change your mind.
Show us your courage. Leave this behind....
It’s OK to change your mind.
And you can join us, join us here anytime.”
Words and music by Annie Schlaefer, sung outside the hotel where ICE agents were lodged
“We walk the same ground but we’ve been torn apart
Put down your weapons/hatred/anger/armor
Come sing your part.”
Words and music by Annie Schlaefer
“You can quit
You don’t have to stay
Part of you knows it’s wrong to treat people this way
In the words of dear Renee
We’re not mad at you dude and you can step away”
Words and music by Barbara McAfee
“no estan solos
no estan solas
juntos hacemos
la liberación”
Translation: You all are not alone, you all are not alone, together we make liberation
Francisco Herrera & The Peace Poets, sung in gatherings outside neighbors’ homes who were afraid to come out because of federal agents.
The group Singing Resistance (Twin Cities) helped lead these actions within these gatherings as they have throughout other moments in this area’s history. There was an odded mix of grief, anger, hope, vulnerability, determination, strength, and solidarity (even with those agents and those who sent them here inflaming this suffering) as we sang with so many people in this particular moment. There wasn’t naiveté that these songs alone would change the response by these agents or those who sent them to act in this manner. But this way of resisting along with lawsuits, multiple actions by organizers, and millions of people speaking out and trying to bring attention and accountability for all of this violence to stop helped to stem this tide…for now. Not only was this singing action a way of bearing witness to the inhumanity of what was occurring, but reminding everyone of the song of our hearts (in case we had forgotten) that would guide us and our actions through to embodying the truth of our interdependence. For many of us, this was synonymous with being found by our Source, again. Could all of this be interpreted as compassionate sacred activism as well?
As spiritual guides, we accompany others by asking selfless questions to support them see and experience the song of their hearts again or even for the first time. We do not tell our seekers what that song is, but we get to experience it with them once they have discerned it and found it (or it finds them!). Many of us are accompanying others through this unprecedented time and are experiencing the weight of how big all of this is for us and for our seekers. Right now, I have felt the tears rise more quickly and the knot squeeze tighter in my gut before and during many moments with seekers and I have wondered how I was going to make it through or if any of what I was doing even mattered.
One of my seekers asked for us to close with one of these songs from the protests. In singing, the pain of the last months coinciding with all that this person had just shared seemed to hit me hard as the words and this act touched something profound. It placed this moment and the space of spiritual accompaniment in the context of something deeper:
“Beyond the us and them
Beyond the us and them
What do we do in the dark days
We build the soil, build the soil”
Heidi Wilson, inspired by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Singing has a way of bypassing our minds and moving right into our guts and hearts simultaneously. Months of protests, anger, and futile searching for any action that would do anything to change this siege were here now but without words or resistance from within me. Hours of discussions, terse letters, and reluctantly looking at the day’s headline now folded into a greater chorus that clarified much for me to see something more going on. What was being sung was as much for me as it was for them and this time we shared together. My seeker didn’t know any of this was happening within me. They didn’t offer any solutions or insightful comments. But in the silence, tears, and smiles, we both could sense our stories were moving together and were connected by this moment; reminded of why we enter into this space and what happens here that is indescribable. All of this was more than enough as we bowed and said goodbye.
Has your own song been aroused in the journey with your seekers, too? What may it be singing to you now? What is it reminding you of that possibly was forgotten? As Spirit/Source/Universe/God/Dao enters into the space with you and your seeker amid dark days, what may be being built…even imperceptibly? What has the soil produced thus far? May your own songs continue to be sung back to you in these moments. And may you know, you are not singing alone.
“Hold on
Hold on
My dear ones,
Here comes the dawn”
Heidi Wilson
