First published in The Study of Light, on Substack, on December 16, 2025
Last week I visited Minneapolis, and was lent this red aluminum whistle, for the duration of my stay. I clipped it on to the green carabiner I use for a keychain, and then listened to the instructions.
“If you see ICE vehicles parking and people getting out, blow the whistle hard, in short bursts. If you see them actively abducting someone, blow it in loud, long blasts.” I would be spending a couple of days downtown, in Uptown, Longfellow, and East Lake areas. There was a chance I would happen upon something such as this.
Just before I returned it, I removed my key fob and hung the carabiner on the tree and took the photo. What a pretty combination they make. The colors of Christmas just sort of found each other, and they twinkled on the bough in front of the window while I sat with people I love and sipped coffee.
Earlier I had had lunch at a Somalian restaurant just south of downtown. When I entered the restaurant I sensed I was being looked at, closely. As though the people inside weren’t sure who I was. ICE? Or not ICE? After a while they warmed up to me. I was just a guy who wanted lunch.
How should I describe them? To be succinct, and use the language of my religious upbringing, I would say “children of God,” same as the rest of us. Nothing else stood out, though the food was delicious.
From my teen years on, I have disdained commercial Christmas. Black Friday rushes, drunken office parties, gluttony and shame, these are, in my mind, foretastes of dystopia. The resulting depression and alienation, and the spike in suicides never fail to remind me that we’re doing it wrong. Christmas was once a small festival. Christmas could be a community gathering. It happens at the same time as Solstice, and Hanukah, which is perfect because the light is returning, and the light is something we can all agree on, hopefully.
Talk about dystopia. There are people who have shuttered their businesses, as we speak. Families in hiding. Undocumented, American citizens, caring neighbors who have spoken out, hiding from the US government! This is not an exaggeration. And it’s not the USSR or Afghanistan or Colombia. It’s here and now. Squads of secret police, unidentifiable and unaccountable, literally cruising neighborhoods and kidnapping children and women and everyone in between. Brownness of skin, NOT criminal record, immigration status, danger to others appears to be the criteria for attack.
“Be joyful, though you have considered all the facts,” reminds Wendell Berry. And as joy is my birthright, and the natural result of my many blessings, I shall feel it. But is it just for me? Isn’t this joy for all?
Somewhere out east, a church has removed the baby Jesus from the creche on the lawn, and hung a sign over it, “ICE was here.” The administration is threatening them if they don’t take it down. Christmas in Dystopia.
I wish you all joy. Whatever your religion or inclination. May we receive the light in its many forms (and those of you in the southern hemisphere, you’ll have to wait six months, but my feeling for you is the same.)
What is happening to us?