Suspect arrested in shooting of 2 Minnesota lawmakers

Former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were fatally shot in their home early Saturday morning in what Gov. Tim Walz called a “politically motivated assassination.” She was the top Democratic leader in the state legislature; she and her husband had two children. State Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were also shot multiple times in their home about nine miles away.

Vance Boelter, the man authorities believe shot the two lawmakers and their spouses, was arrested last night near his home, ending a two-day manhunt. The Hoffmans are out of surgery and receiving care.

“No Kings” rallies and a military parade

The shootings occurred the morning that “No Kings” anti-Trump protests were scheduled for cities across the country. More than five million people took part in demonstrations in over 2,100 cities and towns across the country.

The same day, the Texas state capitol was briefly evacuated after what officials called a “credible threat” against lawmakers; a person was later taken into custody in connection with the threats.

As the protests were being held, a military parade celebrating the 250th anniversary of the US Army took place in Washington, DC. The event told the story of the Army from the Revolutionary War to modern day, complete with military hardware and thousands of soldiers. President Trump thanked the military and applauded their courage in defense of our nation.

All of this took place while Israel and Iran continued missile attacks that began Friday as Israel seeks to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Yemen’s Iran-supported Houthis targeted Israel with several ballistic missiles as well, the first time an ally of Iran has joined the conflict. While Israel targets military and nuclear sites in Iran, Iranian missiles continued to strike residential neighborhoods in Israel overnight, causing civilian deaths and injuries.

The pope speaks to a crowd at a ballpark

Your amygdala is about the size of a shelled peanut. You have two of them, one on each side of your brain, though scientists speak of them in the singular. Its primary job is to process sensory information and initiate your survival response. When you feel fear or panic, that’s your amygdala working to key your “fight or flight” response.

We should therefore expect such a physiological response to threats or tragedy in the news. We feel pain or sorrow for those affected, but subconsciously, we also feel personal fear.

What if we were attacked for our political beliefs?

What if political protests and unrest bring chaos into our personal lives?

What if an enemy’s missiles struck our city?

In the midst of such tumultuous news, an event at a baseball game offered a perspective I’d like us to consider today. As you know, Pope Leo XIV is from Chicago. Saturday afternoon, the Archdiocese of Chicago hosted a gathering at Rate Field, the home of the White Sox.

During the event, the pope offered his first public address to an American audience, in the form of an almost eight-minute video recorded at the Vatican. In it, he addressed young people gathered in Chicago and watching online, addressing their difficulties living through the isolation of the pandemic and their feelings of anxiety, loneliness, and depression.

Such pain is not to be ignored or numbed, he said. Rather, he told them, “I’d like to take this opportunity to invite each of you to look into your own hearts, to recognize that God is present, and that perhaps in many different ways, God is reaching out to you.” After the program and a time of prayer, nearly five hundred lay ministers and ushers assisted in distributing Communion throughout the ballpark.

How is God “reaching out” to us?

In tumultuous times, we can allow our amygdala to frighten us into withdrawing from the news and the challenges of our day. We can yield to our survival instinct in the unspoken gratitude that what is happening to others is not happening to us.

But this emotional shelter is only temporary. Suffering will eventually find us all, and then we’ll feel as isolated as those whose pain we choose not to feel today.

Or we can ask in every situation: How is God “reaching out” to us? Since I believe he redeems all he allows, I believe we can ask how he could redeem even this moment and pain, and how we can join him. Then we can take the good news of his love to those who need to experience his compassion in ours.

Like ushers in a ballpark, we can bring his grace to those who need to “recognize that God is present.” And we can experience the strength we invite others to share.

Assembling the Statue of Liberty

On this day in 1885, the Statue of Liberty arrived in New York Harbor after being shipped across the Atlantic Ocean from France in 350 individual pieces. The copper and iron statue was reassembled and dedicated the following year. I’ll never forget the first time I saw it from the window of an airplane, or the day I toured Ellis Island and saw it up close.

Like the iconic statue, life comes to us in pieces, and it’s up to us to assemble it. The good news is that the Designer of our lives will help fashion us into the character of Christ he intends us to emulate (Romans 8:29). His Spirit will enable us to manifest the presence of Jesus in every situation so that we experience his joy even in jail cells (cf. Acts 16:25) and offer his truth and grace even in the face of persecution and danger (cf. Acts 7).

Because Christ lives in us, “we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37). Note the present tense. But like all gifts, this one must be opened.

So name your fears, submit them to the Spirit, and ask him to empower you to step into the moment with redemptive courage. As Oswald Chambers noted, you can “face your troubles with courage and gladness, remembering that you have nothing to fear.”

But he also reminded us,

“God does not give us overcoming life; he gives us life as we overcome.”

Will you choose to “overcome” today?

Quote for the day:

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.” —Winston Churchill

Our latest website resources:

• Newsboys frontman Michael Tait steps down: Sin, consequences, and repentance
• A single survivor of the Air India plane crash found: Choosing faith when faith is hard to choose
• Harvey Weinstein, disgraced “MeToo” mogul, has a retrial: Will Weinstein go free?
• A reflection on my father’s birthday
• Fatherhood 101: A Father’s Day guide from the Beatitudes