02/06/2026
We asked Dr. Rana Limbo to compose a message highlighting our collective grief over recent national events. Please read her reflections below.
The year 2026 casts its light sharply on the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul and the state of Minnesota. Thousands and thousands in those places and around the world have engaged in meaningful restraint to raise awareness of what they perceive as injustices against themselves, acquaintances, and people they have never met and never will. This phenomenon of community grief is rich in ritual, meaning, participation, and a strong desire to make a difference in their own and others’ lives. Its basic concept, however, is relational. One might ask how empathy disappeared, only to find it again in the sacrifices of those who walk children from the car to the door of their school, whose presence at protests numbers into the many thousands, even on the coldest day of the year.
Empathy is not a passive emotion. It requires walking alongside those who are struggling and suffering. Empathy fuels the voices and actions of those who are affected by community grief. They raise their voices in song, watch out for their neighbors, and use their phones to document what they see.
This post is written to hold on to what we value about ourselves and others: Relationships matter. Fear is pervasive in places like Minnesota. Will it be me? Will it be someone I love? Will the clashes escalate and result in more injuries and death? We empathize with those who are vulnerable, whose status in our communities leaves us hoping that they will be spared, free from paralyzing fear. Those same fears have come to the area where we live. We learn from those who have no words to describe neighbors hiding on the roof of a house for 7 hours in the cold, dark nights of January. We think about the baby who was not picked up from daycare because the parents had been suddenly taken.
Community grief has images. The one I leave you with this day is 5-year-old Liam, dressed for school in his bunny-eared hat and Spider-Man backpack. We recognize that other children like Liam remain vulnerable in these uncertain, volatile times.
We hold our neighbors in the Twin Cities and all of Minnesota in our hearts during these sad and frightening days.
