The Wild Reed

Sunday, March 15, 2026

The “Power, Peril and Importance” of What's Happening in Minnesota

In Minnesota, I heard a talk by Ian Bassin, a founder and the executive director of Protect Democracy, a nonprofit that works to ensure election integrity. In a follow-up conversation, he told me a story that perfectly captured the power, peril and importance of what happened here.

“A lifelong Minnesotan shared with me two lessons she’d learned watching the recent federal assault on her hometown,” said Bassin. “The first was her jarring realization that ‘there is no net below us.’ She had spent her life assuming that somewhere beneath the visible architecture of laws and institutions there existed a backstop – guardrails that would prevent a fall into the unthinkable. Watching masked federal agents abduct her neighbors and shoot them with impunity forced her to reckon with the reality that no such net exists.”

But the other lesson she drew from Minnesota, said Bassin, was that in the absence of solid safeguards, “watching ordinary citizens show up for one another – offering shelter, standing watch, car-pooling an endangered family’s kids to school – gave her a different kind of confidence. Not that formal checks will save us, but that solidarity remains a renewable resource – that we are and can be our own net.”

– Thomas L. Friedman
Excerpted from "Why Minnesota Matters More
Than Iran for America’s Future
The New York Times
March 15, 2026

Saturday, March 14, 2026

Greg Ketter: A Valiant Minnesotan

Every six months or so I dutifully make my way to Dreamhaven Books in south Minneapolis to buy the latest volume of Fantagraphics’ ambitious reprinting of the revered adventure strip, Prince Valiant. Founded in 1977, Dreamhaven is the oldest continuously operating comic shop in Minneapolis, and among the oldest in the United States.

As I’ve noted previously, I’ve collected Prince Valiant in one form or another since I was a teenager in Australia in the late 1970s. I was inspired by my dad, who collected it when he was a teenager in the mid 1950s. The strip itself has been around since 1937, when it was first created by Hal Foster. Other artists and writers have followed in Foster’s footsteps and kept the strip alive for 89 years. You can read about all of these artists and writers (and see their work) at my blog, A Prince Named Valiant.

Above and below: Two panels from the latest volume of Prince Valiant reprints by Fantagraphics Books. (Art by John Cullen Murphy and text by Cullen Murphy.)

My most recent visit to Dreamhaven wasn’t just about obtaining the latest volume of Prince Valiant (which, by the way is Volume 30, 1995-1996). I also was hoping to encounter and personally thank Dreamhaven owner Greg Ketter for his vocal and iconic stance against ICE and CPB, the most visible and terrorizing manifestations of the Trump regime’s fascist occupation of Minnesota.

As you can see from this post’s opening image, my hope was realized! It was an honor to meet Greg and thank him for his very public speaking out against, as he says, “the U.S. government attacking its own people.” I have no doubt that Greg’s, well, valiant stance is ongoing, but its most well-known expression took place at the end of January, shortly after the murder by CPB agents of Minneapolis resident Alex Pretti. It was an impassioned expression of righteous anger, and one that was widely covered by local media, including WCCO News . . .

Related Off-site Links:
A Conversation With Greg Ketter of Dreamhaven Books – Zach Rabiroff (The Comics Journal, January 30, 2026).
When a Bookshop Owner Turns Anger Into Resistance – MS NOW (January 31, 2026).
Minneapolis Bookstore Owner Goes Viral for Lashing Out at ICE – USA Today, January 28, 2026).
Sales Surge at Minneapolis Bookstore After Resonating Photo of Owner at Protest – Nick Lunemann and Erin Hassanzadeh (CBS News, January 26, 2026).
Greg Ketter Responds to Trump's State of the Union Speech: “I Am Still Angry” – MS NOW (February 25, 2026).
The People of Minneapolis Will Simply Not Let the ICE Thugs Prevail – Dan Simmons (The New Republic, February 5, 2026).
We’re All Minnesotans Now – William Kristol, Andrew Egger, and Jim Swift (The Bulwark, February 18, 2026).
What We Can Learn From Minneapolis’ Model of Resistance – Gabriel Furshong (Common Dreams, February 13, 2026).
The Rise of the Rebel Loon Logos – The Nerd of The Rings (February 13, 2026).
Anti-ICE Organizing Is Creating Counter-Institutions Based on Care – Rashida James-Saadiya (Truthout, February 4, 2026).
The Minneapolis Resistance Will Do Your Laundry – Deborah Copperud (Current Affairs, February 19, 2026).
“Backing Down Isn’t an Option”: Minnesota ICE Shootings Mobilize Americans to Join ICE Observer Groups – Lex McMenamin (The Guardian, January 31, 2026).
Letter From Minnesota: Details From an Occupation – Angela Pelster (Literary Hub, January 29, 2026).
Meet the Minneapolis Parents Patrolling Their Schools Amid ICE Operations – Elizabeth Shockman (MPR News, January 16, 2026).
The Women Holding Minneapolis Together – Anna Moeslein Glamor, January 7, 2026).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts on the resistance to the Trump regime’s fascist occupation of Minnesota:
• Omar Fateh: Quote of the Day – December 4, 2025
• Photo of the Day – December 5, 2025
• Susie Hayward on What’s Happening in Minneapolis
• Doing What We Can to Stop Unjust Arrests of Immigrants
• Great Event, Great Sign, Great Nails
• Christmas Eve Musings
• May We Do Likewise
• “This Is What Fascism Looks Like” – January 7, 2026
• “It Was Murder”: 12 Powerful Responses to the Death of Renée Nicole Good
• Omar Fateh: “Folks Are Waking Up”
• A Good Faith Appeal and a Grim Response
• Why Minnesota?
• Chris Hedges on ICE: “I Have Seen These Masked Goons Before”
• Steven Donziger: “Let’s Get Real . . . ICE Is a Domestic Terrorist Organization”
• Historian Kyle Dekker: “It’s Not Nazi Ideology We Are Fighting. It’s American”
• Knowing Our Rights
• Mike Figueredo on Why Trump Might Be Pushing the U.S. to the Brink of Collapse
• A “Red Alert Moment for American Democracy”
• Dispatches from Occupied Minnesota
• Marianne Williamson on How to Psychologically Endure This Moment
• What Moral Clarity Looks Like in Minnesota This MLK Day
• Nemik’s Eulogy for Renée Nicole Good
• “It Was Never About Keeping America Safe”
• “ICE Out!”: The Minnesota General Strike – 1/23/26
• “This Was a Flat Out Execution”
• “Organized Sustained Systemic Resistance and Self-Defense Are Our Only Options”
• Honoring Alex Pretti
• George Conway: The Trump Administration Is a “Criminal Organization”
• In the Face of Fascist Lies, MN Governor Tim Walz Sets the Record Straight
• Adam Serwer on How “Every Social Theory Undergirding Trumpism Has Been Broken on the Steel of Minnesotan Resolve”
• “Trump Is Scared Shitless”
• “They Were Alive. Then They Were Not”
• Bruce Springsteen and the Streets of Minneapolis in the Winter of ’26
• Craig Mokhiber on the “Imperial Boomerang”: How U.S. War Tactics Abroad Are Now Used at Home
• January Vignettes (2026)
• Honoring Renée Good and the “Astonishing Surge of Courage” of Minneapolis
• A Luminous Celebration of Light, Love and Community
• More Dispatches from Occupied Minnesota
• Memes of the Times – February 2026
• Only the Beginning
• The North Remembers
• “It’s All Lies and Propaganda”
• What This Moment Feels Like in Minnesota
• Quote of the Day – February 23, 2026
• For Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, Silence Is Never an Option
• February Vignettes (2026)

See also:
• A Valiant First Effort, Wouldn’t You Say?
• Journeying Into the Truth . . . Valiantly, of Course!
• Waking Dagobert
• “Like Persephone of Myth”
• Into the Fray
• Something to Think About – November 11, 2014

Above: The Prince of Thule as depicted by Thomas Yeates
(from page 4503, May 28, 2023).

For more on Prince Valiant, see the following at A Prince Named Valiant:
• How It All Began
• Commemorating Hal Foster and Prince Valiant
• Mark Schultz on the Art of Hal Foster: “Uniquely Appealing, Innovative and Influential”
• “He Wasn’t a Superhero But He Was a Hero”
• A Valiant First Effort, Wouldn’t You Say?
• John Cullen Murphy on Prince Valiant: “It’s My Duty. I’m Responsible For It”
• Former Prince Valiant Writer Cullen Murphy Interviewed by Terry Gross
• Mark Schultz on Prince Valiant as an American Invention
• Gary Gianni’s Prince Valiant: Looking Good
Celebrating 85 Years of Prince Valiant
• Comics’ Sweeping Graphic Novel, Prince Valiant, Turns 80
• Prince Valiant Celebrates 75th Anniversary
• Something Very Special
• Remembering Episode 3000, 8/7/94
• Thomas Yeates: “My Biggest Thrill is Seeing the Prince Valiant Logo on My Drawings”
• Mark Schultz on Continuing the Legacy of Prince Valiant • A First for Prince Valiant
• Prince Arn, Son of Valiant and Regent of Camelot
• “We Are the Daughters of the Queen of the Misty Isles and the Prince of Thule”
• The Return of Karen and Valeta
• Galan to the Rescue
• Nathan

Tuesday, March 10, 2026

Derek Penwell’s Message to the Ones Who Are Scared

The following is written by Derek Penwell, Senior Minister at Douglass Blvd Christian Church. It was first shared on Derek’s substack, Heretic Adjacent, and then on Facebook, where I came across it.

It’s both a powerful and beautiful piece, and a timely follow-up to my last Wild Reed post.

_________________

To the Ones Who Are Scared
The prophets weren’t calm folks writing in leather journals beside artisan candles, but frightened people choking on the truth and saying it anyway.

I want to talk about something that’s taken up a lot of my bandwidth, but something I haven’t really discussed much explicitly.

The thing is, a lot of us aren’t just angry right now. We’ve already burned through angry. What we are is scared. And not hypothetically concerned or vaguely unsettled. Scared deep down in the marrow, in the kind of way that’s hard to explain to people who, by luck or privilege or practiced avoidance, haven’t had to feel it yet. Terrified.

And to be honest, this isn’t the kind of fear you can manage by sheer application of will. Manageable fear comes with concrete options. Put down the phone. Take a walk. Drink some water. Breathe in for four, out for six.

Fine. That stuff can really help. So, I don’t want to discount any of that. This isn’t that.

If we’re being honest, there’s another kind of fear that doesn’t respond to better breathing, isn’t there?

You know what I’m talking about. The 3 a.m. kind of fear. The kind that sits on the edge of the bed and starts listing nightmares. Think about it. We’ve started yet another war nobody wanted, this time with Iran, which has a marginally more robust military than Ecuadorian narco-terrorists.

And if that potential nightmare weren’t enough, we have to wonder about the Epstein files and all they suggest about who gets protected in this country and why, and how it is that we became a country where the power of the U.S. government at its highest levels is drafted to shield those allegedly guilty of heinous crimes against little girls.

We have all kinds of people (citizens and other innocents) getting swept up alongside undocumented immigrants because the people with badges either can’t tell the difference or don’t care to.

Serious voices are asking serious questions about whether the 2026 elections will actually be free.

The math keeps coming out wrong, or if not wrong, then extremely unfavorable for most of us.

Let me get this out before somebody tries to hand you a motivational poster and call it theology: This isn’t catastrophizing. It’s simply paying attention. Those aren’t the same thing. In days like these, confusing the two is just another way truth gets obscured.

The prophet Habakkuk was doing advanced political math, too. He didn’t like the answer any more than we do.

“How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, 'Violence!’ but you do not save? Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds. Therefore, the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails” (Habakkuk 1:2-4).

That’s not vague, free-floating spiritual angst. That’s a prophet watching a society unravel at the seams.

That’s someone who loves his people, standing in the wreckage of public life, watching violence and injustice go unpunished while the goons in charge cover for one another. Watching ordinary people get crushed, and then turning toward heaven with something that sounds like a scream.

I don’t know about you, but I read the prophet pour out his incredulity and fear, and I feel a little less alone.

Here’s where I need to be honest about my own inner life. I’ve spent enormous amounts of energy lately trying to turn fear into anger. Mostly, I guess, because anger feels more useful.

But at least anger has someplace to go. Anger can make the calls, write the letters, show up in the streets, refuse to look away. Anger at least feels like motion.

Fear just sits there in the dark and stares at you. Unblinking. Like some dead-eyed horror sitting across from you on an empty subway car.

But Habakkuk doesn’t give his fear a good scrubbing behind the ears, turning it into something more respectable before he brings it to God. He brings the fear and confusion. The unbearable “how-are-you-letting-this-happen?” itself.

And what I love, or maybe what I trust, is that God doesn’t tell him to calm down.

The answer Habakkuk gets is odd. Severe, even. It’s not a five-step plan for surviving the collapse of public trust or a reassurance that everything will be fine by next Tuesday. Just this: "Write the vision. Make it plain. And wait."

Bear witness. Write it down. Don’t let the truth disappear just because it’s inconvenient to the powerful or exhausting to the rest of us.

And then wait, not because waiting is easy, but because sometimes faithfulness is less about fixing what we can’t fix and more about refusing to lie about what’s going on.

I’ve been thinking about this because, frankly, it feels more honest than a lot of what passes for pastoral reassurance these days. “We’ve been through worse.” “The arc of history bends toward justice.” “Love wins.”

Well. Maybe. Sometimes. Eventually.

But at 3 a.m., when my mind is filling in the blanks of what comes next, those slogans can sound less like good news and more like religiously accessorized denial you find cross-stitched on a pillow at a Lifeway bookstore.

Habakkuk offers something truer.

Name what you see.

Tell the truth about it.

Don’t look away.

That, at least, we can do.

So here’s the permission I want to offer myself today. (If you need it, it’s for you too.)

You don’t have to make your fear useful before you bring it to God. You don’t have to be brave on command. You don’t have to manufacture optimism, or perform hope for the benefit of other anxious people, or pretend that your trembling is a failure of faith.

What you can do is what the prophets did.

Just tell the truth.

Tell the truth about what you see. Tell the truth about what it does to you. Tell the truth to God, to a trusted friend, to the soul of your own terrified five-year-old self in the dark. Name the injustice, the dread, the grief. Don’t dab perfume on it.

That’s not weakness. To the contrary, in a world that relies on our stupefaction, clarity is a form of courage.

In a culture fueled by spectacle, attention is a moral achievement.

And in a moment when so many of us are being told to doubt our own eyes, plain, honest speech is a kind of holy defiance.

The God who listened to a prophet yelling into the collapse of his own society can handle our 3 a.m. howl into the void.

God has heard this kind of prayer before . . . and God’s not afraid of the tone of our voice.

Go forward even though your courage trembles, dear ones. But go.

And if, on the way, you need to scream at God a little, go ahead. The prophets already made that road holy.

Be gentle and brave,

– Derek Penwell
via social media
March 3, 2026

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Derek Penwell’s Message to Those Waking Up to Consequences They Didn’t Think Had Their Name on Them
• The Red Turtle: “A Film That Knows Exactly What It Wants to Be”
• Marianne Williamson on How to Psychologically Endure This Moment
• Love Will Not Lose
• Why “Revolutionary Love” Gives Michelle Alexander Hope
• Something to Think About – December 17, 2015
• Susan Raffo: Quote of the Day – September 11, 2012
• All ’Round Me Burdens . . .

Image 1: Saaxiib Qurux Badan (“Beautiful Friend”) by Michael J. Bayly (July 14, 2019).
Image 2: James C. Lewis From his “Icons of the Bible” photo series.

Sunday, March 08, 2026

The Red Turtle: “A Film That Knows Exactly What It Wants to Be”

Author James Redfield recently shared the following on Facebook.

We’re living through a time when global events aren’t arriving one at a time, but in waves. New crises erupt before the last have been reckoned with; the volume rises, headlines collide, and the nervous system tightens.

It’s a lot. Not because we’re fragile, but because human beings were never designed to absorb global instability in real time, all day, every day. When information moves faster than integration, clarity suffers. And when clarity suffers, fear fills the gaps. That’s why inner stability matters more than ever. Awareness doesn’t require panic, and discernment shouldn’t lead to exhaustion.

Remember to step back from the noise when you need to. Protect your attention. Care for your body. Sleep well. Eat well. Walk in nature.

The more centered we are, the more clearly we see. And clarity is what sustains meaningful change.

Ground yourself. Breathe. Let calm be your strength.

I’m taking these words to heart. I’m not retreating from staying informed about what’s going on in the world, I’m not forgetting, in other words, the “duel citizenship of being alive,” but I am stepping back from the noise of the chaos in the world. I’m protecting my attention, caring for my body, and determined to do what it takes to sleep well, eat well, and spend more time in nature.

I’m also going to be more mindful and consistent in sharing content at The Wild Reed that reflects these efforts to be grounded, clear, and calm – the qualities that I want to embody, that I want to be. It will be content of wisdom, truth and beauty.

It’s not that I haven’t already been sharing such content (see, for example, here, here, and here), it’s that I want to be more mindful and consistent in doing so during these profoundly troubling times we’re living through.

And so I start this mindful sharing today by acknowledging that a favorite film of mine is The Red Turtle by Dutch animator Michaël Dudok de Wit, an amazing film he co-wrote with French screenwriter Pascale Ferran.

Notes Wikipedia about this beautiful 2016 film, one that I first saw at the Riverview Theater in Minneapolis in 2017:

The Red Turtle is an international co-production between Japanese animation studio Studio Ghibli and several French companies, including Wild Bunch and Belvision Studios. The film, which has no dialogue, tells the story of a man who becomes shipwrecked on an uninhabited island where his attempts at escape are repeatedly thwarted by a giant red hawksbill sea turtle.

Following is an insightful video commentary on The Red Turtle by the YouTube channel What Do I Know?. As I hope you’ll discover, both this commentary and the film it celebrates reflect the beauty and wisdom of James Redfield’s words that opened this post – words that speak of knowing exactly what it is we want to be and doing what it takes to be this grounded and calm presence in the world.

Related Off-site Links:
Film Review: The Red Turtle – A Singular Talent – Gerald Peary (The Arts Fuse, February 24, 2017).
The Red Turtle 5-Star Review – Rapturous Minimalism from Studio Ghibli – Mark Kermode (The Guardian, May 28, 2017).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• The Now
• A Prayer of Anchoring
• Cultivating Stillness
• Inner Peace
• Karen Salmansohn on the “Duel Citizenship of Being Alive”
• Love Will Not Lose
• Until the Light Returns
• What the Wind Says
• Trusting the Flow
• A Season of Listening
• To Be Still
• Today I Will Be Still
• Eckhart Tolle on Silence and Stillness
• The Beauty and Challenge of Being Present In the Moment
• No Other Time, No Other Place
• A Sacred Pause
• Aligning With the Living Light
• Mystical Participation
• Secret Language of the Heart
• Come, Spirit
• A Delightful Summer’s Afternoon and a Moving Tale

Adam Bates on the Team Blue / Kamala “I Told Ya So” Smugness Tour

Even on a purely strategic level, this Team Blue / Kamala “I told ya so” smugness tour is almost too dumb for words. Like, who is it meant to appeal to?

The people who refused to support you because of your Zionism don’t care. In fact they probably had a grimmer assessment of Trump than you did.

The people who clap and snap their fingers at this clownery? Well, they still love you but obviously there aren’t enough of them to win because you wouldn’t be running this pathetic shtick at [Jesse Jackson’s] funeral if there were.

So who is left to appeal to? Trump supporters? Wagging your finger in their face is supposed to help your campaign bid how?

In other words, this isn’t even “immoral and insufferable but strategically sound.” It’s just sheer narcissism and hubris from a failed politician who will go to her grave thinking everybody is dumb and wrong except her.

After this Trump shitshow, I daresay I hope we’re done putting that type of mentality in any position of power ever again.

– Adam Bates
via social media
March 8, 2026

Saturday, March 07, 2026

Quote of the Day

What we saw in Gaza was not just a genocide. It was a prototype of the wars to come.

The goal of the American/Israeli bombings in Iran [above and right] is not regime change, but the total destruction of the infrastructure of what makes human life possible: schools, residential buildings, government buildings, sports complexes, hospitals, clinics, airports, religious buildings, UNESCO world heritage sites. This morning it was a water treatment facility. None of this has anything to do with ideology, the Ayatollahs, etc. All of this is about making human life uninhabitable. None of it with U.N. sanction, none of it approved by the [U.S.] congress, no accountability to any body of law or morality.

Over 2,000 sites were bombed in the first few days. The number now is much higher. Two-thousand-pound bombs have been dropped, some on dense urban populations. These bombs do not distinguish between supporters of the regime and those opposed. They kill indiscriminately. It’s important both for Americans and the Iranian community (including the diaspora) to come to terms with that.

Many Iranians (especially those in diaspora who championed this war) operate from an assumption that they are “entirely different” than their neighbors, and that their fate would be different than Iraq or Syria. Colonial ambitions don’t match that expectation. I so pray that I am wrong, but every educated instinct based on study of the region tells me that the goal is complete collapse of the society, exploitation of the oil for profit of American companies, and balkanization of Iran into separate ethno-states.

– Omid Safi
via social media
March 7, 2026

Above: An aerial view of a graveyard as funerals are held for students and staff from a girls’ school killed in a likely U.S. strike on March 3, 2026 in Minab, Iran. (Photo: Handout/Getty Images)

Friday, March 06, 2026

It Begins With Us

Here’s to the bridge-builders, the hand-holders, the light-bringers, those extraordinary souls wrapped in ordinary lives who quietly weave threads of humanity into an inhumane world.

They are the unsung heroes in a world at war with itself. They are the whisperers of hope that peace is possible.

Look for them in this present darkness. Light your candle with their flame. And then go.

Build bridges. Hold hands. Bring light to a dark and desperate world. Be the hero you are looking for. Peace is possible. It begins with us.

– L.R. Knost

Thursday, March 05, 2026

A Night at the Ballet

Earlier this evening my friends David and Rachel and I saw the Joffrey Ballet’s American Icons program. It was a very impressive two hours of dance.

About the company, Martha Bayne writes:

Founded in 1956 by Robert Joffrey, son of a Pashtun father and an Italian mother, and second-generation Italian immigrant Gerald Arpino, the 70-year-old company continues to draw exceptional dancers from around the world to Chicago. The Joffrey is, quintessentially, a company of immigrants in an American city powered by immigration.

And here’s how the folks at Northrop Auditorium, the venue for tonight’s performance in Minneapolis, describe American Icons.

In honor of their 70th anniversary, the beloved Joffrey Ballet revisits Northrop with American Icons, a tribute to four dance legends. Featuring iconic works that have shaped the history of American dance, the soaring program is brought to life with live orchestra, including a stirring piece played by Northrop Organist Greg Zelek that highlights our glorious Aeolian-Skinner Op. 892.

Witness the daring and enduring spirit that defines the Joffrey's maverick legacy. American Icons celebrates dynamic works by four trailblazing 20th-century artists: Joffrey co-founders Gerald Arpino and Robert Joffrey, prolific dance pioneer Martha Graham and Joffrey alum Glen Tetley.

Performance includes:

“Kettentanz”: Choreography by Gerald Arpino | Music by Johann Strauss Sr. and Johann Mayer
Inspired by classical Viennese balls and gardens, “Kettentanz” is highly regarded as one of Arpino’s signature works.

“Secular Games”: Choreography by Martha Graham | Music by Robert Starer
“Secular Games” presents a playful exploration of human nature and the lengths to which we go to impress one another.

“Postcards”: Choreography by Robert Joffrey | Music by Erik Satie
A ballet depicting vignettes of Paris in the early 1900s, evoking fleeting relationships and whimsical memories, with challenging maneuvers and luscious classical movement.

“Voluntaries”: Choreography by Glen Tetley | Music by Francis Poulenc
A masterpiece of emotional depth and soaring movement set to Poulenc’s “Concerto in G Minor for Organ, Timpani and Strings,” Tetley’s “Voluntaries” is a tribute to the late John Cranko. Features Northrop Organist Greg Zelek on our glorious pipe organ.

Related Off-site Links:
American Icons Showcases the Exceptional Melting Pot That Is the Joffrey and American Dance – Martha Bayne (Chicago Sun Times, February 20, 2026).
With American Icons, Here’s Why the Joffrey Ballet Is Different – Lauren Warnecke (Chicago Tribune, February 20, 2026).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• The Art of Dancing as the Supreme Symbol of the Spiritual Life
• “Then I Shall Leap Into Love”
• Love’s the Only Dance
• We All Dance
• Not Whether We Dance, But How
• The Dance of Life
• And As We Dance . . .
• Our Dance
• “I Came Alive With Hope”
• The Premise of All Forms of Dance
• The Power of Dance
• Finding Balance in the Presence of the Beloved
• Our Bodies Are Part of the Cosmos
• Flexibility and Flow
• Move Us, Loving God
• A Prayer for Dancers
• Trusting the Flow
• The Soul of a Dancer
• Aristotle Papanikolaou on How Being Religious Is Like Being a Dancer

Image 1: Joffrey Ballet dancers Amanda Assucena, José Pablo Castro Cuevas and Hyuma Kiyosawa in “Voluntaries” as part of “American Icons.” (Photo: Cheryl Mann)
Image 2: Michael J. Bayly.
Image 3: Glen Tetley’s “Voluntaries.” (Photo: Erik Berg)

The Quiet Power of André Holland

One of my favorite actors is highlighted in a piece by Ty Cole. I share an excerpt from it below. Enjoy!

_____________

André Holland’s Quiet Power
Continues to Elevate Every Role
Though he didn’t take home the NAACP Image Award for “Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture” this year, André Holland’s career remains a masterclass in restraint, emotional depth, and undeniable screen presence.

There’s a rare calm that follows André Holland onto the screen. It’s not flashy, nor does it demand attention with dramatic theatrics. Instead, Holland commands scenes through poise, emotional precision, and an ability to make vulnerability feel powerful rather than fragile.

Even with his nomination for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture at the NAACP Image Awards this year, his career trajectory has long been defined by performances that critics and audiences quietly hold in the highest regard.

The actor's artistry often lives in the spaces between dialogue. A glance, a breath, or a pause in conversation becomes its own form of storytelling. That tenderness has become one of his defining traits, with him having the ability to portray men who carry depth, empathy, and introspection without losing strength.

It’s a refreshing contrast in an industry that often equates masculinity with loudness or spectacle. Much of that emotional nuance comes from Holland’s stage background, which grounds his performances in intention and discipline. Whether he’s working in television, independent films, or larger studio projects, he brings a thoughtful presence that anchors the narrative around him. Audiences may not always see him in blockbuster headlines, but within acting circles, his reputation as a craftsman is undeniable.

That reputation has only grown through projects like Moonlight, the medical drama The Knick, and a slate of independent films where his subtlety becomes the emotional center of the story.

Holland doesn’t dominate scenes through volume, but he draws viewers in with quiet gravity. In many ways, that’s what makes him such an essential performer. He reminds audiences that some of the most powerful performances aren’t shouted — they’re felt.

Here are four roles that capture Holland at his best.

Love, Brooklyn

In this intimate romcom, Holland delivers a performance rooted in reflection and emotional complexity. His character navigates relationships, identity, and the shifting rhythms of adulthood with a natural sense of vulnerability. He allows silence and body language to communicate just as much as dialogue. The result is a performance that feels lived-in and deeply human.

Moonlight

Holland’s appearance in Moonlight may be brief, but it’s unforgettable. In a pivotal moment of mentorship and understanding, he conveys compassion with remarkable subtlety. His scenes capture Holland’s gift for conveying warmth without overselling emotion. It’s a small role that leaves a lasting impact.

Exhibiting Forgiveness

In this emotionally layered drama, Holland explores themes of trauma, healing, and artistic expression. His portrayal captures the complexity of confronting personal history while searching for peace. Holland approaches the character with empathy and restraint. The performance reflects his ability to bring depth to stories about growth and reconciliation.

The Knick

As Dr. Algernon Edwards in The Knick, Holland anchors the series with intelligence and emotional resilience. The role explores the challenges of navigating racism and ambition in early 20th-century medicine. Holland balances dignity and frustration with extraordinary control. It’s a performance that quietly drives the show’s emotional core.