[Episcopal News Service – Cannon Ball, North Dakota] Presiding Bishop Michael Curry spent part of Sept. 24 at Oceti Sakowin Camp, one of the camps along the Cannonball River where people opposed to the Dakota Access Pipeline have gathered. He spoke to “protectors,” as the gathering calls itself, during the daily information and speech time. And he spent an hour listening to people’s hopes for the protest and for the church’s role in supporting the protectors.

During his speech Curry said in part: “I want to now suggest that Standing Rock may be the new Selma. This may well be the moment when nations come together, when peoples of goodwill come together to transform this world from the nightmare that it often is into the dream that God intends so that clean water is available to everybody, so that every man, woman and child knows the peace and the goodness that God intends for us all.”

– The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is an editor and reporter for the Episcopal News Service.