Letter

February 1, 2017

Dear XXXX,

I have been thinking of you often, more and more often as our country falls into tumult, and I miss you. I hope that you received my message about the Christmas dinner, which I sent a few days before the gathering; I couldn’t tell whether I had reached you from your generous Christmas card. [Redacted family information.] Your support this past year has made a tremendous difference for our family.

I am reaching out now also for more difficult reasons. I thought rather than stay silent I should try to connect. I am praying for our country right now, and I know you are too, and I wonder if we are praying in very different ways, or if we might find the points of shared concern and see where our prayers are leading us. I see that the chief White House advisor to Trump is an avowed white supremacist and this chills me to my bones. The message from Madeleine Albright below sums up how I think about last week’s immigration directive. I see non-Christian, non-white people being harassed and vilified in my community and it horrifies me. I am concerned for XXX’s future as a person of Mexican-American descent.

I know we are all three Christians, and that we all hold Christianity at the core of who we are. I thought I would send on a sermon from what I consider my home church, Grace Cathedral. I wonder if you can listen to this:

https://www.gracecathedral.org/sermons?sermon-id=28819

I think Rev. Malcolm makes a good point that when we urge people to repent, we must not be saying in code, “You should believe what I believe.”

I hope to hear your thoughts on what is happening to the refugees, and your thoughts on the presence of a white supremacist as chief advisor to the president. I hope this will open a dialogue.

I love you, and Christ, and our country. I love Christ because he called us to compassion. You have been so compassionate to our family that I know that is why you love him, too.

In hopes of dialogue,

Rachel