Dear One’s of St. C’s, 

I write to you pleased that the transfer of power of the United States presidents on Wednesday was peaceful.  I realized this year, how much I take that for granted and how that isn’t true in all places and may not always be true here.  It is a value we must hold as a nation for it to continue to be so.  I hope by now you have listened to the words spoken by poet Amanda Gorman’s “The Hill We Climb,” as recited at the inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.  She speaks of a world we are building together.  A better place we will create together than the current one we are living in now.  I believe this is God’s invitation to us everyday. So much in her poem was profound, inspiring and what we needed to hear as a nation.  I found when she said, “And so, we lift our gazes not to what stands between us, but what stands before us”, to be particularly illuminating to the conversations we have been having at coffee hour, Evening Prayer, and “Alissa and Meghan say stuff” about what to do with the state of division in our country.  We cannot keep harping on what stands between us.  Instead, we need to have conversations and find the words together to discuss what is before us.  

That is why at St. Columba’s we are wanting to have as many book clubs and small groups as possible around our intercultural development.  In 2020 we focused on the book, “So you Want to Talk About Race” by Ijeoma Oluo because this book works to give words for these conversations that are often steeped in white supremacy.  Often, when we do not even realize it.  We are steeped in white supremacy and often do not realize it.  We need to do this internal work if we want to invite others to join us.  This is truly the work of our time, if we want to figure out how to create a country and a world together that we are proud of.  As Amanda Gorman goes on to say, “because being American is more than a pride we inherit; it’s the past we step into and how we repair it.”  We can repair this country together.  I do believe we can reach our family members and friends we feel so divided from in the moment.  And I don’t mean convince them we are right and they are wrong.  I mean, if we do our own work to see the wrong we have inflicted and we share our humble mistakes with others, maybe we can begin to invite all different types of people into this new Kingdom that Christ came to establish on this earth. 

With hope, 

Meghan