Subject:
Glorious Day of Hope and Promise. Now - It's Up to Us
Date: January 20, 2009

Dear Friends:

This morning we found hope. It is not the end of our hard work but the beginning.

If there has been any message from the campaign and this morning’s inaugural speech, it is that we need to be one nation, together. Our new President, Barak Hussein Obama said very truthfully two things that we must keep in focus:

Our best hope is to find ourselves in one another.

No one person, not this President nor any other person, can make the corrections in policy that we all desperately want to see happen. It is up to all of us.

We at California Council of Churches and California Council of Churches IMPACT take this as our clarion call. We must continue our work on behalf of change. It will be easier. But it will not be easy.

We also know that despite the energy, optimism, hope, and glory that has come from this historic election and inauguration that our own state of California remains mired in serious problems. We have created our own shackles in poorly constructed governmental limitations that have brought this state to the brink of disaster – one that may not be averted. We suffer from a partisan divide so enormous that it’s almost inconceivable. We have laws on vote requirements, term limits, and spending mandates – the “quick fixes” we hoped would make things better – that have made that divide all the worse.

People of faith are so important to the resolution of some of these problems. Your voices are singular in their powerful call for morality in policy coupled with the gentleness of our gift of humanity, equality, love, and understanding. It is we for whom care for the poor, justice, and right are central core values. Speaking that kind of truth to power is what you do best.

So with our nation moving forward, we still have work to do here at home. We ask your renewed commitment to speaking out for that which will confer the greatest justice for all people, no exceptions.

It’s what you have always done. It’s what we will help you continue to do. We cannot accomplish this work without you.

Blessings to you all in the work we have ahead.

Rev. Dr. Rick Schlosser
Executive Director

Elizabeth Sholes
Director of Public Policy

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