Prayers of Inclusion

As I have watched presidential inaugurations through the years, I have always felt slighted, as a U.S. citizen and as a Jew, by the fact that benedictions have ended with the words “through Jesus Christ our lord and savior.” Unfortunately, it took a national tragedy of great proportion for prayers in recent public ceremonies to recognize people of varied faiths.

Any satisfaction in this change is bittersweet. I can only hope that when and if a feeling of ease and security comes back to our nation, we won’t return to being a country rooted only in “Christian values.”

Isabel Raymond

Thousand Oaks