Author Archives: jledmiston

Policies and Procedures are our friends. Yes, the Spirit moves in fresh and creative ways, and yet rules protect us. (I had a seminary friend who was literally fired after his first Easter sermon because there was no policy in his denomination/congregation that you couldn’t just fire the Pastor anytime you felt like it and his sermon was apparently underwhelming.)

I have some thoughts about rules – especially for these days of shattered norms drenched in disorienting misinformation and unrelenting turbulence.

• Thought 1 – Healthy congregations value relationships over rules. Yes, we have a No-Pet policy in the church office, but the administrative assistant’s pit bull is being put down at 4 this afternoon and she needs him to be here today.
• Thought 2 – Sometimes it’s okay to make exceptions for the sake of a congregation’s well-being. There’s a rule in my denomination about an Associate Pastor not being eligible to become the next Senior Pastor. But I know a church that was struggling financially to the point that they were considering going to a one-pastor staffing model. One day, their Pastor died suddenly on a handball court and the Presbytery decided that it was healthy and pastoral to make an exception. The Associate Pastor became the Pastor and it was a comfort to everybody.
• Thought 3 – Sometimes the rule must stand firm, again for the health of the congregation. We have a rule in my denomination that our churches can only call pastors who are members of our denomination or in good standing in denominations with whom we have a formal relationship. (On a regular basis, I have to tell church friends that, “No, the Baptist preacher who never went to seminary cannot be your Pastor.”) This rule ensures our leaders align with our theology. It’s possible that the ineligible but charismatic preacher you met at the funeral home might preach that “women are not called by God to be leaders” or that “God hates LGBTQAI+ people” or that the modern state of Israel is the same as the Israelites of the Hebrew Scriptures. None of those things are true according to the interpretation of Scripture in my denomination. Bad theology hurts people.
• Thought 4 – The fewer the rules, the better. Church policies and denominational constitutions should not be the size of the OED. Speaking of a no pet policy (Thought 1) I was once on a committee writing the personnel policy for a church and someone at the table wanted to spell out exactly which pets would be okay (fish) and which would not be okay (dogs, cats, ferrets, snakes, hamsters, Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs). No. Give people some credit. Nobody’s bringing their pony to church.

Flexibility can be a holy thing. When we consider the people more than the rules, we are allowing the Spirit to move for the situation at hand. Jesus was about loving the people. The rules were about protecting the people but exceptions were made. Here are some Biblical examples.

So God created humankind in God’s image,
   in the image of God he created them;
   male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27

It occurs to me this week that the most painful news stories have one thing in common: they are a result of somebody forgetting that all of us have been created in the Image of God. All people, including:

• The pretty teenager who landed a job in a fancy Palm Beach spa only to be “stolen” by a different Palm Beach employer for more nefarious purposes.
• The miraculous quints born into poverty in Canada whose parents essentially handed over to the circus.
• Every immigrant arrested by ICE including the 90 Venezuela immigrants imprisoned in a Salvadorean prison in April, most of whom had actually not entered the United States illegally nor were “criminals.”

The starving in Gaza, the crushed in Kyiv, the kidnapped in Mozambique, the bullied, the harrassed, the betrayed. Each of these people was created in the Image of God. Those who are starving them, killing them, kidnapping them, hurting them are also created in the Image of God.

This is the most universally ignored Truth in our world right now: All people were created in the Image of God. To wound them, much less destroy them is to wound and destroy The Creator of Life.

I honestly do not know how this works, but I believe that our Creator cannot be destroyed and justice will one day prevail. In the mean time, please indeed pay attention. Terrible things happen when we forget who we are.

Pictured above: Virginia Giuffre (1983–2025), the Dionne Quintuplets – Annette, Emilie, Marie, Yvonne, and Cecile (all born in 1934; Cecile died this week at the age of 91), incarcerated immigrants in the maximum security Terrorism Confinement Center in Tecoluca, El Salvador. Like you and me, each was created in God’s Image.

I’m increasingly aware of the use of the word “everybody” as an unintentional indicator of privilege. When we assume that “everybody has flown in an airplane” or “everybody has a car” we overlook the many people who haven’t or don’t.

Last fall, at an affordable housing event in Charlotte, a formerly homeless speaker asked everyone present to hold whatever keys they happened to have in the air. We dutifully hoisted our key rings high.

As the speaker pointed out, all of us had house keys or keys to apartments. Most of us had car keys – some of us for more than one car. Many had office keys. A few had boat keys or keys to vacation homes. And the speaker shared that – before he ever had a home – one of his life goals was to carry a key. It was a powerful reminder: not everybody has a house key, much less a key to a car or boat or office.

When I was first introduced in my role in The Presbytery of Charlotte in 2018, someone with a microphone said generously, “Jan knows everybody.” It was supposed to be a compliment I guess, but I cringed just a little.

Not only do I not know everybody; I didn’t know most of the people in the room that day. What does it say to the people whom I didn’t know (and they didn’t know me) who were sitting there who have never heard of me much less met me? This is how we get an “in” group and an “out” group.

I’ve shared before that the dumbest staff meeting I’ve ever attended in my life started with a get-to-know-you question that assumed that everybody had been to Paris. We were asked to go around the table and share the name of our favorite restaurant in Paris. I wish I was kidding.

There were people at the table who had never left the state, much less traveled outside the United States. And this wasn’t merely about an inability to read the room. (LORD, help each of us read the room better.)

It’s about privilege. It’s about the sacred assumptions that everybody’s life has been like our life.

Those of us who’ve grown up with vacations and regular dental appointments and air conditioning in the summer and heated car seats in the winter often forget that not everybody grows up with this. And in Instagram World, you would think that everybody travels in the summer and eats curated meals.

My point is not that it’s bad/shameful/hoity-toity to travel or eat pretty food or fly in a plane or have a boat. My point it that I am blind to my own privilege most of the time, and maybe you are too.

We who do not believe we are privileged need to get out more and notice our neighbors – and not just the ones who look like we look.

• 12% of the U.S. population in 2023 had never flown in an airplane (as you can see in the chart above provided by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics)
• 48% of Americans have a valid passport for travel outside this country according to the U.S. Department of State (2024.)
• 22.2% of Americans have a Bachelor’s degree according to Educational Attainment Statistics (2025).
• Only 3.3% of Americans have a Doctorate or Professional degree, according to the same source. (I see all you Presbyterians with D.Min, JD, MD, DDS, PhD degrees.)

Most of the people who read this will – like me – be drenched in privilege. We are beyond fortunate. And we also have a responsibility to know and serve those who don’t have a pocketful of keys or a passport.

My first pastoral call was in a village of 400 souls and my effective salary was $18,000/year plus a manse. (Note: the town had 400 people; the church had about 120 people.)

40 years later, my salary is more than the average pastor and it feels extremely generous. And yet I work with many pastors whose salaries are not nearly enough to live on in the state of North Carolina, much less in Greater Charlotte.

Someone mentioned to me just yesterday that pastors, teachers, and doctors do not follow those callings for the money. True (although most doctors seem to be living above the poverty line.) And yet financial stresses negatively impact our ability to delight in our calling. It’s not okay if the teacher cannot afford to eat without a second job.

Our seminaries do not have the class sizes they used to have and maybe that’s because the #1 college major is Business Administration. Actually one fifth of all bachelor’s degrees are business degrees. We all know that a business degree will help land a post-college job more easily than a BA in history or art, or a seminary degree.

Maybe it’s because of financial fears (74% in U.S. believe children will be worse off than their parents according to Pew – January 2025) or maybe it’s because of optimistic aspirations (“nearly half of young adults are ‘obsessed’ with the idea of being rich” according to Fox Business News – January 2024) but majoring in business feels like a practical decision. College is an expensive privilege and it seems foolish to prepare for a career in literature or music or religious studies in a world where the cost of living keeps going up while wages remain stagnant.

The average annual living expenses in the USA now is $61,334 according to this source and the minimum starting salary for a Pastor in my Presbytery is only $58,019 with no manse/rectory. This is for a person with a 4 year college degree and a 3 year graduate degree.

Does God still call people to low paying vocations?

Do we encourage our children to major in engineering even if they feel the tug to teach school in Appalachia? Do we ignore a clear calling to design theatre sets or serve as a park ranger because we will not be able to support ourselves/our families with low incomes?

Something I’m noticing: many devout followers of Jesus are steering their children away from ministry and other non-profit professions. I have a friend whose child was excited about their call to serve – not for a season, but for a career – working with refugees in Africa. The parents essentially forbid their child from going through with it, setting him up – instead – with a family friend in real estate.

Do we say we believe that God continues to call people to serve in a variety of ways, but we actually believe that God only calls us (and our children) to jobs with six figure salaries? Are we Prosperity Gospel people deep in our hearts?

There is nothing holy about poverty. And even if we do not qualify for government cheese, it’s nice to be able to afford braces for our children or a dependable car with air conditioning.

Our least well-paid pastors where I live are among the most gifted pastors in the Church. Please know that – if we are paid well as Church Professionals – it’s sometimes more about the context (big, wealthy church) than the pastoral expertise.

Thoughts? Do we in the Church need to completely rethink how our pastors are paid? (That answer would be a big yes, but I don’t have easy answers.) Do you?

Image of the front of the meeting place of the Presbyterian United Church in Schaghticoke, New York in the Presbytery of Albany. The village now has a population of 545. The church membership is now 26 (2024 statistics.) I served the congregation from 1984-1989.

There are moments that the words don’t reach.
There is suffering too terrible to name.
You hold your child as tight as you can
And push away the unimaginable.*

Nobody wants to be in this club. Whether suffering happens because of natural disasters in the Hill Country of Texas or the mountains of North Carolina, or because of human evil manifested in school shootings, the suffering is indeed too terrible to name. And it happens in accidents and through illness. The unimaginable.

What do we do when our hearts break with these families, but it hasn’t happened personally to us? We still have our children and grandchildren. We still have our loved ones who’ve miraculously survived somehow.

We’ve been told what not to do, but we forget. Bless Kate Bowler for reminding us, but still we are imperfect and clueless empathizers.

It can’t happen right away, but I wonder if – at some time – we can share stories together. This strikes me as the role of Church in times like these.

It’s not the role of Church to fix a grieving family or expect them to bounce back or use this holy time to recite platitudes. We provide some food. We offer to run errands. We ask them how today is going – even years later, because yesterday might have been horrible but today is better.

Sharing stories seems to be one opportunity to provide space for grieving – not today, not next week and maybe not ten years from now. But maybe sometime. Maybe we who have not experienced such a depth of grief can learn from shared stories, remembering that everyone’s suffering is their own. What was soothing to one family might not be soothing to others. Maybe it would help if we invited people to share their stories. Or, if they never want to share, we accept that too.

When I was a parish pastor, we invited friends who’d endured a great measure of suffering the chance to tell their story. Every week for a season, we sat and heard people we love tell us what happened:

• The dad of twins but one of the twins died at birth.
• The spouse of a husband with early onset of dementia (i.e. his thirties).
• The mom of children who died in an accident.
• The parents of children who’d died by suicide.

We heard whatever they wanted to share. We just listened. They offered what had really helped and what didn’t. (Again, there is no perfect response. Every situation and every person is different.)

The worst thing we can do is nothing: avoid those who grieve, forget them especially during difficult seasons. We don’t have to drop by their home with a chirpy, “I know today is ____’s birthday and I thought we could go out for burgers.” Just call. Or send a note. We aren’t reminding them of something that they haven’t already remembered. We are called to love people the way they want to be loved. Ask them. And if they reject our offerings, don’t take it personally.

We can do better, Church. And we have a fresh opportunity to be Church this week. Don’t hop in the car and drive to Kerrville “to help.” Send money here or here. Let’s not make it about us. Yes, pray. And also send funds if possible. And then pray some more.

*First verse of “It’s Quiet Uptown” by Lin-Manuel Miranda from Hamilton. Image source.

You know those checklists on social media where you can check off the National Parks (or Heritage Sites or Countries) you’ve visited and then learn if you have been to more places or fewer places than the average person? I have been pondering a Proximity Checklist because I think it informs us regarding our own politics and our own theology.

Some stats:

78.6 million Americans are on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) as of March 2025 according to Medicaid.gov. This is more than the populations of California, New York and Florida combined.

71.3 million are on Medicaid only. 7.3 million are on CHIP only. This represents about one-fifth of the population in the United States.

Below is my unscientific measure of our privilege. I’m not going to ask for your “score” but let’s sit with our scores and ponder if God is calling us to expand our proximity to vulnerable people in this country.

___ I know an undocumented immigrant personally.

___ I personally know someone currently incarcerated.

___ I personally know someone who’s been released from incarceration.

___ I attended public schools.

___ I’ve attended a free or non-profit clinic for healthcare.

___ I’ve attended a free or non-profit clinic for legal services.

___ I personally know someone who is currently unhoused.

___ I have personally been unhoused at some point in my life.

___I personally know someone who struggles with mental health issues.

___ I personally struggle with mental health issues.

___ I receive or have received in the past Medicaid and/or CHIP.

___ I personally know someone who receives or has received Medicaid and/or CHIP.

___ I have personally depended on a Food Bank for food.

___ I have personally used public transportation.

___ I have been arrested.

___ I personally have a disability that impairs my ability to walk, hear, and/or see.

___ I live with someone who has a disability that impairs their ability to walk, hear, and/or see.

___I have had to make a choice about whether to buy food or medicine at some point in my life.

___ I live or have lived in a community with toxins in the water or ground.

___I have been subjected to discrimination based on my skin color.

Bryan Stevenson has famously said:

“It’s actually in proximity to the poor that we hear things that we won’t otherwise hear, that we’ll see things we won’t otherwise see. The things we hear and see are critical to our knowledge, and our capacity to problem solve.”

On this Fourth of July weekend when we enjoy food and friends and liberty, let’s consider our neighbors whose Fourth of July will not be like ours. Privilege blinds us.

A faithful parishioner concerned that her very small church might close, recently said this as proof that her congregation was alive and well:

We have continued to have worship to this day.

She was right. Through COVID, through all their pastors and even through the days when they haven’t had a pastor, the worship service has continued week after week. They pray prayers. They sing songs. They hear a sermon. They celebrate The Lord’s Supper. To her, this means that the congregation was nowhere near closing.

Sadly, she is mistaken. The last thing to go when a church is on the cusp of closing is the Sunday worship service. Literally, I have never known a church that didn’t have regular worship before deciding to shut their doors permanently.

They are not closing because the people no longer showed up for worship. Maybe there were only 6 or 7 people in the pews, but worship still happened.

They are closing because they long ago stopped serving God by serving their community.

They are not closing because “there were no young families in church on Sunday mornings.” They are closing because they never showed any tangible concern for the children outside the walls of their church building.

Worship is the last thing to go which is ironic. If the worship had reminded them that they are not a church unless they are making disciples “out there“ they would not be vulnerable to closing. If the worship had inspired them to serve “the least of these” who need food, shelter, and community, they would not be vulnerable to closing.

Church Family: yes, we are called to worship the LORD. And we are called to heal the sick, visit the imprisoned, and support the weak. The moment we stop serving our neighbors is the moment when our churches begin their – often long – journey towards shuttering their doors.

I’m sorry, but this is true.

Actually, I don’t know. There are plenty of people in church leadership roles who are kind and friendly and well-educated. But they are not strong leaders.

It’s an awkward conversation when a Church Personnel Committee asks me how they can bolster their pastor’s ability to lead. And I’m talking about Collaborative Leadership here, not Dictatorial Leadership. A good leader casts a vision that resonates with the congregation because they share an expressed common goal.

While I don’t know how to measure good leadership, I’m concerned about the Pastor’s leadership strengths when I see situations like these:

• The Music Director has been a bully through the last two pastorates. Pastor A was intimidated and allowed the Music Director to control every aspect of worship. And then Pastor B tried to build a coalition through a whisper campaign to sabotage the Music Director. A true leader addresses what needs to change for the church to be healthy. If those changes cannot happen with the current Music Director, they will need to be replaced. It’s not personal; it’s about having a healthy church staff.
• A wealthy family makes a large annual donation to the church only to then control the budget so that the donation is laundered through the church books to benefit the givers. If confronted, this family might take their money and leave the congregation. That would be their choice. But no longer is the church involved in fraud. (Note: what unethical/illegal things are we willing to do to keep bullies happy?)
• The congregation is divided about the sale of a piece of church land. One side wants to sell to the highest bidder ensuring many generations of financial security. The other side wants to sell under market rates to an organization that will build affordable housing on the property. The Church is at a standstill – and has been for years. A decision to do nothing is a decision. This is a great opportunity for the Pastor to remind the congregation who they are and what their mission is – not in a way that shames and blames one side, but in a way that brings people together. Note: there will always be a group of members who are unhappy and they might leave. God be with them.
• There is a church staff of five and nobody’s on the same page. They rarely meet as a team and they each have their own priorities. They sabotage each other if given the chance. The Head of Staff is responsible for cultivating a culture of staff unity and common practices. We don’t keep secrets from each other (unless there are legal ramifications that require such confidentiality.) We give each other credit for their ideas. We do not tolerate staff bullying.

Do you see a theme here? Good leaders are unafraid of conflict. Good leaders lovingly coach other leaders. Good leaders create a culture of trust and health.

We need more good leaders.

How can we encourage Pastors to develop their leadership skills? Pastors – listen when the Personnel Committee suggests you get a coach and ask hard questions like, “Can you share examples of times when I could have been a better leader?” And then concede that you can and will do better. And thank them for being brave enough to give helpful feedback.

Show me a congregation with excellent leaders – from the Pastors to the Elders to the Support Staff – and I’ll show you a thriving church.

As congregations seek new pastors, I read through a lot of church profiles and many of them sound the same. The dull ones merely want a preacher, a teacher, and a person to officiate at weddings, baptisms, and funerals. The more interesting ones want a pastor who will inspire and lead them. They want someone with charisma who will love them.

But – interestingly enough – I’ve recently been asking Search Committees directly what their dream candidate would be like and I keep hearing the same word: joy. “We need a joyful leader.“

Now more than ever, I see a search for joy in the midst of every dark thing happening right now. And here’s the thing about “joy” – you have to be a deeply faithful and hopeful person to have authentic joy in these days. Not all joy is real.

There is Clueless Joy. Some folks are great at smiling their way through life and not thinking about bad things. This is a misunderstanding of Philippians 4:8. It’s the kind of outlook that says – after a church conflict – “Let’s pretend this never happened.” The world is burning and the joyfully clueless deny that there’s even a camp fire.

There is Insincere Joy. Something wonderful has happened but some people only seem to be happy with us. It’s expected to congratulate people when the surgery is successful, the baby is healthy, and the wedding is celebrated. But there’s no twinkle in their eyes with us. There’s no genuine full-body smile. There are no tears of gratitude as if the trials have been their own. Sincere joy alongside God’s people is one of the best parts of ministry but I see some pastors seem nonplussed by Good News.

And then there is Authentic Joy. This kind of joy is based on a deep faith that trusts God to work in the midst of devastation. God is not magic. God does not grant a carefree life to the faithful. But the faithful weirdly experience deep authentic joy nevertheless. Only the Spirit can help us with this and if I can’t pull up authentic joy in the throes of overwhelming shock or grief, maybe you can stand with me and bring it.

I am consistently feeling ruined by the truth of immigrants living in terror and the vulnerable faced with no food, no healthcare, no shelter. Every day government officials seem to relish in abject cruelty with no concern for the poor. A steady diet of this can drain any of us of hope.

And so we need leaders with authentic joy who can nourish a culture of community and belonging and unconditional love. Yes, solid preachers and teachers educate us and – we hope – inspire us. But who we are at our core – human beings with that deep, real joy – brings people together in a common Body. That Body is glued together to fight darkness in the name of the one True God.

Photo of our sweet Spense who exuded joy most days before passing away in February 2025.

Actually I don’t want any criminals roaming freely in my neighborhood – documented or not. This accusation was hurled at me recently – that I want unrestrained criminals pillaging our nation because I believe that ICE officers are acting like the Secret Police. We don’t do Secret Police in this country.

I feel moved to point out to people who like what ICE is doing that they do not understand the law.

As my sister AAM says, “Every day’s a school day.” And so I invite us all to learn something about immigration law in this fine –but we-can-do-better – country.

Some of those being arrested are not “illegal” much less “criminal.” Some of those arrested are actually citizens of this country, because they’ve been erroneously labeled terrorists, gang members, and pedophiles. And the agents arresting the immigrants – or ostensible immigrants – are masked men in unmarked white vans.

This is the problem, the illegality, and the sin of it.

Can you – friendly citizen – imagine an ICE agent handcuffing you and taking you to a detention facility on your way to work today? Probably not. It probably won’t happen to any of us, especially if our complexion and life situation is considered unsuspicious. But it’s possible.

It happened to Juan Carlos Lopez Gomez in Florida. He was born in Georgia and he was held for 48 hours before being released by a judge who “found no basis for the charge.” It also happened to these U.S. citizens: Job Garcia in California. Jose Castro in New York. Adrian Andrew Martinez in California. Abel Orozco Ortega in Illinois.

Friends here is the actual truth and the law in this country:

• Citizens of the United States of America have the right to speak freely, to practice whatever religion we choose, and to assemble peaceably. This means we can criticize our political leaders out loud, on paper, and online. We cannot threaten them of course. But we can express our disagreement/disgust/disappointment freely. We can peaceably protest anything we wish, according to local laws (i.e. we might need a permit.) And we can worship cantaloupes if we want to. Also true: we cannot assume that our Christian church bells are okay any more than a Muslim congregation cannot assume that their Call to Prayer from their Muezzin is okay. It depends.
• Another fun fact: It’s not just “citizens” who have rights under the First Amendment of The Constitution. Any person physically in this country has those rights even if they are undocumented. Even. If. They. Are. Undocumented.
• There are several ways a non-citizen can be documented (i.e. legally in this country.)
  • Green Card/Permanent Resident Card – People qualify for this based on family, employment, and following U.S. laws. They pay Social Security and can receive Social Security payments and Medicare. They cannot vote.
  • TRS/Temporary Resident Status – People qualify for this if they are students, traveling, or working. They pay Social Security (if employed) but are not eligible to receive benefits/Medicare when they retire/are disabled. They cannot vote. There are several kinds of TRS:
    • Student Visa – foreign nationals get this to study in the U.S.
    • Visitor Visa – you and your family are traveling from another country to visit Disney World.
    • Work Visa – Foreign nationals working in the U.S. or those with permission to work in the U.S.
    • Temporary Protected Status – There’s a war or a natural disaster in your country and you cannot safely be there. You must appear in immigration court to check in regularly.*
  • Asylum/Refugee Status – You need to prove you could be harmed if returned to your home country. The application document is called Form I-589 and you need the receipt of that app doc to carry around to prove you are “legal.” If asylum is granted, you get Form I-94 with a stamp that will state something like “asylum granted indefinitely.” They are eligible for Social Security benefits. They cannot vote.

The evil thing happening is that many of those being arrested/detained are actually in the United States legally:

Mahmoud Khalil is a green card holder. He was arrested for speaking out about Palestinian rights as a Columbia University student. He was not charged with a crime. He was not guilty of protesting violently. He spent 104 days in detention in Louisiana (he lives in NY) and his infant son was born during his incarceration. He missed his son’s birth.

Luis Carlos Jose Marcano Silva had asylum status. He was mistaken for a gang member, arrested, and sent to a prison in El Salvador where he’s been since March. He was given “little or no due process under a little-known (1798) law called the Alien Enemies Act. … invoked by President Donald Trump for the first time since World War II.” His family has not heard from him since the day of his arrest.

Rumeysa Ozturk has a student visa. She’s a Fulbright scholar studying at Tufts when – in March – she was seized by ICE agents with weapons and shoved into an unmarked van (aka a kidnapping in most places). The reason: she wrote an op-ed in the student newspaper criticizing her university’s response to the violence in Gaza. In spite of her own First Amendment rights, Ms. Ozturk was detained in a Louisiana prison for 6 weeks before being released.

Legal residents of the USA are being arrested and placed in faraway detention centers, sometimes in other countries. These are not terrorists or criminals of any kind.

*What feels especially cruel is that immigrants with legal Temporary Protected Status are showing up in immigration court to renew their status – which is expected of them – only to have a judge randomly cancel their status making them immediately vulnerable to arrest. This is happening everywhere.

What can we do to stop this?

• Be knowledgeable about our constitutional rights. Even non-citizens are supposed to be protected under the law.
• Escort immigrants as they go to court for their scheduled check-ins. This has protected several immigrants. Be like Bishop Pham in San Diego.
• Contact our elected officials. Whether you suspect they agree or disagree with the current ICE raids, make our voices heard.

Or we can continue to assume that all immigrants are criminals. Or we can sit in the comfort of our coffee shops and work places and homes and not think about these neighbors at all.

Image of Mahmoud Khalil whose letter from prison is here. He has now been released, thanks be to God.