In Response to an Anonymous Letter

Dear Anonymous,

I am writing this response to you, and posting it in my blog, because I don’t know of any other way in which I can communicate with you.

I wish you had signed your letter and had not remained anonymous. If I knew who you were, I could invite you to have coffee or lunch and we could talk. I think it would be an enjoyable lunch or coffee, and we could very quickly iron out our differences.

First, let me say that many of my ministerial colleagues take anonymous letters and toss them into the garbage pail because they believe that if a person will not put their name to what they are writing, then the anonymous letter is not worth reading.

Second, I do believe that your letter is not only worth reading, but it should have a sensitive response from me. Let me say that I thank you for bringing up the points that you did; as you will see in my response. I thank you for many of your comments and have gained from them.

But first, let me deal with one of your key objections. You said you were unsettled and thought it was undermining to see that the Phoenix Rising meetings on Zoom were being recorded.

If we were having lunch, I think I could deal with this concern of yours in less than 30 seconds. The Phoenix Rising sessions are NOT being recorded! What happened is that during the Thursday morning meeting you mentioned, I faced three different traffic jams in an effort to get to SLC. They were doing serious roadwork on Elk Grove Boulevard, 99 was backed up, and Watt Avenue was bumper-to-bumper.

I knew I wouldn’t make it to SLC on time, so I pulled off and parked in a parking lot. Unfortunately there was very poor Wi-Fi and I only saw one bar on my phone. As you may remember, I kept on getting kicked off the Zoom meeting and I could not make permanent contact.

During one of the times that I was bumped off the Zoom meeting I frantically pushed buttons in an effort to reconnect. Unfortunately, one of the buttons that I pushed by accident was the record button. I quickly noticed my mistake and stopped the recording. Furthermore, I erased the 15 seconds or so that had been recorded.

I hope the above explanation allays your concerns about Phoenix Rising and recordings. Also, I am a single parent of my young daughter, so I cannot leave my house before 7:45 a.m. when she goes to school.

In your anonymous letter, you also said that I did not do a good enough job explaining the ground rules of the Phoenix Rising group. Well, in certain areas, I believe that “the customer is always right.” I have done some soul-searching as to how I could have done a better job laying out the ground rules and basic agreements. I want everyone to feel that Phoenix Rising is a safe place.

I wish you could have been at the meeting after I read your letter. I started that meeting with going over the ground rules again with your comments very much in mind — and thank you for making them!

You also said in your letter that you had gone back to the powers that be in the Commonwealth of Virginia and could not find my fiancé, Peg Sorrentino, listed as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW).

Let me assure you that Peg was a LCSW in the Commonwealth of Virginia for many years. Peg has every intention of moving to, and living in, the great state of California. She has stopped seeing patients in Virginia, and therefore has stopped registering as an LCSW in Virginia.

Similarly, for many years, I was a member in very good standing with the American Economics Association (AEA). But when I entered Unity Institute & Seminary, I let my AEA membership lapse. However, at times I still call myself an Economist. I hope you don’t mind me doing this. For what it is worth, my prediction about when rates would start coming down proved to be very accurate.

I look forward to more communications with you in the future, and I do hope that they will not be anonymous. I have been meeting with many people from SLC. Some meetings have been at SLC, while other meetings have been in coffee shops and restaurants. I have also visited with several people in their homes. I jokingly say that I am one of the few remaining doctors who does make house calls.

So I ask you to please call SLC, and let’s arrange a time and date when we can meet. Also, I do hope that you will come back to the Phoenix Rising group.

I do think that dialogues are more useful than monologues—and an anonymous letter is like a monologue. The speaker of a monologue does not learn anything new. However, the speaker/listener in a dialogue can learn a great deal.

Many blessings,

Rev. Rick