Quiet Resistance
In RESIST, I share a family story that has shaped how I understand faithful resistance. It’s simple and true.
My grandparents—Ruth and Saul—survived the Holocaust, spent a season in Ecuador, and eventually made a home in New Britain, Connecticut. I never met Papa Saul; he died before I was born. But I was very close to Nana Ruth, and most of what I know about their life together comes from her and from our family.
From Nana, I learned that resistance can look like making a home and keeping a place at the table. After a history that tried to erase them, they chose presence rather than disappearance. Nana’s steadiness—the way she gathered family, tended relationships, and made room—was not about slogans or platforms. It was about belonging as a daily practice.
Here’s what I carry from their story, as I tell it in the book:
Rootedness after rupture. Their decision to start again—in Ecuador and then in Connecticut—was a refusal to vanish.
Welcome as witness. An open table said, “We’re still here—and there is space for you.”
Care as protest. Tending to family, neighbors, and the future pushed back against the harm they had endured.
I didn’t know Papa Saul personally, but his part in this story matters: he and Nana built a life that made room—and Nana kept that room open. Her example is why RESIST frames Christian resistance as practiced love, radical kinship, and non-violence. It’s why I return so often to tables and community: because that is where I first learned what defiant hope looks like.
No added details, no imagined scenes—just the truth I received. If this resonates, try one simple step this week: make space at your table for someone who needs it. That, too, is resistance.
