To the editor:

“Amahl and the Night Visitors” should have been shown widely in support of the protesters. While it is a Christmas story, it also carries in dramatic form a strong secular message about the inequality between the rich and the poor.  

It is an operetta about the three wise men traveling across the desert to Bethlehem bringing presents to the Christ child. They stop to rest in the tent of Amahl, the crippled child, and his mother and display and talk about the gifts they are carrying to Bethlehem. Amahl is fascinated by the visitors and their story. His mother, however, cries out an anguished, heartbreaking aria, “My child, my child who is hungry and has only a tree branch for a crutch.”

While it is a Christmas story, it carries a secular message for the world, especially for those who could not participate in the frenzied buying of the season.