My wife checked out a book from our local public library that I ended up reading. She had heard an online interview with the author, The Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde, an Episcopal priest who is currently serving as the head of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington (District of Columbia). The book is entitled, How We Learn to Be Brave: Decisive Moments of Life and Faith.
Bishop Budde is perhaps best known for delivering the homily at the January 2025 interfaith prayer service following President Donald Trump's second presidential inauguration (see the transcript of the homily here). The theme of her homily was, poignantly enough, unity. She said that unity is "the threshold requirement for people to live together in a free society." She went on to say that unity is not conformity, and it is not partisan. She said, "Unity is a way of being with one another that encompasses and respects differences, that teaches us to hold multiple perspectives and life experiences as valid and worthy of respect; that enables us, in our communities and in the halls of power, to genuinely care for one another even when we disagree."
Bishop Budde also said that we should not be naive to the realities of politics. As I've stated before (see "Political Animals"), politics is really about how people in a group make decisions, even when people in the group want different things or don't agree. She said, "When power, wealth and competing interests are at stake; when views of what America should be are in conflict; when there are strong opinions across a spectrum of possibilities and starkly different understandings of what the right course of action is, there will be winners and losers when votes are cast or decisions made that set the course of public policy and the prioritization of resources. It goes without saying that in a democracy, not everyone’s particular hopes and dreams will be realized in a given legislative session or a presidential term or even a generation. Not everyone’s specific prayers—for those of us who are people of prayer—will be answered as we would like."
Bishop Budde suggests that there are (at least) three characteristics that are foundational to unity in our world today: (1) Honoring the inherent dignity of every human being, (2) honesty, and (3) humility. She then goes on to say, "Unity is relatively easy to pray for on occasions of solemnity. It’s a lot harder to realize when we’re dealing with real differences in the public arena. But without unity, we are building our nation’s house on sand" (note that she used, as pretext, a passage from the Bible, Matthew 7:24-29).
At the end of her homily, she admonishes President Trump "to have mercy on the people in our country who are scared now (specifically referring to the members of the LGBTQ+ community, immigrants, and refugees, stating, "Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were once strangers in this land." As you can imagine, her homily was not well-received by the current administration (for more, see the transcript of an interview she gave later that same week for NPR). Regardless, the overall message that she delivered - the need for unity - is one that we all should embrace, regardless of our political leanings.
Her book was first published in 2023, so it first came out before the January 2025 homily. The theme of the book is fittingly appropriate given her message in the homily. She talks at length about the need for courage in order to be brave (in her own personal case, the courage to be brave to speak up for unity and justice in our country). She provides a number of anecdotes, both from her personal experience and from various walks of life.
For example, she mentions J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy, The Lord of the Rings and cites a passage from the first book of the trilogy (The Fellowship of the Ring). Interestingly enough, I've mentioned this passage as well in a previous post (see "I wish"). The characters Frodo and Gandalf are speaking with each other during their passage through the Mines of Moria. Frodo is lamenting the fact that the burden of carrying the ring to Mordor has somehow fallen on him, saying "I wish it need not have happened in my time." Gandalf responds with what I think is a powerful message, "So do I, and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
Later in the same conversation, Gandalf tells Frodo, "There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of evil, Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, in which case you also were meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought."
Bishop Budde explains further by adding, "We do not choose where we are in the human story, only how we live in the time we are given." The way I would summarize this particular point, and I think it's an important lesson for all of us who live in "interesting times", and especially for those of us in leadership during "interesting times", is that whether we like it or not, or even whether we feel adequately prepared for it or not, we may be living in times that we did not choose. We may be faced with challenges that we did not want. We may be called upon to solve problems that we feel that we cannot solve. What is important is that we accept our circumstances (a very Stoic sentiment), focus on our own personal responsibility (i.e., "focus on what we can control"), and empower ourselves by choosing to act ("clear the mechanism"), regardless of whether we think it will make a difference or not. More than likely, our actions will make a difference.
While Bishop Budde didn't mention it, there is another passage from Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings that I think is important to mention here. This particular passage is from the second book of the trilogy (The Two Towers), and it's often referred to as "Sam's Great Stories Speech". Here, Samwise Gamgee is helping Frodo carry the ring to Mordor. Frodo starts by saying, "I can't do this, Sam."
Sam replies, "I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy. How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad happened. But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something."
Frodo asks, "What are we holding on to Sam?" To which, Sam replies, "That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for..."
It's a beautiful sentiment, and one that I think is consistent with Bishop Budde's theme of having the courage to be brave. She ends her book with a short prayer:
"My prayer is that, by grace, we all will be emboldened to lean into the wisdom, strength, power, and grace that comes to us, whenever we find ourselves at a decisive moment. May you and I dare to believe that we are where we are meant to be when that moment comes, doing the work that is ours to do, fully present to our lives. For it is in this work that we learn to be brave."
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