I was going to write a totally different blog today about our strong and hardy walking group braving the
morning's winter cold but a friend sent me this article from the Washington Post that I knew as soon as
I read it I wanted to share with all my friends. I am not particularly religious but Right Rev. Mariann
Budde will restore your faith in humanity. The article is written by Ron Charles:
“And God said, Let there be light.” On Tuesday morning, a slight, 65-year-old woman
standing in the National Cathedral looked at Donald Trump and gently pleaded with him to show
mercy to frightened children and poor laborers and victims of war.
For the Right Rev. Mariann Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, it was a sacred moment
to preach the message of love to the new president of the United States.
But for Trump and other Americans who have rammed the Gospels through the eye of a needle,
the invocation of Jesus’ message was an outrage.
Trump was seated in the front row of the congregation, but he was still too far away from Budde
to grab her by the pulpit. Once he’d been carried back to his nest of sycophants, though, he
proclaimed on Truth Social: “The so-called Bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service on
Tuesday morning was a Radical Left hard line Trump hater. She brought her church into the
World of politics in a very ungracious way. She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart.”
“Nasty” — the First Felon’s go-to slur for women who intimidate him — is a ludicrous
description of Budde, who is clearly animated by intelligence, grace and courage.
Courage, in fact, is a theme in her books, which I started reading on Tuesday after Rep. Mike
Collins (R-Georgia) said Budde should be deported.
In her first book, “Gathering Up the Fragments” (2009), Budde seems to anticipate this week’s
backlash. “While some would prefer their clergy never mention politics,” she writes, “scripture
makes it clear that we who speak in God’s name must address the pressing social concerns of our
time.”
“Gathering Up the Fragments” is a collection of reflections and suggestions for composing
sermons, but I still found it surprisingly relevant to those of us working outside the church.
“We can’t respond to everything, but with courage we can respond to some things,” Budde
writes. “‘Be strong, do not fear!’ Live boldly. Love well. Who knows, if through our efforts,
imperfect as they are, we might save another’s life? Who knows? The life we save, with our
imperfect love, may be our own.” If that last line reminds you of a book by Paul Elie or a short
story by Flannery O’Connor, you’re right. In all her books, Budde moves like the seasoned
preacher she is, harvesting stories from the Bible for guidance, inspiration and metaphor. But
she’s also deftly attentive to a wide variety of religious and secular writers in the modern age. As
a lifelong note-taker, she always has apt references and quotations at hand — from Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King Jr., Thomas Merton, Louise Erdrich, Doris Kearns Goodwin,
Anne Lamott, Peter Gomes, Marilynne Robinson and many more.
Courage, in fact, is a theme in her books, which I started reading on Tuesday after Rep. Mike
Collins (R-Georgia) said Budde should be deported.
In her first book, “Gathering Up the Fragments” (2009), Budde seems to anticipate this week’s
backlash. “While some would prefer their clergy never mention politics,” she writes, “scripture
makes it clear that we who speak in God’s name must address the pressing social concerns of our
time.”
Coincidentally, Budde’s most recent book, “How We Learn to Be Brave,” begins with her
previous entanglement with Trump. In 2020, the president used St. John’s Church, across from
the White House, as the backdrop for a stunt to publicize his threats against Americans protesting
the killing of George Floyd. Horrified by the president’s rhetoric, Budde spoke out strongly and
publicly: “Everything he has said and done is to inflame violence.” Suddenly, she was an
international hero — and a pariah.
“It seemed to others that I was being very brave,” she writes. “In truth, it felt more like being
summoned to take my place alongside others who were being brave.... The courage to be brave
when it matters most requires a lifetime of small decisions that set us on a path of self-awareness,
attentiveness, and willingness to risk failure for what we believe is right.”
There’s no boasting about her bouts of fame. Wrestling with chronic pain and confounded by the
paradoxes of theodicy, she’s always ready in “How We Learn to Be Brave” to confess her own
shortcomings and the temptations of pride. “When stepping up to the plate in the public arena,”
she notes, “there is always the risk of focusing on the response, as if media attention determines
the merit or impact of our actions.”
She knows it doesn’t. What matters often takes place far off-stage. When Budde writes about my
favorite Anne Tyler novel, “Saint Maybe,” I had that electric feeling of the preacher talking
directly to me. From Tyler’s poignant story, she learned, as I did, that “faithfulness isn’t always
about taking big leaps, but also walking with small steps, and that it’s possible to make a lasting
difference in the world by tending to one small corner of it.”
And so, Budde cradles our doubts and reassures us that cowardice is natural but never final in the
long arc of salvation. “The message throughout Scripture is that whenever God, or life itself,
issues the summons, it’s normal to feel both unworthy and unprepared, but it doesn’t matter,” she
writes. “We are to step into the gap between our current capacity and what’s needed anyway.
“This country needs leaders now, and citizens who can face things as they are, work to change
what can be changed, and not give up hope for the future.” Amen. ❖