WE CAN BE BRAVE

Thoughts and reflections from an Episcopalian bishop who has drawn the ire of the current Presidential administration for remonstrating with its tone and values.

Boiled down only a little from the most recent edition of Budde’s How We Learn To Be Brave (2023, 2025), this version for younger audiences calls on literary examples like Frodo and Harry Potter, along with biblical and historical ones from Esther and Eleanor Roosevelt to Martin Luther King Jr., to show courage in action, but most of the discourse’s more rarefied intellectual foundations remain intact. While meditating on topics such as the central importance of persistence, of (as a chapter head puts it) “Stepping Up to the Plate,” and of accepting the reality of suffering and failure in the course of our personal “courageous journey,” the author draws insights from not only her own experiences but, to pick a few, Ignatian spirituality, the interracial ministry of Howard Thurman, and womanist theologian Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas. It’s heavy going, but an emphatic foreword from Bliss, himself a theologian, and an eloquent opening plea to honor “the inherent dignity of every human being” in the face of a burgeoning “culture of contempt” may provide enough impetus for serious and concerned readers to stay the course.

Not easy reading, but certainly timely, and as compassionate as it is cerebral.