We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - The Woman Who Spoke Truth To Trump: Bishop Budde

Episode Date: May 8, 2025

409. The Woman Who Spoke Truth To Trump: Bishop Budde Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, during President Trump's inauguration service, delivered a powerful sermon on unity and directly appealed to the President for mercy on behalf of vulnerable communities. Today, she joins us to discuss her courageous stand and explore how we can embody both strength and compassion in our own lives.​ -How to carry your despair and cynicism instead of handing it to others -Exposing the lies of partisanship and how to fight for dignity for all​ -The “sin of empathy”? The chilling rise of this idea in Christian Nationalist circles -Why not knowing what to do in this political moment is part of the preparation​ Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde serves as spiritual leader for the Episcopal congregations and schools in the District of Columbia and four Maryland counties that comprise the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. The first woman elected to this position, she also serves as the chair of the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation which oversees the ministries of the Washington National Cathedral and Cathedral schools. She is an advocate and organizer in support of justice, including racial equity, gun violence prevention, immigration reform, the full inclusion of LGBTQ+ persons, and the care of creation. She is the author of three books; the most recent, How We Learn to Be Brave: Decisive Moments in Life and Faith, was published in 2023. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On January 21st, the day after President Trump's second inauguration, President Trump, Vice President Vance, and their wives sat in the front row of Washington National Cathedral, flanked by their families and hundreds of supporters, for the traditional post-inauguration prayer service. Presiding over the service and delivering the sermon was the right Reverend Bishop Marion Edgar Buddy, the first woman elected to that position. She stood in the pulpit and gave a 15-minute sermon on unity. Not, as she said, a unity of agreement or conformity or victory or passivity,

but a unity that serves the common good, that is a threshold requirement for people to live together in a free society. Then, in two minutes of breathtaking bravery, before the 1,000 attendees and millions watching on television around the globe, she locked eyes with the most powerful man on earth, addressed him personally, and spoke a plea of such long absent moral clarity, leadership, and courage that it was like staring straight into the sun. Like a kid who stands up to a bully on a playground, stepping between the bully and her friends to take the hits so her friends might not have to. Let's listen. Let me make one final plea, Mr. President.

Millions have put their trust in you. And as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country. We're scared now. There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in democratic, republican, and independent families, some who fear for their lives. Democratic, Republican, and independent families. Some who fear for their lives. And the people.

The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals. They may not be citizens or have the proper documentation. But the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors.

They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues, wadara, and temples. I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away, and that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here.

Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we will all want strangers in this land. We have a lot to learn from you, Reverend Buddy, and we are so thankful that you are here. Thank you. It's good to be here. Really honored to meet you, the three of you. Thank you. We just gotta gather ourselves for a second. And that's the podcast. Thank you so much. Go get her book.

She's Louise. Oh my God. Go get her book. She's Louise. I think, I mean, you spoke that day to so many of us who feel terrified and angry and exhausted and who feel abandoned, frankly, by leadership, wondering where it is. And I think most people right now, we're asking ourselves, we're asking each other, like, what are we going to do? What are we actually going to do? And how are we going to get through it? So it feels like the what and the how are both so important. And I just wonder if you could share with us

the way that you're thinking about your what and your how for this time. Well, every day I think about it. And with the same range of emotions that you described and a few besides, I have learned in my life, in my sixties now that it's helpful for me to know my lane, you know, and my identity and my work and to stay there and to speak from there as clearly as I can and not try to venture into other realms where I don't have the same grounding and knowledge base, all of those things, relationships and all of those things. And so I feel that my what and my how are rooted in the leadership responsibilities

and practices that I have. And so in that instance, I mean, obviously I have this periodic opportunity to speak to elected officials. It doesn't happen very often, by the way, this is not my day job, but it happened. You know, I mean, it happens and I've had some practice at it. So I know kind of what that's like, but just like anytime you're standing in front of a group of people who are experiencing

the whole range of emotions, which I know all of you have done, it's trying to get a sense of, okay, what is the task in that moment? Other things you mentioned standing with my friends. I mean, there is something about acknowledging the full range of humanity that is present in this country, and not to mention the world,

and to not only protect or speak up for, but to encourage sports, celebrate the richness of human experience and of legitimacy. And there are just so many ways in what Tim Shriver and others have called this culture of contempt, where we just

are practicing dehumanization. And when that comes from the highest levels of power, it just gives everybody permission to do that. And so to not only add another or to speak or to live out another alternative, but to try and encourage a kind of human discourse and relationship where we don't necessarily have to see the world the same way, but we can all agree that we all belong to this world, right? That we're all fellow humans in this blessed space, we call life, and that we don't have the right

to deny anyone else their rightful place to be fully themselves. And then the rest of my job and the rest of my why is to build up communities of resilience, communities of, in my case, communities of faith that are living out the best of the principles of the gospel of Jesus, but those that translate into building up the common good wherever we find ourselves. So that's my why, or that's my how, my what. Everybody has their own place and their own calling.

And part of what I'm hoping is that we can honor that in each other and encourage each other in that really sacred work. You teach so much about, I mean, your book is how we learn to be brave. Like, it is not something that you're born with. There are not brave people and unbrave people, but there are people who now would like to be brave in this moment, where do we start in whatever lane we're in? If we're a teacher, if we're a parent, if we're a community member, wherever we are, what is the first step?

What is the texture? How do we know we're on the path of that? Right. Right. That's a good question. I think each one of us can look back and remember times when we were brave in the past. Even if we're like four years old, we can remember when we did something for the first time.

That's what I love about just the story of human development is that you just see it lived out, that we all have to do things we've never done before from the earliest we can remember. So there's that, just kind of taking stock of where we have been brave in the past and what it feels like. You know, Glenn and I've been reading your book,

Untamed, and not only the stories that you tell about yourself, but about your children, those moments when you can watch them and they're making their choices and they're not the same choices, right? So what's the choice in one situation for one person that is courage or bravery, maybe something completely different for another. So it's hard to be formulaic about it. But I think some of the common denominators are that it's rooted in an experience that either begins in a feeling of building internal crisis, like something is moving us that has a kind of crisis element to it, to the point where we can't stay where we are anymore in whatever form, or we can't stay in a place of indecision, but we have to get

to that readiness point and it's not comfortable. Or the other side is something beckons us from afar that just, you just feel like it has your name on it and you just know that you're meant to start walking toward that. So those are just two ways internally that you know something is stirring. And then the other thing that I turned to, I learned most things by imitating other people, or watching other people that I admire, and maybe even envy a little bit,

because I think envy even is a way of our inner life telling us that there's something in us that's undeveloped. There are a lot of things, amazing things that people do that I admire, but it doesn't knock me off my game one bit. But every once in a while, it's like, darn, that's really amazing. And that actually is something in me that's saying, why aren't you paying attention to that inside yourself?

So there are all kinds of inner cues. And then I think the other, which we need to think about a lot, and maybe those of you who have opinions about this, when we know that something's not right around us, and as you said, it's being treated as normal, right? When things are being normalized, that we have some kind of moral compass that says, you know what, that is just not right. And we teach our children with stories like the emperor has new clothes, right?

I mean, what is anybody gonna say that this guy has no clothes on? Is anyone going to do something? And there is something about that that says, like, I can't save the world, but I can do one thing. And why the heck am I not doing that, right? And so there's a kind of, I don't know, a motivation to at least do something.

I don't know. So those are some of the avenues that I think of. I think that what you're talking about in terms of bravery, I think that there's a step that we don't necessarily really dive deep into. And it's the moment of jumping off into the unknown, into the abyss, right? And I think that this is one of the moments,

at least in my life, and watching you up in the pulpit speaking your truth to power, you had to let go and have no idea what is on the other side. And I'd like to explore that a little bit. Like where does that live within you and how do you take that leap of faith in order to prove the bravery within yourself exists?

Well, the image I have is like just standing at the edge of a diving board, right? And at some points you're either gonna have to go back down the ladder or you're gonna have to jump, right? And I find it terrifying every time. So it's not like, you know, it gets easier with time. I think it actually, in some ways it doesn't change or maybe even gets harder, I don't know.

So there's that, there is that sense of, sometimes life pushes you, right? Like you really, I mean, at least in my experience, I don't really feel like I have a choice. It's just what presents itself. And, and there's even a, and I write about this a little bit in the book, there's even a sense of like, you're not really thinking anymore. You're moving more by muscle memory or instinct or just the reality of the moment. So it could be any number of those things. Though I do believe, and I think your lives

have been a testimony to this as well, there are long seasons of preparation when you don't think anything especially dramatic is happening at all. And yet looking back in retrospect, it's like, oh, actually I was being prepared for this. This wasn't just a happenstance thing. And part of the preparation is is failing a lot at trying brave things

and getting back up and realizing it didn't kill you to to try something big and fail. And in some ways, you'd rather fail at trying the thing than living with yourself. And you also know that I know that feeling, too. It's like when you let the moment pass and you didn't do anything, it just feels, that feels really- The worst. Like that's not a place I wanna stay in.

So there are all kinds of things that lead up to and give us opportunities to practice this. That's why I like the learning part because this is a lifelong learning. And if we focus too much on those moments as important as they are, we miss the arc of all the things that lead up to it and then frankly the things that come after. Can we talk about the preparation period? Because when you're saying the preparation period, I'm thinking of the last few months of my life, which has basically been day after day of some of the most brave, beautiful,

amazing activists and artists just sitting with me in my house. Just for the first time that I've ever seen them this way, blank, bawling, confused, just sitting and crying together, which everyone separately feels. I can feel a panic in each person that's why do I not know what to do? I always know what to do, why do I not know what to do? But is it possible that sadness and sitting in broken heartedness

is part of the preparation? Because it's like the more sensitive people are, the more broken-hearted they are in the face of this, and then they think that's weakness. But to me, it feels like the people that have the greatest sadness right now are the ones we need eventually the most. It's like the sadness inside is the difference. It's the gap between what we know could be

and what we're seeing is. And the deeper your sadness is, it's because you have that vision. And so sometimes I feel like worthless in my sadness and then usually there comes a moment where I find myself speaking or doing and I can always look back and think, oh my god that was the wilderness for me, that sadness was the 40 days in the desert or if people are sad right now they could just be preparing. Thank you for that. There's no shortcut to that grieving process in a true death experience. And I think we are, I feel that, and the not knowing. And frankly, the helplessness that one feels in the darkest hours. There's this line in

the gospels where Jesus is basically facing, and I can't remember who he's facing, Pontius Pilate, somebody who has all the power, right? Somebody who has all the power and he's about to die. And he basically says something like, this is when darkness rules, right? This is the hour when darkness rules. And he's like, and he didn't fight it. You know, it's like he just didn't fight it.

And it feels, you know, you could say, well, that's passivity and well, maybe, but it also could be surrender in that moment to live through that and wait for the other forces of the universe represented by the resurrection that will not allow evil to have the final word. I mean, that's a faith statement. I say that as a believing Christian, but I think that human mythology, that's what keeps our species going, which is the worst thing that happens, will not have the final say. And so as people, I mean, that's what faith is. I mean, faith isn't like things are going to turn out okay. Faith is the worst thing

that can happen. And if you still have breath inside you, you're going to get up and be part of the solution. But while the destruction is happening, which, Amanda, frankly, we're still living in it, right? We are living in a time of destruction that is being celebrated, right? That is being celebrated and that is being controlled by significant forces of, allying forces that will benefit or think they will benefit from a complete reorganization of our society. And so hats off to all of them, right?

That's what they believe. But we're watching the fallout and the close, as you said, Glenn, and the closest we are to that, the grief of that. And then also all the things that we thought would stop it, didn't. Right. And there's some, obviously, lots of thoughts of what could we have done differently? Why didn't, you know, what happened? If we're honest, like what mistakes did we make?

I mean, all those things that you just have to go through. And in the end, I don't know. I mean, I don't know what will happen next, but I'm determined. I do believe and that's I think one of the reasons why the sermon resonated the way it did is because it was talking about something that wasn't a foreign concept, right? I mean, frankly, it's not that different a sermon that you would have heard in like a lot of churches, but just to say, look, you know what? There are some things that we know are true. And just saying them, it's like, you know what? These are foundational principles. These are not some radical leftist anti-Trump

woke idea. This is like pretty mainstream compassion, right? The pillars of human decency. So that gives me some sense of like, all right, well, at least there's something to be said for being that kind of a pillar, right? Like, we're not going to let some of these things go. And we have to be aware that there's a whole new future out there that we cannot see. And I don't know how it's going to go. But I'm going to be a person until my last breath, particularly now, since I've got so many people coming up behind me, I'm not going to ask people to carry my despair or my cynicism for me. I'm going to carry whatever I have to carry, I'll carry for myself, but I'm not going to

ask those coming up behind me to carry it for me because I want them to have as much power and wind in their sails as they can because frankly, they've got the heavier lift. Yeah, they do. That's good. Say more about that. I've never heard anyone say that. What does it look like to make other people carry your despair and grief?

Well, I mean, well, it's like, you know, it's just so easy to be cynical, right? It's just so easy to be cynical and to be despondent. And I'm not saying that I'm not, and we all need places like your kitchen table where we can just sob and cry and just do that, right? But I'm not going to do that in front of my kids. My kids are in their 30s.

I'm not going to do that in front of them. I mean, I might acknowledge that I'm really sad, but I'm not going to lie to them. But I'm also not to ask them to take care of me in that, right? I want to self-regulate to such a degree that I have to take that to my God, to my prayer, to my inner circle of friends and support. I'm not saying I'm denying it, because I'm not. But when I'm outwardly focused and think, what good can I do in the world, I'm going to lean toward hope and empowerment and clear-eyed what's happening, but never giving way to the contempt that's coming toward us.

Like, I'm not going there. I am not going there. I don't know if you've been following Tim Shriver and all of his work around dignity and the Dignity Index and all of that, but for me, that was just such a beautiful way to express, look, we're all on this spectrum and we can all treat one another

with varying degrees of dignity or varying degrees of contempt. And it's easy to do. So why not practice dignity? Why not practice compassion and respect, even when hatred is coming toward you? Now, not everybody can do that. I sure as heck can't do it all the time. But as an aspirational way to live, as Dr. King said, hate is too big a burden to bear.

I'd never been able to choose love. And it doesn't work to dehumanize other people because they are dehumanizing us. I've tried. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It's a, it's as, as a tactic, it's not very effective. It might feel good for a minute, but yeah. And satire has its place. I do love a good joke, but I have to be careful. And again, like I'm a public figure, so I need to be really as you want me to be really careful, you know, because, and I don't mean just like in front

of the microphones and the camera, but like I'm greeting people in church on Sunday. And if I look at people in an off color, you know, just because I'm distracted, they can interpret that as like, oh my gosh, she's mad at me. Right? So I just, I think there is, you learn some sort of self-regulation to say, I'm not going to ask, to get back to your question, I'm not going to ask you to carry my inner work for me. I'm actually going to take responsibility for that myself as best I can so that I can focus on you and how you're doing, right? And how we're doing together.

I mean, as a tactic to that posture towards the world, like I think that's why I listened to that part of your speech, I don't know, 50 times. But it was so hard for me to actually watch it, to look at you. And I think there was something so different because there was no indignation, you weren't inflamed, you were speaking utterly unarmed of anger or outrage. You were speaking You were speaking fearlessly, but about the thing you feared the most. And I couldn't handle that level of, because I think for so many of us, the outrage is a shield.

The anger, the righteousness, the, you're horrible and I know better, is some kind of armament. But there was something so pure about what you were doing that I was like, oh no, is that the way? Oh no! Give us another way! Do I have to do that? It seemed like the hardest thing on the planet because I can be, you know, snarky to say the least. Make a mockery of you all day.

Yeah. Yeah. But do you think there's something about that as like an actual way where we just do have to talk about our biggest fears and we have to be as sad as we are instead of being as mad as we are? Well, I don't want to imply that anger doesn't have a place, right? Right. And I don't want to imply that anger doesn't have a place, right? And I don't want to imply that even contempt at its, you know, in some places may be the

appropriate response. So I hate to generalize too much. And it's good to have a broad repertoire of responses so that you're not only, you know, you've got more than one approach that you can bring to a given moment, right? Because sometimes other things are called for. So I guess I would start there. In that moment, I was mindful of two things. And I, of course, I've been paying attention to the campaign

and to all of the rhetoric and all of that, but I actually watched every second of the inauguration, on inauguration day. First of all, I watched all the religious leaders kind of, with the exception of Cardinal Dolan, who was kind of strong and forthright, but everybody else just kind of fond over the president and were praying for him and actually got to protect him

and his family for this mission that he'd been called to, all of which was, it was all right, but there was no, it was subservient. It was, I'm not in the right word. It was assuming as the president himself was assuming that God would ordain the president for this moment, right? That God had called him to this moment and that everything that he thought

and everything that he did was God inspired. That was the feeling that you got. It was like in 2020 when you said he has used sacred symbols to cloak himself in the mantle of spiritual authority. That's exactly what it was. And so that was all happening. And then he got up and spoke and it was like he was on the campaign trail.

It was the same casting of just blanket statements of people that are the people who are with us and the people who are against us, the people that are dangerous to us and we know who they are. And that's when I realized, I mean, I had been thinking about it, you know, for days, but that's when I realized that I needed to say something about the people who were not included in that vision of unity. And in part, because these aren't abstractions to me. These are people that I know and love. These are people in the congregations I serve.

This is who are feeling all the things that I was trying to evoke. And it asks her to say some things that like, so there were a thousand people or so in the cathedral, mostly, I'm guessing mostly supporters of the president. You know, so there had to have been a parent of a trans kid in that congregation, right? There just had to be, I mean, numerically, there had to have been a parent of a trans kid in that congregation, right? There just had to be.

I mean, numerically, there had to be, right? Or trans themselves, right? Not to mention, I mean, gay and lesbian, of course, but I mean, just in terms of the percentages and the people who know people who are immigrants in this country and they know for a fact that how they're being described is not true, right? So like I was, I mean, I was just like saying, we know this is not true. And then the mercy piece was just simply to,

it's a biblical concept and it's usually an acknowledgement. You offer mercy when you are in a position to do so to someone who is in need of mercy, but there is a reciprocal understanding that every one of us stands in need of mercy all the time under the eyes of God, and that there are times when I may be in a position to show mercy to someone else, but tomorrow it's going to be me.

And so it isn't something that is just a sign of someone's power, but it's a sign of our mutuality as human beings. And I think that those were the things I was trying to convey. It's a hopeful to me form of courage when you think about what courage has been sort of spun as over the last decades. As always having the right quip or always, it's very intellectual. It's very having the right take, having the right.

And it is amazing to be in a moment where actually, and maybe hopeful for pod squatters listening, that we're in a moment where it is just courageous to speak of love. It is courageous to speak of us all being human. We are in a time where it was easy. You can see the change. Like everybody was doing it when it was easy, when there was a pride flag on every old Navy,

now it is brave in your spaces. You don't have to be the smartest, most informed, witty take on everything. You can just continue to assert love, to remind people that there is no us in them, that in itself is an act of courage right now. That's really well said. And I think it's what's going to turn things around. Or one of the things, there'll be a lot of things, a couple of. And I think in some ways, that's how so many of our real pivotal moments of social change

have happened when we finally begin to see a group of people that we thought were in some way not of us, that they are of us or that we are of them or however that works. You know, like it's that human to human connection. And in a time when someone or a whole group of someone's humanity is being treated with disregard and contempt to simply say no or to say yes. Yes, they are. So I think that's a really interesting.

And we're seeing, I mean, of course, obviously we're just seeing this whole huge swing in the country toward a moving away from so many of the things that we fought so hard for. And yet, there are people that are going to stand strong. And I think that that's part of the moment. It's part of the moment see what particularly is being villainized because it's so clear that that is what's most dangerous to what they're trying to build. And it was wild to me, but makes total sense that a slew of the attacks on you,

and they were from pundits and elected leaders and people of the church, that they said that you were an enemy of God because of quote, the sin of empathy. And this sin of empathy, there is a whole movement around and books about the sin of empathy. What is so dangerous to them about empathy that they have to call it evil? And what is it to you? because it's something big that they need to shut down. So good. I am just beginning to enter into that whole worldview. I was not aware of it. And you're right. I mean, I think Elon Musk was just recently quoted as saying something about it.

It was like the suicide of Western civilization and the idea that our compassion or our ability to I think it's basically I think they're confusing empathy with compassion, which is an easy thing to do. I do it all the time. But the idea that our feelings, our feelings, our feelings of wanting to be kind and good and caring might cloud our judgment. And what we need now is judgment. And what we need now is judgment. And what we need now is judgment to fill in the blank because we really need to close the borders because otherwise we're going to lose our identity

as a country. Otherwise we are going to allow this, you know, fill in the blank. We're going to, you know, just all these horrible things are gonna happen if we don't use our judgment, which means right now we have to be callous as hell because what we have to do is destroy a lot of things

so we can rebuild them. I mean, that is the strategy. It's just a crash and burn strategy. We're gonna mess as many things up as possible so that we can rebuild it to something else and empathy will get in our way because we'll start seeing the other people that we are treating right now as human beings.

And more than that, we could imagine ourselves in their shoes. Because I think that is the ultimate definition of empathy is like, I not only have compassion for you, but I actually can see myself in you. And so seeing the world through your eyes would be a way for me to understand that I could be there too. And so it's a kind of identification that is human to human. And it has, I think it has real survival overtones to it. I mean I think we evolution, I mean I think it has real survival overtones to it. I mean, I think we evolution, I mean, I think it was a key part of human evolution, not only to have the survival of the fittest, but actually, no, we have to work together.

We have to come together in kinship and family, and we have to have affection for each other and care for each other and look out for each other. I mean, those are qualities that don't necessarily make you the king of the jungle, but it might let your community survive. So I am actually dumbfounded by when someone, the whole sin of empathy. So I don't know about you, but I have to take some of these ideas in pretty small doses.

Otherwise I can really fall into some despair. But I try to stay as engaged as I can so that I can understand enough to understand how it might speak to someone else. Like, why is that? Why does that have appeal? It makes sense. They're right. They just have their own religion.

I mean, everybody has a religion. If your religion is capitalism based on white supremacy and patriarchy, you are correct that the sin of your religion, what would throw it all off is empathy. Empathy would be the one thing you need people not to have because that would slow down the building of your religion because you would start asking questions and you would start caring for each other

and you would not have, oh, the end justifies all the means. And that's why when we say over and over again, staying human is so important. It's not just a line in a poem. It's no, no, no, everything that's human to us is what is being squashed. I mean, that's, of course they're afraid of empathetic people.

Empathetic people are the thing that will get in their way. Of course they're afraid of queerness. Queerness is a sign of aliveness. It's proof of freedom and freedom is contagious. So of course you would have to squash queerness. Queerness in itself is nonconformity. And in order for this world order of capitalism, patriarchy, misogyny, for these guys to build, they have to create submission based on a slow deadening, a slow numbing of everything that makes us human. So anything that is too human, you will see

squashed with legislation, squashed with fear, squashed with whatever's being squashed, you know is your symbol to hold onto for dear life. Yes, yes. And they say empathy, this whole train of thought is, empathy is toxic, it is the opposite of truth. Because when you're looking out at the world and you say

that's not right because I know it because I feel it because I'm a human and I'm connected to that person they have to say that's the opposite of truth. Because the only thing that is true about humanity at its deepest core is that we are connected and we are each other and we can see each other. So they have to attack that. Right? So for me, it's very hopeful because it's like, they know that their take is against the laws of humanity. They know that we are built on a basis of empathy. So they have to attack that. So all we have to do is hold so tight to that, that that worldview can't attach itself to us.

Because it's either their truth that they're telling us, or the higher truth of our humanity that we know at our core is true. I see it as a spectrum of thinking that we are all susceptible to. So it's, you know, so I don't. I see it as a spectrum of thinking that we are all susceptible to. So it's, you know, so I don't, and you can look at different phases of, you know, in your own life or in history or in the example of communities that, you know, where for whatever reason there were people or there were things that were just not allowed in, right? Just not allowed in because of the danger of that.

And legislation is such a great example of it because you just keep on legislating and legislating and it just, like you were saying, Glenn, the freedom just keeps on pushing up against it. Like it doesn't resolve anything because there's just, that has to go somewhere. So I do wonder about it. I also wonder like how if you think about just how ideas take hold in a society, ideas that we think are life-giving

of those that are life denying, there's a social element to it. They start off small and they have this ability to attract and to become mainstream and you know, and however you look at it. And I find that fascinating, too, because a lot of that has to do with relationships and just sort of the power of like, we're on a podcast now, which has become the medium where most people get their views of the world. Right. And so you just think about how people what kind of conversations they're allowing into their heads. Right. What kind of worldview are we informed by? What resonates? All of those things that can move us

in one direction or another. And I'm kind of interested in how we can move the needle. Like, I don't think it'll take, we don't have to change everybody's way of seeing the world, but if we can change, we can just open up the possibility to remind people that we're in all of this together or that we actually need the people that we're in all of this together or that we actually need the things that we're afraid of. I don't know, maybe that's a little too optimistic,

but I don't know what else to do but to just stay in a place of openness to connection and clarity about some fundamental truths that have been handed down by the generations that teach us to love God, love neighbor, love ourselves, have compassion, I mean, do justice, those things that kind of just are enshrined in our most sacred and common aspirational values and the people that we would like our children to spend time with, you know? I mean, if you just, or as a kid, if you can remember, like, who are the people that you wanted to hang out with? And they were the people that brought you life, right? Didn't shut you down. And so, yeah, it's tough to know. It's tough to know what, when you're in the thick of it, what's going to shift the momentum in a more life-affirming

direction when it feels like a lot of that is being challenged. But I'm really trying to keep my eyes open and ears to the ground and listening for the places where people are gathering and finding hope, right? It's so interesting to think about that moment, you know, thinking about you in that moment in the pulpit as being a moment where you're jumping off the diving board and you don't know what's going gonna happen after. I always think about you afterwards, like back, whatever backstage of church is, going, oh, whoa, like what's about to happen?

I know that- She's like, three, two, one. Yeah, I know that feeling on a lower level because of like, okay, it takes so much that you don't even know is happening beforehand till you get to that moment. And then you do the moment. But the wild thing about jumping off into the unknown is you are creating a new known.

It's so terrifying because you are creating a new future that would not have been there had you not have done that one brave thing. It's like, yeah, you're jumping off a diving board because there's no path. But the second you speak those words in the pulpit, I see a path that wasn't there before. Yes. Well, and you talk about that in your book. I mean, you've done that a couple of times yourself as well. And that's part of where we learn, right? Courage is contagious, right? You read about it, that's why you read about it,

that's why you talk about it. And I was, I forget when in the mix of all of this, as I was leading up to the day, I heard that the Catholic bishops in California just came out with this incredibly strong statement against the proposed immigration policies of the then president-elect. And I thought, yeah, they're doing it, right?

They're doing it. You know, I mean, I was like, okay, I wanna be with them, right? They were like exactly what you were saying. They created a pact, they said it. And I believe that. And I, you know, I think that's what I want to do. And so there is that sense of, and maybe that's what we're all waiting for in our tears around

the kitchen table. We're all waiting for those, okay, we watched the moments of time where we see people doing something brave and it's like, oh, there it is. Yeah. I think I'll do that too. Right? Yeah. Yeah. It's great. It's why all the little things matter. Yes. Is because there is, this is like well noted in movements across the world, that it's the perception that other people are not with you and that you are alone in it. And even when people are told that that nothing else changes, except the perception that others feel like you and movements flip. So your flag in front might seem like nothing. And it is signaling to people that there are people like you and that they can

tiny bits of emboldening matter? Yeah. And who knows? I mean, there have been times in our history where there just wasn't any clear movement toward whatever justice or freedom people were longing for, but there were these, the struggle was kept alive, right? Torch by torch, person by person. And that you can look back and you can see the path and you could see how people would go to their grave never knowing if what they fought for would ever come to fruition, right?

I mean, that's just part of our human story. And we don't know where we are ever in the arc of anything that we're working toward, right? I've lived long enough to see some of the things that I never thought would happen happen, and I praise God for that. But I also may be living at a time now where I'm just keeping a few things going

and I'm gonna hand them on to the next generation and they're gonna take it up. And that is just part of the human story too. So to your point, we don't know. It may feel like we failed, but whatever we did might have had an impact on someone who then went on Who then goes on to do the thing that we had hoped to see realized but we weren't the ones I think that that's a really important thing that you just said which is causing so many

Awesome amazing artists and activists to come to our house It's the non-acceptance of failure that feels like it's the heaviest weight. It's honestly, you know, because it does feel like this gigantic failure, but if you think about it from the bigger, like zoom out, let's look at it from a longer arc, and this might be a blip.

This might in fact feel and be a failure. But we have to say, okay, this is what's happening before we can actually get up, dust ourselves off and move forward and make that next brave leap into the unknown. But it's, I think that there's a lot of us that are feeling a little bit like the lack of acceptance of the perception of failure. Well, we didn't even, I mean, to hear Reverend Buddies say that she watched the entire inauguration,

what went into my mind was the women who watched the crucifixion. And since they witnessed it, since they stayed, since they said, I will be here through the time of despair, they were the ones who got to be with Jesus at the resurrection. The witnessing of the reality of the pain is part, we always say first the pain, then the waiting,

then the rising. We're in a rhythm right now. And when you said the struggle, the struggle, it's the first time I've considered the connection between, what people keep saying to me now is I'm really struggling. Yeah. And the idea that the personal struggle when you're in your bedroom, when you're in your bathtub,

I'm often in my bedroom, I'm struggling. But what if that's part of the struggle? What if the private struggle is part of the struggle? Right? That like there are different phases and all of it is part, our brokenheartedness inside our homes becomes our power outside of our homes. Right. Right. It's beautiful. One of my favorite images when you're talking about the crucifixion resurrection is the fact that after Jesus died and put in the whatever the tomb was, probably a cave, and then everybody was home and goes to bed, right? And then the women get up before dawn to make their way to prepare his body.

And so they're walking toward this thing and they don't know that they're going to witness something that they're walking thinking he's still dead. They're walking thinking that everything is still the way it is. But the fact that they got up and walked in the dark is as much a part of the story as Jesus rising from the tomb. You know, I mean, it's like they were rising too, right? They just didn't know it because they were still in the throes. But the fact that they got up and they started walking and maybe that, you know, that sense of like, okay, I don't know if, Abby,

when you were saying the non-acceptance of failure, did you mean that as a, we're struggling to accept something that we have to accept or we're not accepting it because darn it, we're gonna find another way. So what were you? Both. As an athlete, you know, I always watched, I was in a final and lost. I always watched them raise that trophy.

Yeah. And it's an important humbling. Yes. And a humility that we have to embody and say, we didn't win this one. Didn't win this one. And that's the truth. And in order to move forward, you got to accept that.

I think. Yep. Yep. That's well said. Yeah. Well, I can't really believe that you were writing this book before this moment. That is another thing that God is so weird at. Just like, having you make something that will be the most necessary thing on earth and you don't even know why

while you're writing it. But your book has accompanied me through many bathtub struggling afternoons and it's so beautiful and so necessary and I'm so grateful for it. And I'm so deeply grateful for you. Millions of us are. We just want to walk in the dark with you. So thank you. Thank you. It's been a real honor and a joy to be with you all. I wish you every blessing and the work, the good work, amazing work that you're doing, bringing so many people together in a community of love and joy and courage. Thank you. The book is How We Learned to Be Brave, which was very much of a delight to me because as

soon as I saw your sermon, I was like, how do we learn to be brave from her? And then I Googled you and you had a book called How We Learned to be Brave. So good call on that. I also am delighted because you are making a young adult's version of how we learn to be brave, right? And a childhood version. I'm so thrilled. I'm so thrilled.

Yeah, we're working on them now. The young adult will come out. October. I'm so thrilled. I'm so thrilled. Yeah, we're working on them now. The young adult will come out. October. October. Yeah. And the hardcover children's book, which is called I Can Do Brave Things. Or it might be called, the other title that we're working on is Did You Know That You

Could Learn To Be Brave? So we're trying, we're playing with it. But it's that same idea, you know. Kids, they have to be brave every day. That's right. They do. Anyway, thank you. And the good thing is those kids are born with empathy. It is a developmental thing. So as long as they keep that going, they're good. Well, bless you all. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much. Bye Pod Squad. Thank you so much. See you Pod Squad. Bye. Bye. Bye. If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us. If you'd be willing to take 30 seconds to do these three things, first, can you please

follow or subscribe to We Can Do Hard Things? Following the pod helps you because you'll never miss an episode and it helps us because you'll never miss an episode. To do this, just go to the We Can Do Hard Things show page on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And then just tap the plus sign

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