“In the name of our God,” the preacher intoned, “I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.”
You can’t but wonder if Mariann Budde herself wasn’t fearful last January 21st when she, in her sermon in the National Cathedral, addressed directly the American president. Be that as it may, she, Episcopal bishop of Washington, D.C., went on to write How We Learn to Be Brave—this newest Featured Book is a rendering of that text intended especially for younger adults.
Her writing “explores how God’s children can stand up for the principles of His kingdom in a frail and fallen world,” American historian Jon Meacham declares. Her “searching account of her struggle to be brave,” he adds, “is itself an act to be admired and absorbed.”
In How to Be Brave, Budde weaves together personal experiences with stories from scripture, history, and pop culture, and tells—in the words of Michael Curry, presiding bishop of The Episcopal Church—how she and others “have faced real challenges with ‘grit and grace’.” Still another bishop affirms, the book “will inspire you to stand up for the right and the true when it really counts.”
How to Be Brave: How We Learn to Be Brave in Life’s Decisive Moments
By Mariann Edgar Budde
Dutton [an imprint of Penguin Random House], 2025