Go & Tell the Story

By Bishop Brian Maas In her latest book, Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts , researcher and author Brené Brown writes of the human tendency to have experiences of great joy followed in mere moments by that “when is the other shoe going to drop?” feeling of impending catastrophe. According to her research, about 90 percent of us do that, at least some of the time. We dampen our joy by anticipating a threat to it. She writes, “Why do we insist on dress-rehearsing tragedy in moments of deep joy? Because joy is the most vulnerable emotion we feel. And that’s saying something, given that I study fear and shame.” Joy is a phenomenal experience, too often blunted because we feel vulnerable to losing it. The good news, Brown explains, is that there is an antidote, a way to learn to experience joy more fully and to build up stores of its powerful energy. She writes, “What is the one thing that people who can fully lean into joy have in common? Gratitude. ...

By Rev. Steve Meysing, Assistant to the Bishop “How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity.”     Psalm 133:1 Since my upbringing was ecumenical, I’m glad the Psalmist said unity and not uniformity. Dad was Roman Catholic and made sure I went to mass every Sunday and attended CCD after school on Wednesdays. In the summer, my Evangelical Covenant Church mother signed me up for Vacation Bible School at Protestant Churches. Every one of her siblings, my aunts and uncle, ended up in a different branch of the Christian family tree, and got along well most of the time. Experiencing this diversity in the Body of Christ that is the Church, God’s people in community, was a great way to grow up. Upon learning the history of the Moravian Church during seminary, I was struck by their oft-repeated, defining statement: “In essentials, unity. In non-essentials, liberty. In all things, love.” As a Lutheran Christian, the proclam...