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“I am convinced that we all have the capacity to live within a narrative of great adventure, no matter our life circumstances. 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. It is also a profoundly spiritual experience, one in which we feel a part of something larger than ourselves and guided, somehow, by a larger Spirit at work in the world and in us. Decisive moments make believers out of everyone, for no matter what name we give to it, the inexplicable, unmerited experience of a power greater than our own working through us is real. The audacious truth is that we matter in the realization of all that is good and noble and true. I want to expand our notion of what constitutes a decisive moment, for they come in many forms and require a wide range of decisions, equally decisive yet different in their energy and outcome.”

― Mariann Edgar Budde, How We Learn to Be Brave: Decisive Moments in Life and Faith

Psalm 121 

1 I lift up my eyes to the hills; *
from where is my help to come?
2 My help comes from GOD, *
the maker of heaven and earth.
3 GOD will not let your foot be moved *
and GOD who watches over you will not fall asleep.
4 Behold, GOD who keeps watch over Israel *
shall neither slumber nor sleep;
5 It is GOD who watches over you; *
GOD is your shade at your right hand,
6 So that the sun shall not strike you by day, *
nor the moon by night.
7 GOD shall preserve you from all evil; *
it is GOD who shall keep you safe.
8 GOD shall watch over your going out and your coming in, *
from this time forth forth, for evermore

 

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Artwork: Merrill Shatzman, The Big Choice, from the portfolio Point of Departure, 1983-1984, screenprint on paper, image and sheet: 15 x 20 in. (38.1 x 50.8 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Jane E. Goldman and Catherine Kernan, 1987.66.20