by Catherine Malotky

Sometimes I wonder. Does my faith do more than assure me of an eternity with a God who loves me? I think it does — at least the Old Testament prophets say so. And Jesus talked about how to live all the time. So, faith, what about the here and now? How should I live today according to you?

Should I become a radical, like John the Baptist maybe, calling for bold action for big change? Not likely! My people are not famous. We do not march in protests — hardly ever. We do not live an alternative lifestyle. We do not dress with wild abandon or live deep in the woods or off the grid of reality. Growing up as I did — in a Lutheran, middle-class family, the oldest of six children — I saw and have learned a certain stealthy boldness. Rather than leading a revolution, I lean to a boldness determined to shift the momentum of life in this world toward God’s will and way. For me, this fits.

Family Tradition
My father’s sisters both graduated from college, which was something in those days. They were part of the first generation born off the farm. Family lore says that Pauline, my great-grandmother, set the stage for this kind of equality. She, who had not spent much time in a school, worked to educate herself on her own. Her attitude about education infiltrated the family. I think there was a certain boldness in that — this farmer’s wife who cared about learning and especially the education of her girls.

My mother’s boldness bubbled up pretty often. She made it clear when she was pregnant with me that she would give birth without medication. This was unusual then, considered old-fashioned and even backwards. Drugs would spare her the pain of childbirth, but my mother had done her research. Even though an intern tried to shame her ("You’ll be crying for pain relief before you’re done," he sneered), she was determined. And she succeeded. Six times. Now, you may have made different choices if you bore children, and I’m not trying to say my mother’s choices were better. However, I think it was bold of her to buck the obstetrical establishment of her day and do it au naturel, which she thought would be better for her babies and for her.

Some of us will make the big moves. Some of us will have the gifts to take on public roles and pursue ordination or elected office or company leadership. But most of us Lutheran girls and women will not. We may not have the opportunity or we may have other gifts. However, we all can be bold about our faith and what it means in our daily lives. We all can live with a certain determination to be God’s heart and hands in this world.

Bold Out of Necessity
The women of Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church, in the midst of a poor inner-city neighborhood, have been supporting and welcoming homeless people into their church building every night for almost two decades now. In the beginning, they only knew they had to help. They had no idea that the smell of dirty socks would soon permeate the building. They had no idea that they would soon build showers and install fans. They had no idea that occasionally a homeless person, often with multiple coats and stuffed pockets, might choose to sit next to them at worship on a Sunday morning, sometimes mumbling, often smelly, but always warm. They had no idea that when they came to church for evening meetings, they might have to make their way through homeless people waiting for the doors to open at seven. It was hard and sometimes even scary. But they were bold enough to say they wanted to help and bold enough to try to solve the problems that came up when they did. Some of them agreed to be the overnight host or bring dinner. Some of them began to advocate for the homeless, working with the local government to address the issues behind all those mattresses on the church basement floor. They are Lutheran women, and they are bold.

Bold Love
Lurrine visited her husband in the nursing home nearly every day. Early in their marriage, she had followed him into the mission field. For many years she lived away from family, raising her kids in a foreign culture that in time she came to love. Then, when he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, she boldly set about facing her future and his. She waited and watched with him for nearly a decade, and when he died, she wept for all she had lost. Yet I saw her not long after his death, out on a bitterly cold day, volunteering for an event at a school she cares about. She’s carrying on and doing good. Of course she is grieving, but she is also living and loving. Given what she’s been through, I think that’s pretty bold.

Bold to Survive and Thrive
Jane had a difficult childhood. Her soul and body carry the scars of sexual and physical abuse. Her marriage ended after many years, and she still grieves that she was not healthy enough to have chosen well in the first place or to have healed the relationship she had. She faces significant financial worries now, but she is realistic about it all. She will work for many years still, but she is paying attention and being wise. She does not take expensive vacations just because she can afford to now. She does not want to be a burden to her children, so she is saving for the future, to make sure that she will be able to support herself when she finally retires. Jane’s boldness, like Lurrine’s, is about courage. She is healing. She volunteers to mentor women in a shelter. She has learned so much, and she is determined to share it.

Bold Maturity
Carrie is a real beauty, knocking the socks off the young men at the college she attends. She did a little experimenting with alcohol before she left home. "I wanted to know my limits," she explained. Now she often finds herself sober when others are not. When she came upon a drunken, unconscious classmate, and no one else knew what to do, she recruited help to get the girl inside and warm, instructed someone to call 911, and probed the girl’s drunken friends to find out what had happened. When the paramedics arrived she told them the details she had uncovered and accompanied the girl to the hospital. Now, think about that peer pressure. Wasn’t that a little bold of her — to be sober and helpful? Might her example invite her peers to think about other ways to have fun?

Bold Enough to Say No
Amy loves basketball. She started playing enthusiastically at age 10. She excelled. But as she and her teammates grew, the competition tightened, and practice took up more and more time. She began to wonder if she wanted to commit her entire extracurricular life to this one activity. At the tender age of 15, she decided she would not. What kind of pressure did she feel to just keep going, to contribute to the team, to try for a scholarship, to be assured of an identity as she entered high school? Instead, she broke free. She is trying other things now. She was bold. She followed an inner wisdom that told her she needed a variety of activities to be whole and fulfilled. Though variety may not be what every girl needs, she knew it’s what she needed.

Everyday Boldness is Not An Oxymoron
None of these women may seem particularly remarkable, at least not on the surface. They have not shown up in newspaper headlines. They have not sponsored earth–shaking legislation or led a revolution. But all of these women have been bold. All of them have heard a call from God, and all of them have answered, often in spite of opposition. Where do they find the courage to take a bold stand rather than the path of least resistance?

Each of these women heard wisdom spoken in her ear. Though they may not have been able to identify that wisdom at the moment, it was the voice of God calling them to the wonder and value of their creation. It is true that the circumstances of many of our lives don’t make it easy for us to think of ourselves as uniquely fashioned by God and given as a gift to the world. Babies still need to be fed in the middle of the night, whether we have to get up and go to work in the morning or not. Some of us live in places where opportunities are limited, so we may never get to contribute where we have the greatest potential.

But we all can give somehow, and I’m pretty sure that small daily acts of boldness are as powerful in bringing God’s will and way to bear in our world as are the more dramatic examples we read or hear about. We all have particular gifts to offer to this God–given task of bringing justice and mercy into our world. How will we influence the world we live in? How will we act and organize and protect and grow as God would have us do?

We can recycle, even though it’s a hassle. We can drive an energy–efficient car, even though most of our friends don’t. We can take time for self–care, even though the people around us might call it selfish or wonder what’s gotten into us. We can act on our passions, whether that means loving a spouse, painting a sunset, or writing letters to representatives. We can believe we make a difference in this world because, as women of faith, we do. We’ve been created to make a difference. We’ve been called to make a difference. And we’ve been redeemed so that we might be able to forgive ourselves when we don’t think and act as boldly as we could.

You go, girl. Listen to that inner voice. It’s God’s invitation.

Catherine Malotky, an ordained minister, works for the ELCA Board of Pensions and is a regular contributor to LWT’s "Amen" column.