We belong to a group who call themselves “Seekers.” We gather every week in each other’s homes exploring the question “What is mine to do?” in this final chapter of our lives.

We begin with five minutes of meditation followed by a check-in on how our souls are faring amidst the unfailing tumults currently buffeting our shores: personal, national and planetary. We gain sustenance by studying together books agreed upon through consensus that in some way lend wisdom, guidance, new insights and understandings to our common quest, the thread that has tied us together in ways we might never have anticipated but for which we are continuously grateful.

Recently, the discussion turned and returned to a most remarkable event that occurred Jan. 21 in our country’s National Cathedral — a courageous woman, a brave bishop speaking, in clear and respectful terms, truth to power: “Mr. President … in the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.”

Bishop Mariann Budde’s sermon has now gone viral, generating articles from major news networks along the entire political spectrum, commentary from late night comedy hosts and an angry response from the president demanding that she and “her church” apologize for her “ungracious” words, “nasty in tone.”

In contrast to the president, each of us shared how grateful we felt for Bishop Budde and how impressive was her lack of fear and how powerful her sermon, a call for unity amongst all peoples in the nation. It is a unity that can only come by being built on a foundation of dignity, honesty and humility. It was nothing short of prophetic and hearkened back to the words of Martin Luther King Jr., who also spoke truth to the powers of his time.

Each of us felt compelled to send an email to the bishop thanking her for the hope, strength and encouragement her sermon has given us, emboldening each of us to find our own way to speak truth to power in the days ahead.

We imagined these two houses in our nation’s capital lying only 3 miles apart, one a house of prayer for all peoples, the other the home of a man who calls a service of prayer for the nation “not too exciting,” “boring” and “uninspiring.” They became for us symbols, focal points, for the great struggle ahead of us between the way of compassion and love and the forces of contempt for all that might keep an oligarchic class from gaining greater personal, political and economic power.

We also imagined that we were likely not the only small group drawn together to seek a more humane and just future that was gathering today, not the only small group who were powerfully moved and motivated by the words of the brave bishop from Washington.

We imagined ourselves as one of many groups, all nodes in a network, strands of a great web, who need more than ever to strengthen the bonds between the nodes. We need to join the strands together, reinforcing each other’s resilience, learning from each other’s practice of reaching out in love to all those who are scared now — “gay, lesbian and transgender children … the people who pick our crops, clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plant, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants, and work the night shifts in hospitals … the children who fear that their parents may be taken away … those who are fleeing war zones and persecution.”

We need each other, for as King reminded us, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

Our two-hour meeting time passed quickly, so engrossed were we in this work of heartening one another and being enheartened by Bishop Budde. We left each to our own homes, our hearts lifted in gratitude to this brave and courageous soul who called for the president, who calls each of us to practice a politics of compassion, love and unity, not a politics of hate and division. God bless Bishop Budde.