Alderperson Denise Fenton’s Invocation At 03/05/2025 Common Council Meeting – “My wish for us in this time of fear and uncertainty is that we can be like Frodo, who accepts his assignment saying, ‘I will do now what I must.'”

Mayor Woodford: Tonight’s invocation will be delivered by Alder Fenton. Please rise.

Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6): Good evening. I usually ask to give an invocation during Women’s History Month. And although the theme for this year “Moving Forward Together – Women Educating and Inspiring Generations,” seems like it was created during a very different time, I’ll stick with women’s history.

My usual impulse is to focus on a notable pioneer in women’s history, one of the leaders in the suffrage movement, or someone who is a historic first in a visible field. However, I keep being drawn back to Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington and her sermon at the National Cathedral on January 21 of this year. Her position as an Episcopal bishop is relevant women’s history for me. I was a freshman at Rice University when Helen Havens was ordained as the first Episcopal minister in Houston. She, with her husband–professor husband and their family lived at a house adjoining our residential college when as our col–as our College family.

Like many others, I ordered Budde’s book “How We Learn to Be Brave: Decisive Moments in Life and Faith,” more as a gesture of support than with any intention of actually reading it. I picked it up last week after I decided to talk about her tonight. She writes about seven decisive moments in life when we have to push past our fears and act with strength. I expected references to Scripture and religious scholars. I was surprised to also read quotes from Brene Brown, Madeleine Albright, avowed atheist, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and multiple references to J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Chapter four, “Accepting What You Did Not Choose,” really resonated with me. I mostly want to skip past the accepting the things you cannot change line in the Serenity Prayer and start changing things. Budde writes in the Fellowship of the Ring that after Gandalf tells Frodo Baggins that the ring came to him for a reason. Frodo despairs. “I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish that this had never happened.” Gandalf replies, “So do all who live in such times.” But while we cannot choose the times we live in, we can choose how to respond to the time we are given. Frodo finally says, “I will take the ring, but I do not know the way.” Gandalf later assures him “There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of evil.” Budde concludes the chapter by saying that this kind of acceptance is not passive or fatalistic, but rather a courageous choice at a decisive moment. My wish for us in this time of fear and uncertainty is that we can be like Frodo, who accepts his assignment saying, “I will do now what I must.”