Copyright © 2026 Women of the ELCA. Reprint permission is granted for use in Women of the ELCA units, clusters/conferences and synodical women’s organizations provided each post is reproduced in its entirety. If you enjoy this resource, Donate Now.

My modal response to life was fear – fear that I wasn’t doing enough, fear that someone I loved would die before they were saved, fear at the thought of walking up to strangers to tell them about God, fear that I was sinning even more than I thought I was, fear of a vengeful God.

And what happens when so many of us grow up with that fear always vibrating? Unless we later go on to face it, name it, and heal from it, economies of fear will emerge. When I finally realized that maybe atheists aren’t that scary and other cultures around the world (including my own Indigenous cultures, which I’d learned to villainize as well) have beautiful truths to teach us all, the hum of fear began to fade away.

When God, Mystery, and the Sacred began to expand in and around me, the hum faded, and in its place was the expanse for a new kind of generosity to form – for gifts to show up.

This message is excerpted from “Generosity as resistance” by Kaitlin B. Curtice in the July/August 2023 Gather magazine. Today we commemorate Bartholomew, Apostle.