 Monday morning did not go as planned. My truck wouldn’t turn over. Yes, it’s been cold, but it’s been colder. Yes, it has had some intermittent issues starting, but nothing to write home about, and it always turned over. But Monday morning–for whatever reason–all it had to offer me was a slow chug. The lights would turn on, but there was just no”there” there. I was pretty sure it wasn’t the battery—or at least it didn’t seem to be—and while I had at least some suspicion that made the starter was going out on the old girl, I had no way of knowing that was true (it sure didn’t stop me from asking Google anyway).
In the grand scheme of things, this was a minor inconvenience at best. We have another vehicle, my spouse didn’t need that other vehicle for work today, and if all else fails I have a bicycle and a relatively short commute to work. But on Monday morning, it didn’t feel that minor. In fact, it felt like one more thing piling onto an already heavy stretch of days. I called the towing company, I also called our mechanic, and then I set out to get the tow company paid and let the mechanic know who would be bringing the truck by. But at each stop, I found myself a little caught off guard. What caught me off guard was that the folks at the towing company were patient. The mechanic listened. No eye-rolling. No rushing me out the door. Just competence, kindness, and a willingness to help without making me feel foolish or burdensome. Ordinary decency, offered freely. And I was honestly not ready for it. After the events of the past several weeks—especially what has unfolded in Minnesota—I wasn’t prepared for that kind of care. Not because I think cruelty is the only thing left in the world, but because the volume of harm has been so loud, so relentless, that quiet goodness can feel almost disorienting when it is encountered up close. I don’t want to turn this into a feel-good story. We do not need forced silver linings right now, or reminders that “there are still good people in the world” as a way of softening our outrage or muting our grief. That kind of optimism asks us to move on too quickly and tidy up pain that is still very much with us. But neither do I want to ignore goodness when it shows up. Theologian Norman Wirzba writes that “care is not something we add onto life; it is what makes life possible.” Something about that feels right to me today. Care and empathy don’t fix the world. They don’t undo violence or restore what’s been lost. But they do somehow manage to keep us from becoming numb. They keep us from surrendering to the lie that harshness is the only reasonable response to a harsh world. And that’s not nothing. What I encountered this morning wasn’t some big huge act. It was quiet attentiveness. Presence. A refusal to treat another person as a problem to be managed. And in a moment when so much feels brittle and dangerous, that matters more than we might want to admit. Not because it redeems everything. Not because it balances the scales of justice. But because it reminds us what kind of people we’re still called to be. I don't know what the repair bill will end up being. I don't know if it's the starter or something worse. What I do know is that on a morning when I didn't have much margin left, two strangers made room for me anyway. That's not the whole story of this moment we're living through. But it's part of it . And maybe that's enough to remember: that even now—especially now—we get to choose what we add to the world. We get to decide whether we will meet each other with impatience or with presence. Whether we will treat one another as interruptions or as human beings worthy of care. The truck will get fixed or it won't. The hard days will keep coming. But so will the opportunities to show up for one another in ways that matter—not because they solve everything, but because they refuse to let everything be reduced to harm. That's the work. Not to pretend the world is fine, or to just “be positive,” or to “look on the bright side,” but to insist that we can still be people who practice tenderness in it…even on a Monday…even when the truck won't start. On the journey with you (but maybe on foot 😉), Pr. Melissa  This week, as we marked Martin Luther King Jr. Day, it’s worth remembering something that often gets left out of the story: King’s famous Letter from Birmingham Jail was not written in a vacuum.
It was a response. King was answering a public letter from white religious leaders who urged him to slow down, be patient, and trust the process. They weren’t cartoon villains. They were clergy. Moderates. People who claimed to support justice—just not this way, not this fast, not this disruptively. King’s letter is often quoted as a general call for unity or love. But it is, more precisely, a refusal. A refusal to accept delay as virtue. A refusal to confuse order with justice. A refusal to let “good intentions” excuse inaction. Looking back matters right now. Not because history gives us easy answers—but because it reminds us that moments of deep tension are not new, and that calls for calm, civility, and patience have often been tools used to maintain the status quo–during segregation, during the AIDS crisis, in the fall of Roe v. Wade, and in the ongoing displacement and erasure of Indigenous peoples—each time marked by urgent pleas to slow down for the sake of order. King didn’t write from comfort. He wrote from confinement. And he wrote because people of faith had told him he was pushing too hard, for too much, too fast. As we try to find our footing in these times, revisiting this exchange—the letter and the response—helps us ask a harder, more honest question: Are we more invested in peace, or in justice? (Links to both letters included below.) On the journey with you, Pr. Melissa A Call for Unity (White clergy letter) A Letter from Birmingham Jail  Something has shifted. You can feel it in your body. You can hear it in the way conversations trail off. You can see it in the exhaustion, the anger, the fear, the numbness.
The current political climate has left many of us feeling disoriented and overwhelmed—unsure whether to speak, act, rest, or brace for impact. That reaction makes sense. What we are witnessing is not normal. And pretending otherwise is how things slide further out of reach. Our faith has something to say about moments like this. Across the Midwest and beyond, clergy and faith leaders from many denominations and states are coming together out of shared alarm at the rise of authoritarianism and white Christian nationalism. We are naming this moment honestly. And we are refusing to stay silent. Some are calling this a Confessing Church moment. Some are calling it a March on Washington moment. What we all agree on is this: the church must awaken and act—together. One expression of this movement is Palm Sunday Path, a coordinated effort emerging out of southern Minnesota and spreading nationally. The vision is bold and grounded in the heart of the gospel:
This work cannot be clergy-only. Movements don’t happen because a few pastors are worried. They happen when everyday people decide that faith has legs. If you are feeling stirred—even a little—if you’re wondering what organizing actually looks like, or if you’re tired of doom-scrolling and ready to put your body, voice, and faith somewhere real, we want to talk with you. St. Paul Congregational UCC will host an informational meeting to learn more, ask questions, and discern next steps together. 📅 Thursday, January 29 🕕 6:00 PM - St. Paul Fellowship Hall (downstairs) 📍 St. Paul Congregational UCC You don’t need to be an expert. You don’t need to have a plan. You just need to show up willing to listen and consider what faithfulness looks like now. The church was never meant to be a bystander. This is a moment that calls for courage, imagination, and collective action. This is the time for each of us to stop looking around wondering why somebody isn't doing something. Remember: You're somebody. Organize. Organize. Organize. I hope you’ll join in. On the Palm Sunday Path with you, Pr. Melissa  I wanted to write to you this week to help give you some response to the state of the world. I wanted to talk about the unjust removal of an unjust dictator in Venezuela and put a theological spin on the old adage, “two wrongs don’t make a right.” I wanted to give you a hot take from scripture that you’d never heard before and impress upon you the importance of vigilance in the pursuit of love and peace and justice. I wanted to write something that sprang off of the page and into your hearts and made your synapses fire in brand new ways so that you would be fired up and ready to fight whatever comes next. I wanted to do all of that and more…but I got distracted.
What distracted me wasn’t my phone or an email or some social media post that sent me down a rabbit hole of anxiety and absolutisms…it was a pile of drawings on my desk. Beautiful artwork that one of our children had colored and created during worship this past Sunday and then saw fit to give me. And no matter how hard I tried to write about the transgressions of the U.S. government or the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro, that pile of artwork kept causing my eyes and my heart to drift. At that moment I realized something: This wasn’t a distraction. It was a summons. Those drawings—thick with crayon, wildly colored, unconcerned with staying in the lines—were made by a child sitting among us while we sang and prayed and tried, in our adult ways, to make sense of the world. They weren’t commentary on geopolitics or theology. They weren’t strategic. They weren’t efficient. They were an offering. A gift. A small act of trust. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about how little that kind of trust is rewarded right now. After all, we are living in a moment that tells us urgency is everything. That if we are not outraged, we are complicit. That if we are not sharp, fast, and loud, we are failing. Even love has been weaponized—measured by how fast we respond and how clearly we draw the line between good people and bad ones. But the way of Jesus has never been impressed by speed or certainty. Time and again our sacred stories demonstrate Jesus’ refusal of shortcuts–his refusal to trade one kind of harm for another just because the cause feels right. Jesus chose the slower, intentional work of paying attention, of staying close, and receiving what’s offered—especially from children. That pile of artwork on my desk reminded me that love doesn’t always look like maintaining a state of hypervigilance. Sometimes it looks like paying attention to what’s right in front of us. Like letting ourselves be interrupted. Like not turning every day or every moment into some referendum on our moral worth. None of this means we stop caring about injustice. It just means we remember how we care matters just as much as that we care. The truth is two wrongs don’t make a right—not because it’s a catchy phrase, but because violence, coercion, and domination deform everyone they touch, even when they’re justified as liberation. Like Jesus’ work of living into the kingdom of God here and now, our own work of love and justice has to be shaped by the world we are trying to build, not just the one we are trying to tear down. So this week, instead of a hot take, I offer you a holy interruption–an invitation to pay attention to what keeps pulling your eyes and your heart away from the noise. Notice the small, human things that refuse to be optimized. Let them remind you what we are actually protecting. Let them slow you down just enough to remember that the goal is not to win—but to remain human. The truth is, sometimes the most faithful response to the state of the world is not another argument or another declarative statement posted on social media. Sometimes it’s a ride to an appointment, a text to check in on someone who hasn’t been around much lately, or a stack of crayon drawings slipped into an unsuspecting hand—quietly saying, without words: This is still worth it. On the journey with you, Pr. Melissa |
Pastor Melissa enjoying time on her hammock.
Rev. Melissa Sternhagen
Rev. Melissa Sternhagen was called as the pastor of St. Paul Congregational UCC in June of 2020. Prior to her call to St. Paul, Pr. Melissa worked as a hospice chaplain in the Ames, IA area, following pastorates at rural churches in Central Iowa and Southern Illinois. Pr. Melissa is a second-career pastor with a background in agribusiness and production & supply operations. She received her M.Div. from Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis, MO, and holds a MA Ed. in Adult Education and Training, and a BA in Organizational Communications. Archives
February 2026
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