Fear of Missing Out

Betty Brandt • February 14, 2025

One Time FOMO Paid Off

I’ll confess! I have an extreme case of FOMO – fear of missing out. Sometimes this gets me into trouble and I won’t bore you with those details. I’d rather focus on a time my FOMO paid off.

Recently I heard an interesting lecture by the author John Green in the late afternoon. My brain was full of stimulating ideas. Any sane person would have gone home and savored that experience. Instead, I rushed home, grabbed something to eat and headed back out to a local bookstore to attend a “Hear Our Stories” event. These events feature people who have been incarcerated for various reasons. They share their stories about life before, during, and after incarceration. I didn’t want to miss out!

If you want to hear stories of transformation, these events are for you. Sometimes the transformative moment is finding God, but others are transformed by serving another human being or finding friendship within a circle of former inmates as they open their hearts in a safe space. These stories shatter every stereotype I might have held about people who have served time for committing violent crimes.

One of the storytellers that evening was a former drug dealer, Montez Day, who began to sell drugs at the age of 12 and worked his way up to armed robbery until his incarceration in the Federal Prison in Terre Haute. At this event I heard how Montez volunteered to teach a fellow inmate to read so that the inmate wouldn’t lose his prison job. Montez and the inmate met in the prison library twice a week for 6 months. The inmate’s life was forever changed because he learned to read and kept his prison job. More importantly, Montez found purpose in his life. He said that he had been angry and lost ever since he was 12 years old and could never figure out why he was alive. Being of service to another human being and using teaching skills he didn’t even know he had set him on a path as an educator and leader. Now he works for a large not-for-profit as a workshop facilitator. What a transformation!

I don’t want to miss out on these opportunities to hear stories of transformation and hope. I need them to balance the invitations that are readily available every day to become despairing and cynical. This time my FOMO paid off. I’m not encouraging you to take up the FOMO practice but I am encouraging you to look for stories of transformation and hope. Then share those stories with anyone who will listen.

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* The Garden supports “Hear Our Stories” but the heavy lifting of coaching the storytellers and finding the venues is done by Storytelling Arts of Indiana. You can see a picture of Montez Day on Storytelling Arts of Indiana's Home page – www.storytellingarts.org

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Easter Sunday | Choose to Belong

By Rev. Dr. Carolyn Scanlan-Holmes • March 31, 2026

This Sunday we conclude our Lenten series with a heartfelt message, “Choose to Belong.” We’ll celebrate Easter—both as a remembrance of the resurrection and as a celebration of new beginnings, including welcoming new Gardner members into our inclusive community. Easter's beautiful expression of love and hope represents a tradition that calls us to notice the ways love rises again in our lives, dispelling darkness. Whether you interpret the resurrection story literally or embrace it as a metaphor of love overcoming despair, there is a place for you here. This weekend we’ll explore what it means to belong, and how our faith deepens through our connections with one another and with the sacred. Come experience the joy of community and discover how we can embody the transformative love of Christ together. Join us as we celebrate this meaningful day. Let’s embrace new beginnings and growth as one community. We can’t wait to see you.

Choose to Belong

By Matthew Vire • March 25, 2026

The experience of exclusion tempts us to blame ourselves, to think that we're falling short, that we are somehow wrong, damaged, unacceptable, or unworthy. To fix these perceived shortcomings, we may seek to fit in. There's nothing inherently wrong with fitting in — it can feel great — but it may come at the cost of our authenticity. In Letter to My Daughter , Maya Angelou writes, “You only are free when you realize you belong no place — you belong every place — no place at all.” She does not mean that we are rootless, but speaks of abandoning the chase for approval so we can be free to show up authentically. We do not need to change who we are to belong. Brené Brown eloquently unpacks Angelou's profound statement in this video. May it offer you reassurance, comfort, and courage as we continue exploring what belonging means.

The Labyrinth Called Life

By Rev. Dr. Carolyn Scanlan-Holmes • March 24, 2026

Have you noticed it? If you’ve been with us at The Garden over the past six weeks, you’ve likely walked right over it—the Labyrinth just outside the sanctuary doors. It’s easy to miss when we’re rushing in or out, but it’s there quietly inviting us to slow down, breathe, and pay attention to the path beneath our feet. As we move toward Easter, that invitation feels especially timely. This Sunday is Palm Sunday, the moment in the story when Jesus enters Jerusalem to cheers, branches waving, and a sense of possibility in the air. But that joyful procession is only the threshold of a much deeper journey. In the days that follow, Jesus moves through experiences that are profoundly human—sharing meals with friends, seeking quiet in a garden, wrestling with uncertainty, facing conflict, and ultimately walking a path that leads to the cross. The story does not shy away from suffering or loss, yet it also doesn’t end there. It moves through death into the promise of new life, renewal, and hope. Whether you connect with this story as history, metaphor, or a mirror for your own life, it offers a pattern many of us recognize: how celebration and struggle often sit side by side, how a single week can hold both joy and heaviness, and how transformation sometimes emerges from places we would never choose. As we enter this meaningful week, I invite you to consider your own path. What are you carrying right now? Where are you seeking connection, clarity, or courage? What parts of your journey are asking for attention, and what new life might be waiting just beyond what you can see? Let this be a week to walk with intention—to notice the twists and turns, the companions along the way, and the quiet hope that can rise even in uncertain places.

Be You. (What Does THAT Mean?)

By Matthew Vire • March 17, 2026

"Be you" is common advice. But what does it mean? The exhortation to "be you" is an invitation to relax into yourself and let go of worries that you don't measure up to someone else's idea of who you are or should be. "Be you" means be honest––to yourself first and then with the world––about your thoughts, feelings, insecurities, passions, interests, and inclinations. It means you're more than worthy. It means you are enough. It means you're worth knowing, seeing, and loving. Our resistance to be ourselves comes from fear, judgement, and insecurity. Fear tells us "hide." Judgment says, "you're not good enough, so you better pretend." Insecurity warns, "people won't like you if they really see you." But it can be easy to Be You. You don't have to do anything; you can just be. The only barrier is self-acceptance. Love can break through that. May this week give you space to breathe, to soften, and to trust that who you are is already held in love.

Paths to Belonging

By Rev. Dr. Carolyn Scanlan-Holmes • March 16, 2026

This Sunday, we continue our Lenten journey with the theme of belonging. The National Institutes of Health recognizes belonging as a fundamental human need that shapes our mental, physical, and social well-being. One of the insights from our Greenhouse Challenge was the recognition that many people in the U.S. are experiencing loneliness. In response, The Garden has been exploring what it means to belong—not just socially, but spiritually and communally. During worship, we’ll check in with Scott Semester to hear how our grant initiative may help us create spaces of sanctuary—places where people feel seen, safe, and truly at home. Our Scripture this week, Ecclesiastes 4:12, reminds us that “a cord of three strands is not quickly broken.” Belonging is not just about individual strength—it’s about the resilience we find in connection. When we walk together, support one another, and share our lives, we become stronger than we ever could be alone. May we continue to weave lives of compassion, curiosity, and courage—threads that bind us to one another and to the sacred truth that we belong.