Smuggling Grace

And sometimes cute.

I live in Michigan, and right now, I can’t eat bagged lettuce or breathe clean air outside.

As you likely know, there is currently a parasite outbreak connected to produce in Michigan. Although it has now spread to more than 30 states, Michigan is the epicenter. And because of the wildfires in Canada, intense smoke has blown into our state. Today felt pretty strange.

When it comes to the parasite in particular, people are rightly concerned about how many people have been let go from federal agencies, particularly the CDC and FDA, including some of the people who monitor our food.

A few weeks ago, I had the chance to attend a public health meeting in Michigan, and I found myself thinking about the ways that public health workers are unsung heroes.

You don’t really know what public health professionals have been preventing until they’re gone. Most of the time, we have no idea how many disasters have been averted simply because people have the expertise, conduct the research, and practice the monitoring that keeps us safe.

I think, in this situation and in many others, we’re likely to find out the hard way.

So I want to thank the people who work in public health, who don’t often receive the recognition they deserve. We also know that funding doesn’t always follow protections people can’t see they’re receiving. But public health is a vital need and a social benefit for us all. We should fund the workers. We should fund the research. We should fund the monitoring.

—Renee Roederer

I went to the beach three times last weekend – not the same beach three times, but three different beaches. I was on the west side of the state for a work event, and I decided to savor Lake Michigan as much as I could. So I visited a different beach on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

At the last beach I visited, there were a lot of children at the water’s edge, playing.

And of course they were. It’s wonderful to feel the waves at your feet or, as some children were doing, run away from them and make a game of it.

I was at the water’s edge, too, taking a walk and enjoying the cool water moving back and forth over my feet. As I walked, I kept weaving in and out among the children. Yes, some were running from the waves. But most were doing something nearly universal.

They were digging. They were building in the sand.

We encounter this at nearly every beach we visit.

When I watched them, I smiled. My first thought was that most children are not obsessed with perfectionism. They’re building and playing for the sheer joy of it. We could learn from that.

But then I found myself thinking about other children.

In another place on the globe, children also build and play in the sand along the shore in Gaza. Som families live in tents by the sea. Children still play as they can. But many no longer have schools. If they are injured, many no longer have hospitals available to care for them. Many have lost parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, and uncles.

These children matter, too.

They build. And they know what it is like to watch what they make disappear – not only because of the waves, but because of the bombs.

—Renee Roederer

Lately, I’ve become quite enamored with golden hour.

Once a day (once a dusk?), thanks to the earth’s rotation, artistry happens in the sky. Colors morph and swirl. Reflections on the water take on fiery hues. And it’s not just a fleeting moment. There’s a progression that unfolds over time. Because our atmosphere and our clouds are different each day, no two sunsets are ever quite the same.

As we move from day to night, there is this liminal experience – a transition from one to the other.

This happens every day of our lives. We can simply step outside, or look out a window, and experience it.

Maybe I’m newly enamored with all of this because I, too, feel liminal these days. So many transitions are underway – some personal and some collective. Some are gorgeous. Some are excruciating. And some are simply… unknown.

Do you feel that?

Maybe, in the midst of so much change, we can take some comfort in the fact that sunsets are consistent – even if they’re consistently different.

Every single day.

Every single dusk.

—Renee Roederer

I first fell in love with writing when I was fourteen years old.

I had a wonderful freshman English teacher. I’ve been thinking about that class again because the film adaptation of The Odyssey is premiering in theaters. That year, we read portions of Homer’s Odyssey, and I absolutely fell in love with the story and the genre.

Then we had the opportunity to try writing in that genre ourselves. Our teacher invited us to write our own epic poems. I don’t remember a single detail of mine. But I do remember how much I loved the process. What I remember most is that she didn’t just compliment what I had written. She told me I was a really good writer. I didn’t know that.

It’s a great gift when people see something in us and then choose to tell us. And when we do that for young people, we have no idea how long those words might stay with them.

So here I am, no longer writing epic poetry, but writing every single day. It’s become part of the architecture of my life.

I’m so grateful for that. And perhaps I’ll go see the film and think about that, too.

—Renee Roederer

It felt so good to stand up. It was such a relief.

I had pulled one of my hamstring muscles, and sitting in the car was pretty painful. This wasn’t to the point that I couldn’t drive safely, but definitely enough that I was quite uncomfortable. The challenge was that I was three hours from home, and I had to keep sitting in the very position that was aggravating the pain.

In the midst of all of this, I kept thinking about how exhausting pain can be. Or maybe I should say that I wasn’t just thinking about it – I was feeling it. I found myself getting very tired.

So I was in this strange position of wanting to get home as quickly as possible because I hurt, while also recognizing that I needed to stop because I was getting tired. I took a lot of breaks on the drive home.

I’m aware that this experience is temporary for me. But I found myself thinking about people I know who live with spastic muscles, or friends who keep getting denied pain medication by their insurance. There are people who live with physical pain every day, and it must be profoundly exhausting.

I also remembered reading that emotional pain and physical pain share many of the same neural pathways. There are people carrying emotional and mental pain who are just as exhausted as if they were carrying physical pain.

All of this made me think that we should probably be pretty gentle with one another – and with ourselves. We never fully know what someone is carrying.

When I finally arrived, I stood up for good, and it felt amazing.

Tonight, I’m resting, and I’m grateful to be home.

—Renee Roederer

One of the best sunsets of my life! — in Grand Haven, Michigan.

–Photos by Renee Roederer

This is what they see on Tatooine.

It goes without saying that the beginning of ideas, initiatives, or stories often shapes the end. But there are also times when the end shapes the beginning. And the middle does, too.

I’ve been working on a book – very slowly but very diligently – since the beginning of 2025. Sometimes I only write three sentences in a day. But all of that has added up, and I’ve now written eight of what will eventually be twelve chapters.

Not surprisingly, those first eight chapters have changed what I initially envisioned for chapters nine through twelve. But also, the unwritten chapters are now shaping the written ones, too. Rather than pushing ahead and finishing the book, I realized this was actually a good time to go back and revise those first eight chapters in light of where I now want to go. I’ve been doing that, and it’s been deeply satisfying.

I suspect there are many experiences in life where the beginning, middle, and end are all shaping one another, often without our even realizing it. A book just makes that process easier to see.

It would be wonderful to finish it this year so that I can publish it next year. Stay tuned for Beheld: A Spirituality of Kinship.

Do you have anything like that in your own life – where you can see all the parts influencing one another?

It’s a fun thing to notice.

—Renee Roederer

–Photos by Renee Roederer