Smuggling Grace

Today I’d like to introduce you to the work of Tricia Hersey — poet, performance artist, and Nap Bishop.

For years, she has been inviting people to think differently about rest, not as laziness or something to be earned, but as a deeply human, restorative, and even liberating practice. Rest can care for our bodies, re-center us, and create space for imagination, dreaming, and healing.

At the heart of Hersey’s work is the recognition that this is especially true for people who have experienced oppression, and for communities whose ancestors endured violence, forced labor, and exploitation. She explores these themes in her wonderful book Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto and through her ongoing work with The Nap Ministry.

Today, I’d simply like to share a few of her quotes from Rest is Resistance. I’m passing along an invitation for us to see what resonates, what challenges us, and what invitations these words might hold:

1. “The Rest Is Resistance framework also does not believe in the toxic idea that we are resting to recharge and rejuvenate so we can be prepared to give more output to capitalism. What we have internalized as productivity has been informed by a capitalist, ableist, patriarchal system. Our drive and obsession to always be in a state of “productivity” leads us to the path of exhaustion, guilt, and shame. We falsely believe we are not doing enough and that we must always be guiding our lives toward more labor. The distinction that must be repeated as many times as necessary is this: We are not resting to be productive. We are resting simply because it is our divine right to do so.”

2. “I feel like a legacy of exhaustion resides somewhere in all of us, but specifically resides in the bodies of those who have melanated skin.”

3. “We are socialized into systems that cause us to conform and believe our worth is connected to how much we can produce. Our constant labor becomes a prison that allows us to be disembodied. We become easy for the systems to manipulate, disconnected from our power as divine beings and hopeless. We forget how to dream. This is how grind culture continues. We internalize the lies and in turn become agents of an unsustainable way of living.”

4. “You must resist anything that doesn’t center your divinity as a human being. You are worthy of care.”

5. “I want us to understand that nuance is freeing and freedom. There is no such thing as cookie-cutter healing. Everyone brings with them an origin story, a history, and identities that are interconnected. There is room to rest in the freedom of managing your own deprogramming journey. It is never either/or and always both/and. You don’t have to grind, hustle, accept burnout as normal, and be in a constant state of exhaustion and sleep deprivation. You don’t have to kill yourself spiritually or physically to live a fruitful life.”

What stands out to you?

—Renee Roederer

–Photos by Renee Roederer

I appreciate Melissa Kirsch, who writes The Morning, the Saturday edition of the daily newsletter from The New York Times. We typically expect a simple list of news stories (though the news is hardly simple), but she often begins the Saturday newsletter with a more reflective tone.

Over the weekend, she wrote about Serena Williams, who returned to Grand Slam singles after four years. When she previously stepped away from tennis, she shared that she had never liked the word “retirement. Instead, she said, “I’m here to tell you that I’m evolving away from tennis, toward other things that are important to me.”

That’s a different way to frame transitions and change.

When we evolve toward something or away from something, we can open — and be opened — to new possibilities. And because we haven’t necessarily closed a door, we might also be able to evolve back, but as people who have been shaped by the time away.

Melissa Kirsch suggested making a simple list:

What are you evolving away from?

What are you evolving toward?

I appreciate that this isn’t simply a way of naming endings and future goals, as though one is completely finished and the other has not yet begun. In both directions, evolution is a process.

So how would you answer those questions? What are a few things you’re evolving away from? And what are a few things you’re evolving toward?

—Renee Roederer

I’ve never heard of this megaslump before. (Or any megaslumps).

I had the wonderful opportunity to represent my organization as a sponsor and exhibitor at the 2026 Michigan Public Health Association Summit. While there, we heard from Dr. Nandi Marshall, President of the American Public Health Association. She was a dynamic and inspiring speaker.

She’s also a highly skilled health educator who teaches people how to make public health information accessible. Even though she was speaking to a room full of professionals, I watched her model this beautifully. Part of accessible communication is building relational knowledge, trust, and approachability.

She did this so well with a slide titled, “Who Curated My Lens?” It included photos of family members, and she talked about the impact each of them had on her life. They have greatly influenced the way she approaches her work.

That simple question framed the rest of her presentation, and I greatly enjoyed connecting with her afterward.

So now I’m wondering:

Who curated your lens?

Who has shaped the way you see the world? The way you do the work you do?

—Renee Roederer

“Well, that made me feel feelings,” a friend of mine used to say whenever he found something to be especially stirring.

There’s a piece of music often paired with internet memes and reels, usually connected to something meaningful or awe-inspiring. It’s just a tiny snippet of a song that is actually brief in and of itself. But whenever I hear it, I always feel feelings.

“What is this piece?” I wondered earlier this week. I looked up the full piece of music. It’s titled Agape, and it’s part of the soundtrack of the 2018 film If Beale Street Could Talk, based on the 1974 James Baldwin novel of the same name.

The piece is composed by Nicholas Britell. I encourage you to take some time to listen to this today, and perhaps with some headphones or earbuds.

I listened to it on repeat on a drive to Lansing and cried, thinking of a lot of good memories — and with gratitude, feeling feelings.

I was walking around a small town in Michigan when I looked down and saw a resilient, heart-shaped cluster of flowers growing from a crack in the sidewalk. Lovely. I sent a photo to a few people whom I consider especially resilient.

When was the last time you told yourself — or perhaps someone else — one of your stories of resilience? Something difficult you moved through? Something you survived? Or perhaps a story that was passed down through your family?

What if you made space for a little resilient storytelling this week, even if only for yourself?

—Renee Roederer

This is Artemis, this season’s baby yard bunny.

Every year, except for last year (sadness, the streak was broken!) a baby bunny has grown up in my yard during the spring and summer seasons. Cottontail rabbits are pretty territorial, so likely many of them, if not most of them, are related. Generations of yard bunnies. I’m pretty lucky.

Though the crew of Artemis II ventured farther away from Earth than any human beings in history, this tiny Artemis stays close to my home. Though I’m sure she thinks of it as her home, and that’s fine with me.

I enjoy watching her hop around and eat blades of grass that I assume are going to be too big for her. But they never are.

Every year, I find myself thinking about how these little ones only know my yard, or perhaps a few neighboring yards. They have no idea that I take photos of them and post about them. And then that makes me think about how small my world — our world —really is.

Think of all the things we don’t know! We don’t even know what we don’t know.

The universe, and perhaps even a multiverse (wild!) is utterly beyond our comprehension. Though I’m glad we keep exploring.

Yard bunnies are amazing, delightful, and humbling.

—Renee Roederer

Every time I drove around a slight bend or down a hill, I waited for it to come into view. And finally it did — the Mackinac Bridge.

It has such a signature look, and I smiled wide when I first saw it. Then I continued to approach until I arrived at the toll booth and joined the other cars around me in crossing the Strait of Mackinac. (Did you know that Lake Michigan and Lake Huron are technically one gigantic lake? The strait is where they meet.)

There’s gorgeous blue water in every direction. It’s immense. The towers of the bridge loom large above it all. As I drove across, I rolled down my windows and turned my music up.

I also slowed down. And I felt completely comfortable doing this because everyone slows down. Everyone creates a leisurely experience for themselves, which, of course, creates it for everyone else. Everyone supports one another in making this choice. There is simply too much beauty to rush past.

As I continued driving, I found myself thinking about that. It feels like the opposite of how so much of the world works. We don’t often slow down collectively. Sure, there’s that strange week between Christmas and New Year’s when nobody quite knows what day it is. And if we’re fortunate — I am grateful to experience this — we have people in our workplaces, communities, and families who encourage us to rest and move at a more sustainable pace.

But there are also demands, aren’t there? Sometimes they come from hierarchies and systems. Sometimes they come from our own sense of responsibility. We care deeply about what we’re doing. We don’t want to let anyone down. And so we don’t always allow ourselves to slow down.

But maybe we could. And by that, I mean we.

Maybe slowing down needs to be collective. Or at the very least, it needs to function like a contagion Because when one person slows down — still moving forward, but at a reasonable pace, while also taking in joy and beauty — it creates the conditions for others to do the same.

—Renee Roederer

—Renee Roederer