Smuggling Grace

This week, I’m in Minneapolis for the Leadership Conference of the Epilepsy Foundation of America. I adore this conference because it’s a wonderful experience to reunite with colleagues and friends. We have many opportunities to learn and make fun memories together. At this conference, you can do a deep dive on health equity and have karaoke. Both are happening over the next few days.

As people have led speeches and workshops, I’ve noticed how many have shared the vulnerabilities of their own stories. 1 in 26 people will be diagnosed with epilepsy at some point in their lifetime, and 1 in 10 will have a seizure at some point in their lifetime. That means there are a lot of people living with epilepsy, and a lot of people who are caring for someone with epilepsy.

People have been very personal here. There is a “Why” behind their work. Walter Koroshetz, former director of NINDS (the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke), spoke today, and he, too, made his remarks personal. He shared that he appreciates these deep ways of sharing in our community.

“I’m going to encourage you not to be stoic,” he shared.

I bet a lot of us — inside this community and beyond — could appreciate that reminder.

And I hope whatever we are experiencing, we can be real and find our people. Everyone needs that. Everyone deserves that.

—Renee Roederer

Touching words from the crew of Artemis II.

–Photos by Renee Roederer

Thanks to an innovative effort to support fish migration, you can watch a livestream and ring a doorbell to help them pass through locks in the Netherlands.

I admit these were strange songs to play joyfully in the car with the windows down. I didn’t even select them. They came on shuffle. But I certainly chose to enjoy them. There I was, cruising through Ann Arbor on a 70 degree-day with the wind blowing through my hair, listening to Mr. Rogers.

It’s such a good feeling to know you’re alive!
It’s such a happy feeling you’re growing inside,
And when you wake up ready to say
I think I’ll make a snappy new day! (Snap, Snap!)

Of course, this is the closing song of every episode of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. And at the end of the song, Fred Rogers would always say the same thing. This also played out of my window.

“You make each day a special day. You know how, by just your being you.”

I’ve always found it interesting that he chose to say “your” being you. It could have been less clunky if he said, “You know how, by just being you.” But I wonder if he said “your” because it’s good for us to make “being you,” something that is really ours — a kind of specialness that can’t be taken away.

Good lesson.

Next the hymn “How Firm a Foundation” came on. I don’t make it a habit to play hymns in my car (though no shade to anyone who does) but this one is special to me. I used to love watching one of my most formative and influential people sing this hymn. He would come totally alive singing these words:

The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to its foes;
that soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no, never, no, never forsake.

He was so deeply convicted, and you knew that his fervent singing was connected to stories of prevailing in struggle and feeling loved within it all.

I remembered that Fred Rogers also used to say,

Values “are caught, not taught.”

I caught this one. We watch others and internalize so much — for good and for ill. I’m grateful for the ones who have shaped us well.

Good lesson.

—Renee Roederer

Just checking in: How are you all doing after we became aware of a dire ultimatum with a timeline on Tuesday – that genocide, even nuclear weapons, might happen?

That situation really shook me. And there were many reasons for it. Now we have an unsteady ceasefire, and that’s a good thing… sort of. It still has a time clock. I joined many in being deeply concerned for the people of Iran, as well as the globe itself, and the fallout of hearing that “an entire civilization will die tonight.” And if you, or anyone you know, has been a victim of abuse in their own personal lives, that intense line in the sand,

“If you do this, I will…” level of threat gets deeply activated.

And I experienced that in a way I haven’t felt in a long time. For the first time in a year, I was doomscrolling. I usually have personal practices to get me out of this freeze state. But I went there. And maybe you did, too.

For me, the cycle went like this.

1. The administration is physically activating me and connecting to early life experiences I’ve had.
2. I am checking my phone to not feel crazy or alone.
3. I am getting triggered by the intensity I’m seeing on my phone.
4. The administration is physically activating me and connecting to early life experiences I’ve had… wash… rinse… repeat.

And if you were feeling overwhelmed or alone, I am telling you this so that you know you aren’t alone.

Most of all, I’m angry that Iranians are living with immense danger and instability. And I’m angry that many – if not most – of us have to feel this, too.

—Renee Roederer

I was driving down the street when I noticed the bare branches of a row of trees. “Those will soon be filled with pink blooms,” I thought.

I only know that because I have lived here long enough to become familiar with the trees near my home. I suppose, in their own way, they are neighbors, too. When you live in a place long enough, you begin to know its rhythms.

I am not knowledgeable enough about trees — especially when they are bare — to identify what kinds they are. For me, that part is always a discovery. It’s a joy to notice their patterns for the first time each year. And it’s also a joy to have internalized them and be able to anticipate what is coming.

—Renee Roederer

I had just dropped off a rental car and stood in line for the shuttle that would take a group of us to the airport. There was a toddler — probably about two years old — who was absolutely delighted to be “taking the bus.” He was adorable. Even before his excitement began, I noticed him because he was wearing a fedora. Very stylish, little man.

We carried our luggage up the steps and found our seats, and it felt like everyone was tuned in to this little one, taking everything in with glee. The shuttle driver was playing Gospel music, and a chorus repeated:

Grateful,
Grateful,
Grateful,
Gratefulness
It’s flowing from my heart.*

Soon, the little boy began to sing along. And then, so did others.

You never know when a sweet moment like that will emerge and find you.

—Renee Roederer

*Upon returning home, I searched, and the song is “Grateful” by Hezekiah Walker.

Frederick Buechner shares that when we witness a sacrament, we catch a glimpse of the almost unbearable preciousness and mystery of life.[1] All our meals, conversations, music, laughter, and delight in the natural world can be considered sacred. In a world marked by deep pain, these gifts are truly, even unbearably, precious.

— And —

If no one has told you this,

YOU are an embodiment of unbearable preciousness and mystery.
I hope you know that today.

—Renee Roederer

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[1] Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), 82.

–Photos by Renee Roederer