Smuggling Grace

Over the last few months, I’ve been noticing the same Jeep around town. And by the way, I don’t mean this in any creepy sense. I just mean that it’s very colorful and unique, so it’s noticeable.

I’ve seen it parked while walking in a certain neighborhood. I’ve seen it in the parking lot at Trader Joe’s. I’ve been walking in another neighborhood when it has pulled up to a stoplight.

It’s a really cute Jeep.

But all of this has made me wonder how often we pass the same people and never realize it. Maybe we’ve been in the same grocery store with someone thirty times and have no idea. I grew up in a small town, and when I met people in high school, we would sometimes wonder if we had been in Target at the same time as children. It was one of the main places to go.

We’ve probably shared space with people who later became significant to us.

And I might have repeatedly seen a same plain white SUV too, but I would never know it.

We’re probably in one another’s presence more than we realize.

A lot of the time, people around us are carrying the very storylines unfolding in the news. People are experiencing shared hardships, but they may think they’re alone. Multiple people have a spouse with cancer. Multiple people have experienced homelessness and spent a season couch surfing. Multiple people once lived in another state at the same time, and now happen to live in this one at the samet ime.

We’re more connected than we think we are. We’re never as removed from the headlines as they sometimes seem. Those stories and those needs are in our neighborhoods too.

—Renee Roederer

–Photos by Renee Roederer

What a long earthling.

Oh, friends, I’m getting back on my bike today.

Over the last three weeks, I’ve had a really strange experience. I pulled a hamstring muscle, and then it became so tense that it pushed on my sciatic nerve to the point that I couldn’t sit comfortably for about three weeks.

I went to the doctor this week. I thought it might be good to have someone take a look, but I assumed they were just going to tell me to rest it, which is what I had been doing all along.

Instead, I was given a medication. I took one pill, and overnight I experienced such a dramatic difference.

The pain lasted more than twenty days, and that was no fun at all. But it has made me more mindful of people who live with chronic pain. I don’t begin to claim I understand that experience, because for me, I only visited that world for a little while. Now I’m finding my way back out. But I’m more mindful of people living with that experience.

I’ve missed riding around my town so much, especially knowing that warm weather is limited here.

I imagine many of us can relate to those moments when we have to step away from something we deeply enjoy. And when we return to it, we appreciate it all the more.

Maybe one of the best gifts we can give ourselves is the awareness that we are enjoying something while we are enjoying it. Life can change quickly, whether in a temporary way or a longer-lasting one.

But I don’t mean to be overdramatic.

Except for this:

I’m getting on my bike again today!!!!!!!

–-Renee Roederer

I’m sure we’ve all had bouts of sleeplessness, whether it’s a season of insomnia, an illness, or feeding a newborn.

If we’ve had any sleepless nights since 1997, others have chosen, quite willfully, to be awake with us and pray on our behalf. They don’t know our names, but they choose to be in solidarity.

The Norbertine Canonesses are an order of Roman Catholic nuns in the Tehachapi Mountains of California. Every day, they wake at midnight to remember those who are struggling to sleep and to pray for them.

They think about people struggling with substance abuse. They imagine those who are homeless and don’t have an adequate bed or a safe place to be. They remember victims of domestic violence. They pray for people experiencing mental illness, situational anxiety, challenges in relationships, grief, or confusion about life’s direction. They especially remember new parents.

I think all of this is really lovely.

Some of us may value prayer, and others of us may not resonate with it. But one thing is true: alongside their prayers, these women want people to know that they aren’t alone in those moments of distress. I find that to be very touching.

So if you want, think about a difficult moment of sleeplessness you’ve had recently or sometime over the last few years.

In that specific moment, some women in California were remembering you.

—Renee Roederer

I learned about this community of nuns in The New York Times: These Nuns Wake Up at Midnight to Pray for New Moms

Over the weekend, I stood in a circle of neighbors, and together we read aloud “Let America Be America Again” by Langston Hughes. An interfaith organization had invited us to gather, connect, and reflect with one another as we marked the 250th anniversary of the United States.

This poem was written in 1935, nearly a century ago. And yet it feels just as relevant today.

I invite you to listen as well.

David and Amy completely changed my world.

When I was in my late teens and early twenties, a couple from the congregation where I grew up created a relationship of deep belonging with me and made me part of their family.

We can’t always choose the families into which we are born — though we do have opportunities to choose them in their own right — but we can also build families purely through choice. That’s what happened when David and Amy made space for me in their lives.

They are central characters in one of the chapters of the book I’m writing. But in many ways, the major themes of the whole book begin with their influence. It’s all about kinship and the many ways we choose one another.

Had he lived to see it, David would be 90 years old today. I’m grateful to reflect on that and on the many ways I still carry parts of his life in mine.

Now that I’ve lived more decades than those early years, I also know what it is like to choose young people and bring them into my family. I’ve done that too. I’ve always known how much David and Amy gave me. But now, as I’ve gotten older and had parallel experiences, I think I have a deeper awareness of what I gave them as well.

And that brings me to a thought I hadn’t considered until recently.

David was the same age I am now when I was born. We wouldn’t meet until I was nearly an adult. And that reminds me that maybe — likely — I haven’t even met some people who will someday be central to my life. I love this vision of choice. I love that there are loves before us and loves behind us.

How lucky we are to share some time with one another.

—Renee Roederer

When we click on a YouTube video, no one enjoys watching the advertisements that come before it. Most of the time, I simply treat them as an inconvenience.

Lately, though, I’ve been getting advertisements from a company called Patriot Mobile. The ad talks about how important it is to find companies that promote your values.

What values? I wondered. I think the algorithm probably pegged the wrong person.

When I visited their website, I found this description: “America’s only Christian conservative wireless provider. Reliable nationwide coverage on your choice of three major networks, all while supporting our mission.”

And what is their mission? They describe four pillars: the First Amendment; the Second Amendment; the sanctity of life; and military, veterans, and first responders. They use the existing cell towers of the major wireless carriers. But by switching your service to Patriot Mobile, you’re also supporting organizations connected to those four pillars.

Let me just say that I personally find it a little dystopian to hear the phrase, “America’s only Christian conservative wireless provider.”

Is Christianity a brand now?

And if it is, who gets included? Who gets excluded? What are we promoting? The website also features well-known conservative commentators and political strategists, making it clear that this is about much more than cell phone service.

It’s one thing to say you care about religious freedom, but for whom? What about people who aren’t conservative Christians? What about people who practice other religions? Or no religion at all?

And for the record, I don’t think any faith community should have its own… wireless provider.

What an age we are living in.

I also wish corporations weren’t pouring money into politics. (And that certainly isn’t limited to conservatives.)

One final confession: when I visited the Patriot Mobile website to write this post, I opened it in an incognito window. I don’t need to encourage the algorithm any more.

—Renee Roederer

–Photos by Renee Roederer

A little being is so complex.