Smuggling Grace

On March 14, 2007, I could have easily died. Instead, I was only injured. And though those injuries were by no means easy, they were also a lot less significant than they initially appeared.

I was on a ski trip in Colorado with a group of college students. I was in graduate school and 25 years old. I learned over the course of that week that I was a pretty terrible skier, but I improved significantly.

On March 14, we had an unseasonably warm day on the slopes. The snow melted some and then began to clump. And though I had improved quite a bit, and I was going down a hill slowly with other skiers, I hit some of those snow clumps and felt myself losing control. I told myself to fall on purpose, and that’s the last thing I remember from the day — other than some vague verbal conversations. I have no visual images from the rest of that day.

I fell on purpose, but very much not on purpose. I slid into a tree.

The scene was immensely gory. In the end, I had only broken my scapula and had a concussion, but it was very overwhelming for everyone who saw me in that state. One friend in particular found me and stayed with me until ski patrol arrived. She even lay on top of me to make sure I would stay warm.

As I mentioned, I only have some vague verbal recollections from that day. I then remember being brought down the mountain and the leader of the trip saying to me repeatedly, “I’m right here with you. You’re not alone.”

He and I got in an ambulance and zoomed down the mountain. I’m sure that was also very scary for him. As a point of comedic relief in a difficult story, I’ll tell you that the EMTs, who were trying to keep me aware, at one point asked me, “So, Renee, tell us what you do?”

And I screamed loudly,

“I’M A THEOLOGIAN!”

That was one of the only other things I remembered. And yes, vaguely, at the end of the day, when someone came to visit, I asked, “Did I say this in the ambulance?”

He nodded. It turns out I did.

Though I wasn’t aware of any of it at the time, it was incredible to learn later how much everyone had rallied for me and for one another that day. Because the leader of the group was with me, someone else took up the mantle and made sure everyone was coordinated and cared for. People made sure everyone was accounted for so they could all return together a bit earlier than anticipated to where we were staying. Someone fed me applesauce while I was in the hospital, though I don’t remember any of this.

The next day, I have visual memory again. And I recall something so tender and sacred to me. Two of my closest friends stayed overnight in the house where I was, and that morning, they washed all of the blood out of my hair.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a situation where you’ve been vulnerable and people rose so fully to the occasion, taking care of your body at every turn. But if you have, you’ll feel gratitude like I do.

Of course, in the end, I was thankful I was not more severely injured — or worse. But after recognizing that, the thing I was most grateful for was the realization that I could fall into this community and let them catch me.

And so, I want to ask you as we begin a new week: When was a time that a person or a community cared deeply enough for you that you could fall and find yourself caught? Or when was a time you participated in this kind of love for someone else? Or when did you witness that in a community?

I invite us to bring that to our minds.

We are more resilient than we know, but it’s never on our own. We carry people alongside us and within us, including those who are no longer physically present. And when we tell ourselves and each other these stories, we remind ourselves that community is worth falling into and worth catching.

—Renee Roederer

–Photos by Renee Roederer

Aww!

Earlier this summer, a colleague and I sat down with an incredible leader who was doing massive efforts to promote and enact conflict resolution. We were also impressed with all of the partnerships that he’s building.

“Intention is everything,” he said.

I still find myself thinking about that.

Then this week, I had the opportunity to tour a new facility with an amazing neurology unit and epilepsy monitoring unit. Over and over again, I heard about choices that had been made intentionally. Much of this was designed to create a smooth, comprehensive, and effective system for monitoring patients, capturing what they needed to discover on EEGs, and doing this with a keen eye on safety.

But in addition to all of the medical pieces, so well thought out, there were so many intentional choices about decor, helping people feel calm and supported in a beautiful place. Even the color schemes were designed to connect with the colors of Michigan, alongside images of nature from around the state.

All of the systems had been well thought through. All of the care had been well thought through. And the physical settings had been designed for patient and family comfort, as well as support for staff.

Intention is everything.

It makes me wonder how often I go on autopilot when I could be more intentional. And it makes me wonder how we might find some sense of comfort in the intentional decisions we make — to design a home or a workplace, or to create opportunities for relationships to flourish.

This will stick with me for a while.

Intention is everything.

—Renee Roederer

I started delving into a book that I last read in my mid-20s. I came to it with a purpose. The author used a phrase that has stayed with me for decades, and I’ve used it in a variety of settings, citing him verbally. But now that I’m working on a book myself, I’ve wanted to find the placement of this phrase. I think it might be in this book…? I tried to remember. So I purchased it online.

Now I’m reading it in earnest. I hope to find the phrase — yes — but now, I’m just enjoying the opportunity to revisit the book. In the Company of Others was written by my seminary professor, Dr. David Hadley Jensen. This book was crafted from his dissertation.

He does some heavy and brilliant theological lifting in this book, and it’s been a pleasure to revisit it. And here’s what has surprised me: As I’ve been reading, all of these warm feelings from my seminary days have been returning. I remember what it felt like to belong to this community. I remember how absolutely eager I was in my own learning.

We carry communities within us. Sometimes, we hear a song on the radio, while streaming, or while entering a store, and we are transported back in time. I’m realizing that we can encounter someone’s words as well and be brought back into the same kind of experience.

We all have parts and chapters. And sometimes, they are reinvigorated in these ways. I’m feeling this part of me in the present, and it’s lovely to encounter this community again.

—Renee Roederer

Do you know that your body is limited?

And that this is not only okay and fully acceptable, but an occasion for you to be fully accepted? That this is a reality in which you are and can be embedded in relationships — where belonging takes place, and giving and receiving become a sacred rhythm, and you can find yourself held in collective care?

Have you allowed yourself to rest in the truth that your body is limited? That it is okay and fully acceptable to rest, and that this is an occasion to pause and honor yourself as a human being rather than a human doing?

Can you hold space for your body to be limited? To ask questions? To need others? To provide from your fullest self, but no longer assume a task list fuller than the self that you are?

What is possible?

—Renee Roederer

I was gathered around a family dinner table with two adults and two young children. Together, we started having a conversation about our projections for the future. We asked the kids what they thought the future would be like when they are our age. (And by the way, I don’t mean any sort of doomsday scenarios or apocalypses — just what daily rhythms might be like.) It was fun to hear their imaginative answers.

Then we started talking about what we thought, expected, or imagined. Not long after this, the children got up and went into another room to play. Our conversation moved in a deeper direction.

Initially, I said that when I was coming of age in high school, we believed that things were going to become progressively better throughout our lives. That was the assumed trajectory.

Last Friday, marked the 25th anniversary of 9/11, and as my friends and I talked about this, I realized that that day and that era greatly interrupted that belief that we carried. It’s not that we thought everything would only go downhill, but now, we expected deep challenge. We didn’t feel invulnerable. We knew that massive movements and days of historical pain could throw us off what we expected from our daily lives.

That’s when I told my friend a story I haven’t voiced out loud in a while.

On the day of 9/11, I was a sophomore in college, and that morning, I was scheduled to take my first music history exam. Segments of musical pieces would be played and we would have to identify the piece, composer, and era. It was going to be a very hard test. After the planes hit the World Trade Center, that test became a take-home test, and I remember feeling so guilty at how relieved I felt.

But beyond those initial details, around the dinner table, I also told my friend that that day, I went back to my dorm room and turned on Pat Robertson’s The 700 Club.

Most of my readers will probably recognize that name, but if you don’t, he was a Pentecostal televangelist who blended fundamentalist teachings and news segments told through that fundamentalist lens. I had moved away from this theology a long time ago, but for a few weeks, or maybe a month, I started watching this show daily.

Pat Robertson had been a mainstay of my childhood experience, and truth be told, I had a very problematic and painful relationship with his show. It was often on in the evenings at my home. During that show, in addition to talking about fundamentalist theology and telling news segments through that interpretation, there was often a time toward the end when they would air segments of people who talked about being physically healed of chronic illness and disability as Pat Robertson and his fellow co-hosts prayed.

After sharing one of those stories, they would move into that time of prayer and begin naming maladies that were being healed in the moment. They would say things like, “There’s a person out there who can’t hear out of his left ear, but right now that ear is being opened and healed in the name of Jesus.” I completely believed it.

During my fourth-grade year in particular, I would sit on the floor watching this show, hoping that somehow Pat Robertson and his co-hosts would say the right words to let me know they were healing my childhood epilepsy — but perhaps not use the most obvious medicalized terms (epilepsy, seizure, etc.) because I would feel so embarrassed in front of my family member who was also watching. We didn’t use those words in my house, though I knew what they were, and they affected me daily. “Maybe just have some secret words between me and you, Pat. That would be just fine.” I prayed about this often.

Of course, that never happened. That is why I had a very problematic relationship with this show.

But here I was now, 19 years old in a post-9/11 context, somehow returning to it for a month of my life.

Why did I do that?

I think I was looking for some narrative that let me feel as though it was easy to tell what was wrong and what was right, what was clear and what was not, what was truth and what was untruth. I can’t deny that there was something appealing about those hard lines in a time of great uncertainty.

Why did I stop watching?

About a month later, I stopped watching in horror because I began to be appalled at how Pat Robertson and his co-hosts were talking about Muslims, their faith, and utterly stereotyping them as people intent on violence.

I can’t tell you that my upbringing was diverse. It wasn’t. At this time, even in college, I did not know a single Muslim person. Later, I would meet people whom I cherish, but I already knew that this scapegoating was wrong. So it took me a month, but then I moved away for good.

Here I am 25 years later, and I’m wise enough to know that the world does not progress neatly in an upward, linear fashion. I know we ride this roller coaster at times.

I also know we’re not only at its disposal. We can act. We can change. We can support one another. We can keep building the world we wish we had.

We don’t have all the power. We don’t even always have the neat lines. But we do have each other.

Maybe certainty isn’t the only thing that can hold us when the world feels uncertain.

—Renee Roederer

I think we all know that midlife can be rocky, right?

I haven’t entered it unscathed, if I may be honest. Changes. Trauma, both personal and collective. New questions (though most of the time, those have been lifegiving, too).

Likewise, this is often an unfolding time of deepening identity. And for me, that has also mostly been lifegiving. Still, as we know, midlife has hurdles:

For people who find themselves in this era of life, this is the sandwich generation, when we’re often caring for kids and parents at once. It is also the life stage of the dreaded midlife crisis. It is an era of thinking financially to prepare for what’s ahead — both for ourselves and those who come after us. And if we’ve had any kind of attachment trauma in our youngest years (we form our initial attachment system and attachment styles during ages 0–3!), we can almost count on some of those patterns and coping mechanisms crashing out on us at some point in this life stage.

As researcher and speaker Brené Brown says, “I think midlife is when the universe gently places her hands upon your shoulders, pulls you close, and whispers in your ear: I’m not screwing around. It’s time. All of this pretending and performing – these coping mechanisms that you’ve developed to protect yourself from feeling inadequate and getting hurt – has to go. Your armor is preventing you from growing into your gifts. I understand that you needed these protections when you were small. I understand that you believed your armor could help you secure all of the things you needed to feel worthy of love and belonging, but you’re still searching and you’re more lost than ever. Time is growing short. There are unexplored adventures ahead of you.”

Midlife is an unraveling and a becoming. If I were to write a review of this chapter of life, I would need to give nods to these storylines and possible disclaimers.

But all of that being said,

I adore midlife.
It might even be my favorite.

I truly love being sandwiched between generations. I feel wisdom moving in every direction as my life is surrounded by beautiful, brilliant people who are younger and older than me.

Sometimes, when I sit down and have conversations with those who are younger, I feel myself providing not only from myself and my own life-knowledge, but also from the wisdom and stories of the people who most shaped me. When I am learning from those younger people, I am in the moment. Yet later, I find myself reflecting on how much my elders would love these younger people if they could meet them.

Recently, I was remembering a time of great turmoil in my life in my 20s when my surrogate father told me, “Someday, you’ll be speaking to others about this and providing for them from it.”

It’s a terrible consolation prize, but it’s also true. I do this almost every day, and it’s fulfilling.

At the same time, I have some sage elders in my life who are constantly providing wisdom and guidance, letting me know that I can lean on them. And truly, I can. My elders who have passed would be so honored that these present ones journey with me now. I also think it’s good for those I care for to know that I am still mentored — of course, by those who have more years than me, but also by those who have fewer. We also become peers who accompany each other. The younger people in my life carry me in my vulnerabilities, as much as I hope they will carry a few strengths I have received.

I learn in relationship, as do we all.

So what I love most about midlife is this awareness — and this choice — of noticing and being shaped by wisdom in every direction.

As my friend Rabbi Rob Dobrusin has shared, “The wisdom of our elders must inspire us. We respect and embrace the concept of ‘dor l’dor,’ generation to generation, not only meaning the continuity of tradition but meaning as well continuing the search for wisdom.”

A lot can be upended in this era. But there is also so much space for collective care.

And I love that.

—Renee Roederer

–Photos by Renee Roederer