Author: gracesmuggler

Hallelujah.

It’s a word from a chorus many know well, especially at this time of year. I’m grateful that I had the privilege to sing Hallelujah a multitude of times a few weeks ago. As I mentioned yesterday, I sing with a choir that has the longest annual tradition of singing Handel’s Messiah in the entire world. We’ve done this every year consistently since 1879.

While I haven’t sung this 144 times in a row, I’ve sung the Hallelujah Chorus innumerable times. Yet I’ve learned something new in the opportunity to sing The Messiah in its entirety. Based on where it’s placed in the greater work, the Hallelujah Chorus isn’t a chorus joy-filled triumphalism. It’s about liberation.

It’s about human liberation from oppression — deliverance from oppression caused by other humans. This becomes clear when we hear what precedes the famous chorus:

The bass soloist sings,

Why do the nation so furiously rage together?
And why do the people imagine a vain thing?

Then the chorus sings,

Let us break their bonds asunder,
and cast away their yokes from us.

Then the tenor soloist sings,

He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh them to scorn,
The Lord shall have them in derision.
Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron,
Thou shalt dash them like a potter’s vessel.

That’s when the chorus responds with “Hallelujah!”

It might seem like an odd time to jump in and rejoice. But if we view this less as the powerful (including God) doing destruction for the sake of destruction, and instead, view this as liberation for the oppressed (God standing with them in power) the Hallelujah Chorus has a completely different purpose and tone.

Hallelujah! 

For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. . .

Not standing above and dominating as an oppressor,
but standing among the people as a powerful Liberator —
a Liberator who invites the participation of the people in their own liberation.
(“Let us break their bonds asunder”)

King of Kings and Lord of Lords. . .

Not a tyrant kind of King or Lord,
but King and Lord that is revealed as fully human —
a vulnerable child,
a poor carpenter,
a revolutionary,
a healer.

Throughout our performances, I invite myself to think about these things when I sing that Hallelujah. And I think about liberation in our world and desire that certain bonds will be broken.

The audience stands and adds their voices, too.
Resurrection,
Liberation.

–Renee Roederer

–Photos by Renee Roederer

On a daily basis, these people fill my heart.  I feel a great deal of gratitude.
And I’d love for people to learn about our mission: www.epilepsymichigan.org

Where are you finding gratitude these days? With whom? With what? Feel free to let us know in the comments. — Renee

When we were closing up a Zoom, a wise, sage elder who I love and respect said,

“Can I say something as we finish?”

She then quoted Belva Davis, the first Black woman to become a news anchor on the West Coast.

“Don’t be afraid of the distance between your dreams and reality.”

I sat with that quote, and I knew that multiple people on the screen were applying her words to situations in their lives. So today, I want to pass those words onto you if they resonate with anything in particular:

“Don’t be afraid of the distance between your dreams and reality.”

–Renee Roederer

I walked into Panera to get my morning coffee, as I often do. (By the way, I don’t intend to be a commercial, but do you know that you can get a coffee subscription at Panera for a monthly fee, and then you can receive unlimited coffee? It’s amazing!) When I opened the door, Bill Wither’s “Lean on Me” was playing inside the restaurant. As I walked over to the coffee station and began to fill up, I was singing along under my breath.

Sometimes in our life, we all have pain,
We all have sorrow.
But if we are wise,
We know that there’s always tomorrow.

“Listen to us,” a woman nearby said. I hadn’t noticed, but three other people were singing quietly, just as I was.

We laughed, smiled big, and then all four of us started singing together, and right at the moment of the chorus too — Lean on me! When you’re not strong!— in harmony.

That was delightful.

–Renee Roederer

Jesus Christ,
I think it’s much easier to picture you
in a stable, cozy among the hay–
Then in the cave that they showed me
in Palestine, where all the animal are stabled.

I remember, when I toured Bethlehem
among the Christians
hearing talk of building permits
and dirt roads
the lack of passports
and that a lot of the fighting
was really about water access
“Is it like Syria?” I asked?

Aware, that
Syria was
is turning into a desert
before our eyes

“Exactly” they answered
Like a deer thirsts
for water
So our soul longs for God
“But I never hear that people are fighting
over water?” I wondered

Christmas Day
Eastern Orthodox
Christmas
we went to the tomb
of Jesus
Where seven (the holy number)
crowded in

Each with clear
ropes
labels
and signs claiming
this piece of the Savior
is mine.

“Merry Christmas!”
Our Eastern Orthodox Brethren Proclaimed
“Here touch the head of the tomb,
Normally, it is not allowed,
But today is a merry day”

I do not know, if I wanted
To feel so closely
the desperation
Of occupied
wartorn Gaza
must have
felt like
at your birth Jesus

But when I visited
Lo those 13 years ago

I remember–too
The hope of
Love among the
rubble

The joy of “Merry Christmas”
amongst many faith
The sharing of a a meal
with Muslims, Christians, Jews and Druze

Love among the rubble
As real as a Savior
born in a cave–
as real a glimpse as peace,
in war.
As real as hope,
in a capitalistic, political scape.
As real as joy,
in the midst of weariness.

As real as faith,
in the midst of doubt.

As real as Christmas,
in the midst of the Advent of Life.

That’s my God
the one who shows up in the rubble of life.
Amen, Alleluia, Amen.

–Rev. Katy Stenta

You can find this poem and more of Katy Stenta’s writing at KatyandtheWord.

Grief is love. It can be felt. It can be known. It can be supported by others, and it can be supportive of others. However it feels, may the love within it bring tenderness toward yourself.

As Jamie Anderson says,

“Grief, I’ve learned is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.”

–Renee Roederer

— Photos by Renee Roederer

One of my favorite books is Gregory Boyle’s Tattoos on the Heart: The Boundless Power of Compassion. I admit that I cry easily, but still, I do not exaggerate: The first time I read this book, I had to close it and pause at least 20 times due to tearing up.

Greg Boyle tells powerful vignettes about his community at Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles. Homeboy Industries provides jobs, counseling, and classes for people who are looking to exit gangs. Many of them are teenagers and young adults. Many have known long spells of incarceration. But long before they ever joined a gang or experienced that incarceration, they have carried deep burdens of trauma. As Boyle says, “Kids who join a gang are not running toward something. They are always running away from something.”

The whole book is filled with compassion, and it works to address an internalized belief we tend to carry, one that distorts our views of others and ourselves – that is, “the sneaking suspicion that some lives are worth less than other lives.” That is the lie we must confront.

Greg Boyle tells a sweet story about a man and his father, and he opens that story up to speak a conviction about human worth. I want to leave it with all of us today for own thinking and our own loving.

As his health was failing, an old man moved in with his adult son, someone that Greg Boyle knows personally. In the evening before bedtime, the son would read aloud to his father. In a beautiful role reversal, the adult son put his father to bed every night.

The son would often invite his father to close his eyes while he read aloud, but over and over again, he would catch his father looking at him. He would say, “Look, here’s the idea. I read to you, you fall asleep.” The father would apologize, but at some point, one eye would eventually pop open. This went on every single night. When it was time to sleep, the father could not take his eyes off of his own son.

Greg Boyle says that God is like this: “God would seem to be too occupied in being unable to take Her eyes off of us to spend any time raising an eyebrow in disapproval. What’s true of Jesus is true for us, and so this voice breaks through the clouds and comes straight at us. ‘You are my Beloved, in whom I am wonderfully pleased.’”

One eye open, looking at us with love and wonder.

Maybe we need to pop one eye open and view each other with this kind of love too – no longer heaping shame upon shame, accusation upon accusation, or stereotype upon stereotype, but viewing one another love and wonder.

One eye inevitably and playfully open.

–Renee Roederer