Author: gracesmuggler

My dear friend, Marshall Dicks, died this morning after a journey with cancer. He had lived with cancer for a number years, but he had a significant decline over the last two months.

Marshall added much to my life, and I will miss him. We had deeply reflectve and meaningful conversations about life. Said slightly differently, we had remarkable conversations about the meaning of life, including what we want our lives to mean.

I want Marshall’s life to mean love, and simply put, I know it does. In great love, he treasured his children, his brother, his wider family, and his friends who were nothing less than family. My heart is with each of them today. He adored choral music and was a gifted conductor. He had a sharp mind and was a life long learner. He loved it all, and we all loved him.

I cannot underestimate the impact that his life and presence had upon the Michigan Nones and Dones Community as he gathered with us for years on Saturdays. It was an honor for us to accompany him on his cancer journey and as life took a number of turns. Nearly all of us were able to be present with him before he died, and on Tuesday, our community members surrounded him as a group. We might also say as a chosen family. “He was a Brother to me,” multiple people have said.

Rest well, Beloved Brother and Friend.

It’s all love now.

That’s what we feel, even in the heartache.

And on the other side, whatever that is like, I hope that love’s abundance is precisely what you know.

–Renee Roederer

I find these words by Stephen Porges to be very wise and real:

“Trauma compromises our ability to engage with others by replacing patterns of connection with patterns of protection.”

When a person or community has experienced trauma, recent or long ago, the instincts for protection are valid.

-And-

This is one of the reasons that human connections are important in the healing of trauma. They restore something diminished. And they protect too.

–Renee Roederer

I had the best soup for dinner last night. Like. Wow.

It was a tortellini soup, made by one of my favorite people. First of all, I don’t think I’ve ever had tortellini soup, so that was fun, but also, this was one of the best meals I’ve had in a good while.

And on top of that, something simple meant a lot to me too. As soon as I walked in the door, she said, “I know you like your food really hot, so I’ve kept it hot on the stove.” She would have kept it on the burner until I arrived anyway, but she had also been intentional about this little detail, just because she knows me. It feels good to be known.

One of the greatest gifts we can give each other — in large things and in small things — is particularity of care. Care that knows each other. Care that notices each other. Care that loves each other specifically.

–Renee Roederer

I was recently listening to a Mumford & Sons’ song when one of their lyrics really caught my attention:

“… before I tumble homeward, homeward.”

I thought that was intriguing phrasing. It made me reflect on the times when I suddenly found myself in a homeward direction, perhaps when I wasn’t even expecting it. There are also times when I found myself feeling a sense of home, even though its process and arrival of getting there was messy.

Thank goodness these moments can happen.

I have had moments of return — to place, to family, to communities, to memory, to states of mind — that were sudden. I have had estrangements suddenly end. I have had reconnections with community open wide after this was previously closed. I have had moments when I realized I could reconnect with the feeling of a loved one’s presence after they died.

I have also had moments of tumbling home to uncharted places. I have moved across the country three times to live in four different states. I have weathered a pandemic from inside my house. I have been accompanied by friends and loved ones through daily living. I have come to feel at home in my body.

“… before I tumble homeward, homeward.”

How about you?

–Renee Roederer

What is your larger narrative?

Is there a larger narrative that you want your life to mean?

a vision more expansive
than your fears,
than your pain,
than your abandonment,
than your guilt,
than your anger,
than your regret,
than your grief,
than your addictions,
than your cynicism,
than your anxiety,
than your unease

These feelings and experiences are valid and can be felt and processed, rather than pushed to the side.

But what larger narrative and vision energizes you and lights you up with sacred possibility?

Could we perhaps spend time intentionally cultivating that. Dreaming that. Practicing that. Acting on that.

–Renee Roederer

— Photos by Renee Roederer

The Summer Day

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean—

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

by Mary Oliver,
House of Light
Beacon Press,1990

Dr. Cindy Rigby was one of my theology professors at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary and one of my most significant influences during my years there as a student. On a number of occasions, I remember her saying something really wise about play, rest, and renewal, and I still think about it from time to time. I’m going to paraphrase her here so this isn’t an exact quote, but it’s close to her point. She said,

“So often we think about play, rest, renewal, and Sabbath as recreation, time away from the rat race… an extended period of time when we leave that rat race behind so we can rest up and then re-enter it again a bit more rejuvenated. But… what if play, rest, renewal, and Sabbath can be re-creation? So that they create us in new ways and actually change us? So that we don’t re-enter the same way? What if they change the rat race itself?”

That’s really wise. I want this re-creation. I imagine we all do.

There are times when we step away from typical rhythms and we are re-created in a way… with new hopes, and new commitments toward better rhythms, and new priorities (or actually this could be is a return toward…) the priorities that have been there all along but not tended to as well as they could be.

Re-creation is a possibility for us.

—Renee Roederer

Dogs don’t feel guilty when they need to rest.

Dogs don’t feel afraid of being seen as needy.

Dogs don’t feel shy about bringing it in for a nuzzle.

Dogs don’t feel anxious to reveal that they love you.

Dogs don’t feel reservation about being spontaneously playful.


Dogs don’t subscribe to grind culture.
Why do we?

–Renee Roederer

I highly recommend this podcast:
No More Grind: How to Finally Rest with Tricia Hersey

I had a chance to spend some time in Austin, Texas over the long weekend, and it was a joy-filled respite. It was also warm and absolutely gorgeous. I’d love to share some of my photography from my time there.

— Photos by Renee Roederer