Author: gracesmuggler

I love birthdays.

I love my birthday. I love your birthday. I love everyone’s birthdays. I love all of them. I love them more than holidays.

It’s just really wonderful that we humans have this longstanding tradition so that each person has a day on the calendar for connection, surprises, gratitude, and appreciation. I sincerely love that we have all of these rituals for the day a person is born.

Yesterday was my birthday, and you guessed it: I loved it.

I can’t say it was the most eventful one I’ve ever had. Though my symptoms have subsided, I was in Covid isolation for the day.

But three people stopped by to bring me treats. (Grateful!)

And I heard from so many loved ones. This is the thing I love about birthdays in our current era: Social media becomes a place of shoutouts, and people from all the various chapters of your life become this assembly of connection. I was very grateful to receive from that yesterday.

Since my birthday is right at the beginning of the year, I think I can say confidently with anticipation,

You’re next!

–Renee Roederer

Mornings at Blackwater
By Mary Oliver

For years, every morning, I drank

from Blackwater Pond.

It was flavored with oak leaves and also,

no doubt,

the feet of ducks.

And always it assuaged me

from the dry bowl of the very far past.

What I want to say is

that the past is the past,

and the present is what your life is,

and you are capable

of choosing what that will be,

darling citizen.

So come to the pond,

or the river of your imagination,

or the harbor of your longing,

and put your lips to the world.

And live

your life.

Happy New Year!

I hope that you had a lovely experience ringing in the new year, and I hope that 2023 has some lovely moments in store. I know that this turn into a new calendar year is in some sense an arbitrary marker. The joy-filled parts of our lives are crossing over with us, and the difficult challenges are as well. But markers of time can serve as openings to ask new questions, initiate new practices, or appreciate possibilities. I welcome that.

And for whatever reason, I have a very good feeling about 2023. I feel renewed energy.

That’s my primary feeling as we move in this direction. This is also true for me in a literal sense. I spent the Christmas holiday with COVID, and now that I’m on the mend, I can’t begin to tell you how much better I feel than a mere few days ago.

I also took an extended break from blogging, and that was the first time I’ve done that in seven years. I didn’t think of it as a Sabbatical in terms of the timing, but given the seven-year marker, I suppose it was a mini version of that.

In all of these things, I feel renewed energy. Any time we feel that, I think we should embrace it. And any time that feels right, we can share it.

In multiple ways, I’m glad to be back.

Happy New Year! I wish you renewed energy too.

—Renee Roederer

During this season, I’ve been thinking a great deal about gratitude and living more fully in the present moment.

I have found this to be true:

Gratitude helps us
hold lightly, and
hold deeply.

These two things at once.

The practice of gratitude helps us hold experiences lightly, because we recognize that all things are constantly changing. Gratitude doesn’t seek to control people, situations, or outcomes. Instead, we can receive from all of these as they change.

The practice of gratitude helps us hold experiences deeply, because we recognize their value and are fully present. Gratitude connects us deeply with our daily lives and most especially, people. Gratitude strengthens connections and bonds.

–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, and for $11.99 a month, 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

In the midst of pain — our own or that of the world around us – it can sometimes seem downright foolish to let ourselves become hopeful. It can even be risky —

What if things never get better than this?

What if the next catastrophe still happens?

What if I look like a fool?

Hope takes risk, I suppose. Hope certainly doesn’t put us in control. Hope might invite us to desire things that in the end, we do not get to see.

But hope also has a way of creating things – things that could barely be imagined before. Hope helps our imagination become alive, and from there, when we envision other possibilities, we soon discover that we are called to participate in their creation. Hope leads us somewhere.

And so, in the midst of it all — whatever it is for you; whatever it is for the world — what might it look like to dare to take heart?

–Renee Roederer

-Photos by Renee Roederer

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

V.S. Ramachandran designed an experiment that was utterly brilliant in its creativity and its simplicity. Most importantly, it worked. It was life changing.

Ramachandran is a neuroscientist who is famous for a variety of discoveries about the human brain. In particular, his work has helped reveal the incredible qualities of its plasticity and malleability. Decades ago, he designed an experiment to alleviate phantom limb pain by using two simple mirrors.

Phantom limb pain is a kind of curious thing in and of itself. Documented in medical literature for more than 500 years, many physicians had written about the challenging phenomenon some patients had after losing limbs. For years, even decades, these patients continued to feel a painful sensation in the limb that was missing. Some felt as though their lost arm or leg was held permanently in an awkward or painful position. They remarked that they wished to move it back into a more typical, comfortable position. Of course, that was impossible.

In a flash of curiosity, V.S. Ramachandran created a mirror box. He placed two mirrors together at a right angle and invited people to step inside the box. Suddenly, those who, say, lost their right arm, could see their left arm projected on the right side of their body. Inside the mirror box, it appeared that they had both arms. Then, they could “move” their missing limb into a better position by simply moving their remaining limb. And shockingly, this led to actual relief of the phantom pain! For many people, this was a permanent shift.

I love this experiment. I love that it worked. And if you’ll allow me, perhaps we can also enter this as a bit of a life analogy also:

There are times when we face one another too, and our human brains also have mirror neurons. When we see the emotions of the person standing in front of us, the neurons in our own brains begin to fire and sync with the other person. Isn’t that an incredible thing? (By the way, V.S. Ramachandran has done work on this too.)

At times,
we recognize each other and smile,
we demonstrate need to one another,
we marvel in the presence of one another,
and at times,
we present pain:
broken and insecure attachment,
grief and longing,
fear and anxiety.

In all of these, in ourselves and in others, we can choose the intention to see one another well. Certainly, with our vision, we can’t save anyone into wellness. But by choosing to mirror back what is true — love, belonging, acceptance, openness, our own humanity and vulnerability — we can create conditions that allow us to see each other and see ourselves with more clarity.

We can see each other with more truth, more safety, and more healing. And sometimes, we can reconnect or reconfigure our relationship with what we need or what we’ve lost. This too is brilliant in its creativity and in its simplicity.

–Renee Roederer

In the Christian Century magazine, the Rev. Mark Ralls recounts a beautiful and unexpected experience he had while visiting a local nursing home. [1]

Pastor Ralls had gone to the nursing home to visit a resident who was a member of his congregation. While they were sitting together and conversing in the atrium, he heard some strange, intriguing words.

“I love you little. I love you big. I love you like a little pig.”

These words soon became a playful refrain. Pastor Ralls and his friend heard these words innumerable times throughout their conversation. They were spoken by a woman who was sitting nearby them. She was a resident too, and though she was sitting close enough to touch them, she paid no attention to their conversation. He writes, “During my visit to the nursing home that afternoon, I must have heard this sweet, odd rhyme more than a hundred times.” She continued to look out the window, and with a broad smile on her face, she let her refrain fill the room.

“I love you little. I love you big. I love you like a little pig.”
“I love you little. I love you big. I love you like a little pig.”
“I love you little. I love you big. I love you like a little pig.”

She seemed continually delighted by these words.

After inquiring of a staff member, Pastor Ralls learned that this woman had been a first grade teacher for decades. Each morning, when the children entered the classroom for their day at school, she would lean down and speak these very words into each beloved ear.

What a beautiful, playful ritual.

I love this story because it invites me to imagine what those words must have been like for the children in her classroom. . .

. . . I wonder if they would giggle before she could finish, each one anticipating the end of the phrase.

. . . I wonder if they would smile before she started, each one anticipating that they were loved and valuable.

. . . I wonder if they would ever add their voices to the chorus, each one rehearsing the truth of their worth, silly as the phrase may be.

I also love this story because it invites me to imagine how those words must have formed her as a teacher. . .

. . . I wonder if she spoke these words on days when she was feeling discouraged, and they lifted her mood just a bit.

. . . I wonder if she took pleasure in speaking these words to particular children who struggled to trust love.

. . . I wonder if the rehearsal of these words helped her love herself more fully too.

No matter how these words were spoken or received in her classroom, it is clear that they resonated deep within her psyche many years later when she was challenged by dementia. The refrain is delightful and silly. It is also so meaningful.

It makes me wonder. . .

Who has told you that you’re beloved?
Who has told you that you’re loved through and through?
Who has told you that you’re valuable and worth it all?

Do we rehearse those words and memories? Do we recall them and let them sink into our very being?

We can always begin that rehearsal again.

And if we doubt those words within us. . . guess what?

We can rehearse them again.
And again.
And again.
And again.

And if no one has told you today,
And if you’re struggling to tell yourself,
Please hear this truth:
You are Beloved,
Loved through and through,
Valued and worth it all.

–Renee Roederer