Author: gracesmuggler

We should never underestimate a kind, affirming word.

Maybe someone has been grieving,
Maybe someone has been depressed,
Maybe someone has been anxious,
Maybe someone has been lonely,
Maybe someone has been stigmatized,
Maybe someone has been scapegoated,
Maybe someone has been exhausted,
Maybe someone has been vulnerable,
Maybe someone has been hope-seeking.

There’s nothing particularly deep or creative in lifting up the importance of a kind word. I’m just saying something obvious. But I can point to several moments lately when people have done this, and it’s had even more power than they knew. We may never know fully what someone is carrying.

A kind word might not only land well. It might transform well.

–Renee Roederer

I remember something wise one of my seminary classmates said many years ago. She had a caregiving career before coming to seminary, and she was applying it to her current studies as well. It’s about where and how she chooses to set boundaries. She said,

“You can inconvenience me, but you can’t hurt me.”

That’s an important distinction. Without stepping back and reflecting on the difference, and how these both feel to us, we might either move forward in ways that hurt us, or we might quickly dismiss someone who really needs our help.

There can also be times when a certain level of inconvenience also begins to hurt us, but that’s precisely when we begin to negotiate how we’re communicating or helping.

That’s just really wise:
“You can inconvenience me, but you can’t hurt me.”

–Renee Roederer

Recently, someone asked me a great question:

“What’s something about you that is off brand? A trait about you that is against-type — one that doesn’t fit as obviously with the rest of who you are?”

I’ve been asking this question to myself and others, and I’ve discovered it’s also a fun question for groups. I love these unexpected answers.

How would you answer it?

–Renee Roederer

Have you ever been with a child or adolescent who wants to be seen and observed?

“Watch this!” or “Watch me!” a young one might say as they play.

Or a teenager might just share all the things they’ve been up to lately — all the things they’ve been excited to try. The musical instrument they’re practicing, the new part-time job they’ve gotten, the team they’re on, or the play rehearsals they’re in at the moment.

When these moments happen, young people are connecting relationally with us. And we are also serving as mirrors for them to connect with their growing selves.

Though the formats or expressions may change, I don’t think adults grow out of this. We all need to connect relationally with others. We all need people to serve as mirrors so we can connect with our growing selves.

We all need to be beheld.

–Renee Roederer

Trauma distorts a sense of time. This is true with personal trauma and collective trauma alike. As a more benign example, in the midst of this pandemic, how many of us have had trouble scaling an accurate sense of time? Experiences long-ago feel like they just happened, and experiences near in time can feel distant. I feel this sensation all the time, and I hear it from others too.

More challenging though, when we’re experiencing trauma on a deeper level in our bodies, we have moments in which the painful past feels re-lived and re-experienced in the present. On top of this, we likely project anxieties onto our imagined future too. These begin to feel real and present also. Past difficulties and future difficulties are converging inside us. Time is crashing within. This can feel very physical as it plays out in our bodies, and we may respond with fight, flight, freeze, or fawn reflexes.

But what if we could also hack this process a bit, reversing it and distorting time purposefully in our favor?

What if…

… we choose to recall the most supportive and affirming people, experiences, and chapters of our lives, remembering them and meditating on them in ways that allow us to feel their presence in our bodies? What if we make these present, and it impacts our physical sensations too?

… we choose to imagine a supportive and affirming future with beloved people, experiences, and next chapters at peace, with things likely working out (or with some bumps and resilience, turning out okay enough) and we encounter a future vision that energizes us in our bodies? What if we make these present, and it impacts our physical sensations too?

In this process, an affirming past and supportive future can also converge in the present, but now, we’re hacking this distortion intentionally.

–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

Easter is a season — 50 days of new life.

Some of my readers likely celebrate Easter, while others do not. In any particular way resonates with you, may a season of new life find you. And here’s the theme that is sitting with me at the moment:

I want to live a larger narrative. I have some very specific things on my mind when I say that. These are large visions that resonate with my life and send me into particular callings in community.

I hope that you can also live into a larger narrative that marks your life, however it may take form.

This is what I mean:
What is the larger narrative for you? —
a vision more expansive
than your fears,
than your pain,
than your abandonment,
than your guilt,
than your anger,
than your regret,
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 50 days cultivating that? Dreaming that? Practicing that? Acting on that?

–Renee Roederer