Author: gracesmuggler

I’ve written about this before, but it’s on my mind again this this morning, so I thought I’d share it once more. I love a particular quote from Frederick Buechner.

This quote has been voiced during milestone events in my life and the lives of people I love. I first heard it when a loved one spoke it aloud to frame my ordination service (that was so meaningful). I have voiced it when I’ve officiated weddings. I wrote it at the beginning of someone’s commencement letter.

There’s something special about this because the quote has become communitied. Ordination services, and weddings, and commencements. . . A whole bunch of people in my wider community know this quote and hold it dear. Here it is:

In the entire history of the universe, let alone in your own history, there has never been another day just like today, and there will never be another just like it again. Today is the point to which all your yesterdays have been leading since the hour of your birth. It is the point from which all your tomorrows will proceed until the hour of your death. If you were aware of how precious today is, you could hardly live through it. Unless you are aware of how precious it is, you can hardly be said to be living at all.

Yes, this is great for milestone days.

But also. . . Frederick Buechner didn’t write this about milestone days. His point is that every day — every single today — is this unique. Every day is a hinge moment. Every day is precious.

So every day this week, I’ve said this quote aloud first thing in the morning. I’ve invited this to frame my days. It doesn’t mean that every day is easy. I’ve actually waded through some challenges this week. It just means that every day is particular. Every day has value. Every day can teach us.

Today is precious.

–Renee Roederer

This quote was originally published in Whistling in the Dark and later in Beyond Words.

Image Descriptions: Two pictures of a golden doodle resting his head on my leg. I’m wearing red and black plaid pajama pants.

Sometimes, I get to watch this little buddy. He’s my friend’s golden doodle pup, and he’ll be with me this weekend. When he stays with me, I notice this:

He’s nearly always aware of me. He follows me around the house. He watches me. He lies at my feet. He explores the house, sniffing things, but then he looks at me here and there to anchor and orient himself.

It makes me wonder…

To what… to do I orient myself? What am I aware of? What’s in my consciousness? Who and what are my anchors? Who and what do I attune toward?

— Renee Roederer

Earlier this week, I sent someone an article that I appreciate:

The Best Drug I’ve Ever Taken Wasn’t Even a Drug. It was EMDR Therapy by Adam Copland.

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, and it’s a highly effective treatment for trauma. I have also done it, and it changed my physiology in significant and beneficial ways.

It’s also a helpful form of therapy for people who 1) want an experience that is somatic (reorganizing the body’s reactions to trauma, stress, and anxiety) and 2) want to do less talking with a therapist (though this can be part of it too if desired), particularly if it’s hard to put emotions into words.

We have all gone through significant stress during this pandemic. That alone has been a lot to manage. Then we think about anything personal and particular we’re experiencing, or the sense that we’ve been in collective crisis at least since 2016, and this… has been a lot. I want to recommend EMDR as one possible modality to work through these things.

–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 confronts that lie by telling stories of transformation. He’s a Jesuit priest, and he weaves theological reflection together with stories of his relationships at Homeboy Industries. Throughout the book, he encounters shame with love and compassion. We get to hear the transformative moments when these loved ones truly began to know for themselves that they are worth loving. We might step away from the book coming to know that more deeply for ourselves too.

We need to mirror this kind of love toward one another, especially when a suspicion seems to be growing that some lives are worth less than other lives.

That’s the lie of our age, and it’s simply untrue.

Greg Boyle tells a sweet story about a man and his father, and he opens that story up to speak a conviction about God and 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

Yesterday, I heard a recent episode of the Freakonomics Podcast that I will likely be pondering for a long time. Arthur Brooks, a person with whom I likely disagree on so much (I looked at some of his other book and article titles) has written a book about the state of American culture and politics, naming that we have a serious crisis of contempt. And I definitely agree with him about that.

The podcast episode is entitled, “How Can We Break Our Addiction to Contempt?” and I highly recommend it.

He shares that when we are angry, we care about the other person with whom we are sharing. We care about them, and we want them to understand our pain, stories, experiences, or views.

When we have contempt, however, we have anger plus disgust. We view the other person as someone not worth caring about, and when this goes even further, we might not even view the other person or group of people as fully human.

There is a whole media and social media infrastructure building and fueling our contempt. It even functions in our brain as an addiction. We are in trouble because of this. It helps to name it, I think.

This is a good conversation starter. Feel free to have a listen.

-Renee Roederer

Everything catalyzes everything.

Everything affects everything.

This, of course, is so obvious that it’s hardly worth being the topic of a blog post. But perhaps it’s obvious to the point that we could think about it more often. Maybe with some intention, we might feel greater hope too. Because….

What we do matters.

Now surely, some actions have bigger impacts than others. And when we move in directions we regret, we can always change course. After all, everything catalyzes everything, and our course correction shifts the whole. Even the recognition that we need a course correction had a catalyst. Something woke us up to that. And now the shift will have impacts too, creating space for new possibilities.

So back to this:

What we do matters.

What we do – how we spend our time, how we speak, how we relate, how we create, how we care – it all matters.

Because it always initiates a sequence of effects, often well beyond what we might have imagined. It’s not about us. But our actions matter. We impact things, just as they impact us.

–Renee Roederer

I serve as the Co-Director of the Interfaith Round Table of Washtenaw County, and in that role, I have the privilege of visiting many communities during their worship and times of spiritual practice. When we were in lockdown before vaccinations, most of these communities were not meeting in person but are using technological platforms to connect virtually. I remember having the occasion to join the Zen Buddhist Temple in Ann Arbor for their Sunday service.

I sat outside on my deck, stilled myself, connected with my body, and listened. I heard the sound of so many birds with their various calls. I heard neighbors multiple streets away using a weed eater and a leaf blower. I wondered… what’s the farthest sound I can hear right now?

When I asked that question, I heard birds chirping on the recording from the temple. Yes, those are across town and certainly the farthest away.

In all the upheaval of these days, it’s a great gift to simply sit still, check in with our bodies, and notice. When we slow down and notice, we can have greater pleasure and connection with all that’s around us.

–Renee Roederer