This belief drives me:
Connection changes everything.
I’m convinced of this. Human connection changes every situation.
It doesn’t fix every situation.
But it always changes it.
And I believe, most frequently, it changes things for the better. Want to transform a situation, a need, or an area for growth? Connect.
Wealth is not synonymous with worth.
Likewise,
Productivity is not synonymous with worth.
Productivity has never been the full measure of our lives, nor what it means to be human. But I think it’s quite possible to internalize the opposite.
Our culture conveys that productivity is the highest good, yet if we chase after it — I don’t merely mean working well in a meaningful way, but if we chase after it– we are rarely satisfied.
When it becomes the totality of our time or our self-understanding, we soon find that it is chasing us. In this mindset, no matter how much time we put into our labor, it is never enough.
It’s easy to internalize cultural beliefs around productivity. Yet truly, productivity is not synonymous with worth.
We do not need to reach a certain benchmark to be worthy of love, care, and belonging. We do not need an enormous salary to convey that we matter.
Yet as human beings, we need wholeness and fullness. Sometimes, this means that we need different experiences — rest, renewal, rejuvenation. Sometimes, this means that we need different parts of our brain to be active — the creative, the playful, the intuitive. These add to our own lives, and they also add to our communities.
Productivity is neither worth nor fullness.
Sometimes, we have to do the tasks we don’t particularly enjoy doing.
and
Sometimes we have to be present to aspects of life that are difficult or unjust, particularly in community.
Both of these, though very different, take certain forms of resolve and commitment. They take resolve and commitment to be present, and they take resolve and commitment to participate in moving the larger picture toward creativity, restoration, wholeness, and vitality.
To do this, it’s helpful to keep a sense of purpose at the core of our reflection and action.
And what gives us joy?
How do we bring it to the center… of our thinking? of our acting?
It’s helpful to keep these at the center, so that when we come to the moments of
… needing to do the tasks we don’t particularly enjoy doing, and
… needing to be present to aspects of life that are difficult or unjust, particularly in community,
we are energized for them — or at least, energized enough — because we are connected to the center of what gives us joy. We are connected to the larger picture and the why-we’re-doing-this of it all.
These give me joy:
-Hearing stories from students and young adults — large stories of formation and calling, and tiny, silly, wonderful stories from the daily-ness of life,
-Cultivating spaces where people feel a sense of belonging through connection, relationship, community, place, safety, a sense of return, and a sense of investing oneself,
-Connecting people to people in a myriad of ways — (have you met this person? do you know this group?) working on shared ideas, endeavors, and belonging in community groups; helping people feel connected to a larger sense of being rooted and related to one another (sometimes with wonderful surprise) thinking expansively about care and connecting people toward care of one another (also sometimes with wonderful surprise; belonging is healing and life-giving)
These are joy at my center.
What about you?
Bees bumble from flower to flower, using the navigation of bright colors to bring them to life-giving nectar. They collect it and covert it to honey to care for their young, and by extension, the whole hive.
But they have no idea they are pollinating the world’s food supply.
It helps me to remember that. The lives of bees are already so intricate and complex even in what they do intend, but beyond that, their work yields more life and complexity than they know.
Maybe this can remind us:
Individually, and especially collectively, our best intentions, our best connections, our best work, our best loves, and our best visions may yield more life and complexity than we know too.
At the beginning of the month, I reached the two-week period after my second vaccination, and after a very long wait, I jumped back in to do certain things I haven’t done in more than a year. In fact, I just returned to Michigan after visiting loved ones out of state, and that trip felt glorious.
I loved so many aspects of that time, but perhaps I was most grateful for the occasion to have shared meals with people I’ve missed for a very long time. Now that I’m back home, I’m going to continue making an intentional effort to keep that going. There is something so special in sharing meals with people you love. It is at once, simple and sacred. I’m grateful for the connections, community, and kinship.
I never want to take this for granted again. And I’m all in for more!
–Renee Roederer
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
I feel a bit ambivalent about the new CDC guidelines — that fully vaccinated people can go without masks in indoor spaces, including highly populated ones. On one hand, that feels exciting. On the other hand, it becomes very difficult to make community decisions. It remains important to protect the health of one another.
Celebrations:
— To begin, it makes me excited to get to this point. The science is showing us that fully vaccinated people are unlikely to contract COVID, and especially not with dangerous outcomes, and the science is showing is that fully vaccinated people are unlikely to spread it to others (we didn’t know at whether this would be true at first. I’m glad the data is showing this).
I also hope this will incentivize vaccination for those who can receive it.
Concerns:
— These new guidelines are based on the data about fully vaccinated people. The CDC guidelines say that unvaccinated people still need to protect themselves with masking and social distancing. I’m nervous that we seem to be going on an honor system here. We know that a lot of unvaccinated people are going to go mask-less, something that’s not only dangerous to them but others who have health conditions that make them vulnerable. This is additionally true for children who cannot yet be vaccinated.
I’m also concerned that this passes on the decision making for masking guidelines and in-person gatherings to communities and businesses rather than federal stakeholders. Do leaders of houses of worship want to be pressured to make decisions that could turn their congregations into super-spreaders? Do community event holders want that responsibility? Restaurant managers? Grocery store managers?
Some places may still have high COVID transmission numbers and low vaccination rates. This isn’t uniform. It would be very helpful to have some advice concerning benchmarks to make these decisions.
What are your thoughts?
–Renee Roederer
To the Person That Harms,
To the Family That Wounds,
To the Shame That Devours,
To the Violence That Festers,
To the Grief That Upends,
To the Diagnosis that Stuns,
To the Substance That Hooks,
To the System That Discriminates,
You,
Yes,
You,
Any of You, or
All of You, or
More Than You
(That Which Stays Silent or
That Which Exists Beyond Lists)
You.
You
have never been a gift in disguise —
not tied with a bow
or packaged with grand, silver linings.
But here’s one thing you’ve yet to figure out:
The more you knock us off balance —
The more you pummel,
The more you trounce,
The more you disrupt and delight in the off-kilter,
The more we come to know what our balance is.
And that balance,
when we know it,
when we can name it,
when we can internalize it,
is Strength Beyond Strength.
That Balance is Our Sacred Invitation.
That Balance is Our Secret Intervention.
Speak words into the air.
Launch them into being.
Create entire worlds of meaning
from
sound,
voice,
intention.
Expand the universe of thought and possibility,
Propel it forward with sacred truth.
From your mind and heart, begin to introduce
your being,
your worth,
your value.
I AM,
I AM,
I AM.
We are the Word’s cultivation,
formed,
shaped,
nurtured.
We are the world’s culmination,
unearthed,
revealed,
valued.
So
Speak words of form,
We are born!
Sound words of grace,
We are free!
Shout words of love,
We are known!
And from
your very breath,
your very being,
let air become sound,
let sound become word,
let word become truth, for
you are transforming,
you are becoming,
YOU ARE.
You.
Are.
This poem was inspired by a beautiful and powerful video of a father sharing morning affirmations with his three year old child. Click here to watch the video.
Sometimes, I marvel at who is in my life.
Sometimes, I am stunned to ponder that I could begin alone
then
become
connected
to
who after
who after
who after
who.
And this never ends.
It’s like a Big Bang, really.
A Whole Universe of Belonging.
We each start as a singularity.
Then
each one of us
bursts forth,
brought into an abundance of connections,
born anew bit by bit
through the particularities of relationship.
And these particularities
create
build
form
nurture
cultivate
and
renew.
They expand.
This is an ever expanding Universe —
this Cosmos
of
who after
who after
who after
who.
[1]
I am afraid of a harmless thing.
It looks like it could creep,
or bounce,
or pounce,
or charge awkwardly with its considerable appendages.
But it does none of these.
It stays in place all day long,
content to rest in a single crevice,
or reside in clumps of countless others.
It wishes me no harm;
likewise, I wish it no hurt.
Unlike curious schoolchildren at recess,
I will not examine it,
or smash it,
or dash it,
or remove any of its legs.
But –
I will stand irrationally in fear.
I will freeze in the presence of a childhood phobia.
No matter the logic:
“It can’t bite you,”
“It can’t poison you,”
“It can’t jump on you,”
I will cringe with revulsion and anxiety.
I am afraid of a harmless thing.
It makes me wonder. . .
When
the word can’t enters our thinking, or
the word won’t enters our hoping, or
the word don’t enters our dreaming,
perhaps we fear something harmless too?
[1] Photo Credit: Mehran Moghtadai/Arad/Wikipedia
