Author: gracesmuggler

Image Description: A spread of dishes for a potluck.

Surprise food is my love language.

I love goodies. I love when someone makes me a meal. I love when someone brings me bread. I love when people give me little PayPal funds here and there to order treats. My recent love (though not too often) involves the home delivery of Dairy Queen Blizzards. Perfection.

I also enjoy cooking and experimenting with new flavors and tastes.

And these days, I occasionally receive and learn from the tastes of a local company that makes ready made meals each week and delivers them. Whenever I buy their food, there are six days between ordering and delivery.

So… I always forget at least some, if not all of what I ordered.

So I manufacture surprise foods for myself. Big LOL.

–Renee Roederer

Image Description: Four cartoon shapes of people (orange, blue, green, and red) are lined up from left to right, and two conversation bubbles (green and orange) are above their heads.

These days, in the middle of a pandemic none of us could have possibly anticipated, I spend a great deal of time on the phone and on Zoom calls with people. This abundance of Zoom is new in my life, but the phone isn’t. I’m realizing I already spent a lot of time on the phone with people before this pandemic, and that continues. Zoom fatigue is real, and I experience it sometimes, but overall, I’ve found myself grateful for voice.

It’s taught me something about myself as well.

We all need physical connection. I would prefer to be surrounded in person with family and friends, but since that is lacking much more, I realize that I’ve probably always felt a sense of physical connection primarily through voice.

That may be one of the reasons I’m doing as well as I am in a set of challenging scenarios. I didn’t lose voice. I still hear people’s voices and often.

I’m very grateful for those voices that connect physically to my own.

— Renee Roederer

Image Description: On a concrete wall, a mural reads, “Black Lives Matter.” Credit: PixaBay. Public domain.

Last night, when quickly typing a tweet, I accidentally typed the hashtag as

Black Lives Martyr.

No one deserves that role or this violence.
#JacobBlake.

Image Description: Pages from a book are folded to make the shape of a heart. A string of lights shines in the background.

For many, 1 Corinthians 13 is a very familiar text. Some of us grew up hearing these words in church communities. Many others have heard these words at weddings.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Corinthians 13: 4-7, New Revised Standard Version)

These descriptors get translated as adjectives, but interestingly enough, in the original Greek language, these descriptor-words all have verb roots. We describe love by enacting love.

Here’s a verb-friendly translation of this text.

Love lives long-hearted in adversity. Love practices kindness. Love envies not. Love boasts not. Love swells-up not. Love does not act unbecomingly, does not seek the self, does not provoke to anger, does not calculate evil, does not rejoice upon the injustice, but rejoices together with the truth. It covers all things, entrusts all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never perishes.

–Renee Roederer

Image Description: Three hearts carved from wood are hanging on wires like a mobile. One is red, one is orange, and one is green.

This summer, the Michigan Nones and Dones community is exploring spiritual values and practices, and we’re applying them to commitments of anti-racism. We’re also asking ourselves: As we think about our religious/spiritual upbringing, what did we learn about these values? What do we want to shed? What do we want to retain? What do we want to deepen or take on in a new way?

In the final topic of the series, we recently held a conversation about the spiritual practice of love. We asked, “How is love a spiritual practice?”

With permission, I am sharing our answers.

Image Description: A red, full moon rises on the horizon over water.

I want to see the Patriarchy topple.
I want to see the Empire fade.

Toward something else. . .
Toward a completely different way of relating with one another and the earth itself.

Keep in mind, when talking about “The Patriarchy” I’m not talking about men themselves. But I am talking about a move away from –

an external ordering of the world, and
an internalized axis in our own thinking where we continually. . .

. . . determine people’s worth based on perceptions of their productivity,

. . . exert power-over one another in dominance, with the assumption that this makes sense and is normative,

. . . abuse and even kill with deep-seated rage once we encounter people’s culture, skin tone, gender, full presence, and full particularity,

. . . wield brute force in violence when marginalized people seek power, freedom, and resources,

. . . view the world through a lens of scarcity and hoard resources with an assumption that greed is reasonable and good.

Ecologist Joanna Macy says that we have come to a juncture in human history where we encounter two very real story lines. The ways we have been living collectively are dangerous to the point that we soon cannot sustain our lives on the earth. She calls this The Great Unraveling. But the great adventure of our time involves the potential reorientation of our lives toward life-giving, sustaining aims. She calls this The Great Turning. I long for this.

I long for the Rise of The Matriarchy.

An ethic of care, where human beings. . .

. . . honor and celebrate people’s worth based on their Humanity,

. . . share power and decision-making with a recognition that horizontal practices and relationships are good for the collective whole of the community (I also know we never arrive at this or practice it perfectly. . . so we keep putting it before ourselves and working at it)

. . . revere the life that we find on the earth and in one another, as we encounter people’s culture, skin tone, gender, full presence, and full particularity,

. . . dismantle systems that marginalize human beings, so that all people can have access to empowerment, freedom, and resources,

. . . view the world through a lens of abundance and willfully share resources, with an assumption that greed limits our empathy and our very life, and a realization that care with and among neighbors increases our compassion and our very life.

We can find particular places and particular moments of time where these are all happening. Jesus seemed to believe that a little bit of yeast can leaven the entire bread.

When we see glimpses of The Great Turning, we can lean into them with our gratitude, our intentions, and our own actions.

I long for this rise.

–Renee Roederer

Good Bones (by Maggie Smith)

This is the second post in a series about feminist spirituality. Feel free to check out the others as well:

The Moon is My Patronus
She
Can Our World Experience Post-Traumatic Growth?
Life Finds a Way

Image Description: A large, orange full moon is rising in contrast to surroundings. Black background.

She.

When I lead worship in congregational settings, I typically use gender-neutral language for God. But these days, in my own personal, spiritual practice, I use feminine language and imagery almost entirely.

It’s not that I believe God is literally female. I don’t believe God is literally male either. God is a Mystery beyond our our limited language.

But yet, precisely because God is Incarnational, God can be made known and revealed to us in our limited language, often in very intimate ways. Jesus used the personal title Abba to address God, a word that might be translated, “Papa.” I find this at once to be endearing and intimate, while revealing an orientation of trust.

Biblical scriptures are written in Hebrew and Koine Greek, and because of their particular grammatical structures, a lot of language about God gets translated into a grammatically masculine framework. (Think about languages like Spanish or German and the ways they assign grammatical gender to nouns).

Then all of that grammatical gender gets internalized inside of us. Quite naturally, we begin to make connections between that grammatical gender, our cultural understandings of gender, and God. More challenging, we take the those very cultural understandings, including distortions of masculinity, and paste them onto God. Then, we make these distortions Ultimate in our world.

When all of this happens, we stop noticing the feminine imagery for God in those very same Biblical texts. (For more on this, see Elizabeth Johnson’s enlightening book, She Who Is). Worse, we begin to connect with a god who is primarily distant, angry, and vengeful (again, distortions of masculinity) – one who wields power over others and initiates the very hierarchy by which we do the same.

So here’s a question for us:

How many of us grew up picturing God as a bearded man in the sky — perhaps even an angry, bearded man?

Most of us don’t believe in that god anymore. Thank goodness.

But even if we don’t believe in such a god anymore, this old, internalized understanding can still get in our way. It can be challenging to pray to God when that ghost of a god keeps popping up. Maybe we don’t even notice he’s there. But in conversation about God, we keep finding ourselves feeling afraid or ashamed. Or maybe prayer feels silly and embarrassing because our understanding of God, however amorphous, still feels like a cartoon or a caricature.

This can be challenging. For all of these reasons, I often encourage the people I mentor to try using feminine language for God exclusively for a while. Does it feel different? Does it open up new understandings? Does God feel closer, and less like a cartoon?

It might not be helpful for all people, but I have found it to be helpful for me. It’s just something to try. Thankfully, the God Beyond Our Understanding is quite capable of revealing Herself in our very limited language.

To close, a brief story:

If you’ve followed this blog for a while, you know that I love the moon. Referencing Harry Potter, I’ve joked that The Moon is My Patronus. Years ago, I wrote a series with photos of the moon, delving into feminist spirituality, and adding some poetry.

Years ago, I was walking around the University of Michigan campus, and in just the right place at the right time, I saw the full moon very low in the sky. In contrast to all that was around it, the moon looked so enormous, bright, and present.

And always — always! — when the moon is like this, I want to snap a really good photo of it. I always try. But you know what is true every single time? It’s utterly impossible.

Unless you have special equipment, you cannot get an adequate photo of a contrast moon because the camera does not process that contrast in same ways our brains do. Every photo looks woefully inadequate. I just cannot capture the experience.

I think God is like that. Our language and imagery is woefully inadequate. But as we open ourselves to the moment — endearing and intimate, trusting with the fullness of ourselves— She will surely meet us.

–Renee Roederer

Enjoy this choral piece called “Evensong” by Stephen Paulus. The text is from Matthew Claudius.

“See how the moon has risen, among the stars that glisten high in the firmament. Dark stand the woods and silent while from the meadows island white veils of ghostly mist ascend. Now has the world grown silent, while in the evening’s twilight we find protective peace, as in our quiet chamber after much toil and labor in healing sleep we find release. Look, how the half moon shineth while from our view it hideth its fullness, round and whole. Thus many truths are hiding from utter lack of striving on our part to see them whole. The hour draws near for sleeping, and rest and in God’s keeping entrust we body and soul. Protect us, Lord from danger, keep watch o’er barn and manger and make our ailing neighbor whole. Entrust we body and soul. And make our ailing neighbor whole. See how the moon has risen.”

This is a piece on feminist spirituality. Feel free to check out the others as well:

Image Description: The word ‘language’ in a dictionary.

I don’t like when we compare racism to a pandemic, virus, or illness. I hear a lot of that these days.

— This can potentially deflect some of the responsibility for racism. We are building this. We are complicit in this. We do spread it in some ways, no doubt, but we do it quite actively (even if sometimes, subconsciously).

— But even more, when we make this comparison, we are co-opting the language of pandemic, virus, illness, and disability and using it as the symbol to name something as morally evil. In our language, we make associations between illness and moral failing all the time. This increases stigma.

Racism is evil. It is systemic.

It’s something different than an illness.

–Renee Roederer

I was driving around my town. With a smile on my face, some words just spontaneously tumbled out of me. “I know you,” I said, and then I smiled some more.

I spoke this to Ann Arbor, the place I’ve called home for the last six years. My car windows were down, and I took an enormous, intentional breath of air.  Then I put my arm out of the window to feel the breeze. I felt very alive.

The reality of summer called those words forth from me.
“I know you.”

I continued to enjoy the warm air, but the visual scene was most responsible for bringing those words into being. In Michigan, we have entered an aesthetically gorgeous time of year. The six month period from April to October brings continual changes in scenery.

Each week shifts as a variety of flowering trees and plants emerge, soon accompanied by the newborn leaves of trees which grow in gradual ways. After these leaves progressively paint our town bright green, they rustle in the wind for a few months and finally give us a swansong, bursting into a variety of colors as they shed their photosynthesis process and reveal the red, orange, and yellow colors hiding underneath it.

For this half of the year, every week is gorgeous, and every week is gorgeous differently.

I’ve experienced this many times in Ann Arbor, and I’ve lived here long enough to know the order of this unfolding process of change. That’s why the words tumbled out of my mouth that day in my car.

“I know you.”

I know how one set of flowers and blooming trees emerge and seem to reign for mini-era of time, only to be replaced by another set of flowers and blooming trees. It’s a beautiful procession.

I know that the daffodils,

soon give way to the bradford pears,

which soon give way to the tulips,

which soon give way to the tulip magnolias,

which soon give way to the day lilies.

This process continues to unfold.

In the midst of so much collective distress and disruption, I’m glad to observe this procession right now. It gave me an impromptu burst of joy when I spontaneously said, “I know you,” to Ann Arbor on that day.

Sometimes, we need to feel at home in the predictable changes, especially when so much is changing unpredictably.

–Renee Roederer

Image Description: A person holds rocks and dirt in their hands in the shape of a heart.

This summer, the Michigan Nones and Dones community is exploring spiritual values and practices, and we’re applying them to commitments of anti-racism. We’re also asking ourselves: As we think about our religious/spiritual upbringing, what did we learn about these values? What do we want to shed? What do we want to retain? What do we want to deepen or take on in a new way?

We recently held a conversation about the spiritual practice of worth. We asked, “How is dignity a spiritual practice?”

With permission, I am sharing our answers.

1) treating people and interacting with people with the worth and value they have
2) taking interest in people as individuals
3) engaging justice in a macro-way and viewing people with compassion and interest in a micro-way
4) honoring that we are created equally as an expression of God, and we are uniquely beautiful
5) respecting people as an expression of love
6) choosing to actively love everyone
7) treating people in the way they deserve to be treated — with respect and honor
8) honoring that the divine in me recognizes the divine in you
9) recognizing God in ourselves and in everyone
10) believing in shared humanity
11) loving your neighbor as yourself and recognizing their are no limits on who is your neighbor
12) caring for people with whom I disagree
13) pushing up against the cavalier attitude we have about death and harm
14) reminding ourselves of the Imago Dei in people
15) building empathy in ways that challenge us and shift us

What would you add?

—Renee Roederer