Author: gracesmuggler

Hi. I’m a Christian, and I’m a socialist.

I don’t speak for all Christians, and I don’t speak for all socialists. I’m more committed to being a Christian than being a socialist. The first invites me to love my neighbor. And politically, I find resonance with socialism.

This isn’t about partisanship. I believe in holding all parties accountable. I’m more concerned with particular values and how expansive we can be in caring for people collectively. I don’t always practice those values well myself, and I believe that people should hold me accountable too.

I like the vision of democratic socialism — moving away concentrating power in only a few people, or a small wealthy class, or one central leader who has enormous, sole power to determine the future or control/dole out most of the resources.

I don’t want us to be less democratic than we are. I want us to be more democratic than we’ve ever been.

I want workers to determine the vision for their labor and to be paid well.

I want people to have universal access to health care as a human right.

I want the public to have access to natural resources, rather than privatizing what is necessary for living.

I want the determination for the future to be more collective. I’m not talking about uniformity. And I’m especially not talking about a culture of uniformity-or-else.

I mean an ethic of care for the whole of society.

I mean loving our neighbors as ourselves.

–Renee Roederer

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.

–Renee Roederer

This poem was originally inspired by a beautiful video of a father sharing morning affirmations with his three year old child. Click here to watch the video.

I was also so touched by Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman’s poem, The Hill We Climb, shared at the Inauguration of President Joe Biden. She spoke it so powerfully!

I had my first viral tweet. It was a super niche joke that I didn’t expect to go viral, but it turns out that audiences who get niche jokes also like to share them a lot. Here it is:

Remember when Q was just shared source material between Matthew and Luke?

— Renee Roederer (@renee_roederer) January 18, 2021

Fun Facts: There are four gospels in the New Testament — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke have lots of similarities. John tells some of the same stories, but overall, it’s very different. So it seems Matthew, Mark, and Luke have some common sources.

Most scholars think the Gospel of Mark was written first because Matthew and Luke say a lot of the same things as Mark verbatim. It seems that both of those gospels used Mark as a source.

But also, Matthew and Luke have material in common nearly verbatim that is not in the Gospel of Mark. So… it seems that the authors of Matthew and Luke used another source as well. And that one is lost to history.

Scholars call that source material Q, which is German for Quelle, meaning ‘source.’

So the joke is… remember when Q wasn’t QAnon but just shared source material between Matthew and Luke?

See — niche-y, nerdy!

This older Q includes the material that becomes the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew and the Sermon on the Plain in Luke. The QAnon crowd would do better to listen to the ethics of that Q, as would we all.

–Renee Roederer

Detroit Disability Power is a non-partisan organizing collective that advocates for people with disabilities through the intersectional framework of Disability Justice. Over the weekend, I attended their virtual event in honor of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. This event included music, poetry, and workshops.

Detroit Disability Power places high value on accessibility and adds time and space to ensure that everyone is fully included. When we all arrived on the shared Zoom, there were many more participants than expected (a great outcome) so it was taking longer to make sure everyone could be assigned to the correct breakout rooms for their workshops.

One of the leaders apologized for the extra time this was taking, and right then, someone said in the chat,

“This is a gracious space.”

And I loved that.

Yes, it was a gracious space. It’s okay to take time. Inclusion is worth it. And this is certainly needed when an event has many more participants than expected.

I found myself thinking about the power of a gentle word. Sometimes, we can say a soft, true statement, and it puts everyone at ease.

“This is a gracious space.”

That’s a gentle word.

–Renee Roederer

Image Description: The word ‘Racism’ is written in black letters, a red circle is around it with a slash coming through it to cross it out.

I’ve been reflecting on a quote from Angela Davis:

“In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist — we must be anti-racist.”

Racism is pervasive, but it is in some ways taboo, even as it is expressed systemically and increasingly overtly. And white people (I’m among them) often spend a lot of time trying to prove to ourselves and others that we are non-racist — not like “those people.”

But at the very same time, we may be doing very little to challenge, disrupt, and change this reality. We paste quotes of MLK over our social-media sites in times that are especially difficult but then become uncomfortable, radio silent, or actively resistant when people challenge, protest, and disrupt the systems of white supremacy — both within and beyond the legacy of MLK.

“In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist — we must be anti-racist.”
– Angela Y. Davis

–Renee Roederer

As I was finishing some things around the house last evening, I glanced outside the window and noticed colors of blue and pink swirling about in the sunset. I snapped both of these photos and smiled. Three minutes later, the sun was still setting, but the sky was solid gray.

Even in this topsy-turvy time, beautiful surprises still find us.

Image description: A person is running, and the surroundings are blurry and distorted. Public domain image.

All people in this world have needs that are particular to themselves.
Every person.

And

All people and all communities have unique and particular strengths to share.
Every person, every community.

I’m not sure if we can ever truly run from need, because need is one of the most honest and real things about us all. But we definitely try. There may be a number of reasons for this. Among them, we’ve internalized lot of cultural narratives about individualism, self-sufficiency, and the belief that we must produce and earn love and belonging. (Psst, those are myths. Dangerous myths).

But those cultural narratives take form in our thoughts and feelings…

“I’m a burden.”

“I’m too much.”

“I don’t want to over-ask.”

“I don’t want to trouble.”

“They’re going to get tired of me.”

Soon we’re speaking narratives about ourselves, and we run from our need and from one another.

But here is something that is truer than true. I will even speak it as testimony because I keep discovering it to be so: Interdependence is an immeasurable gift.

These days, I’m acutely aware of my need of it, and how sacred it is to receive community care.

This pushes up against so many dominant, American cultural narratives.

I am community-dependent.
We are community-dependent.

These days, I keep saying these sentences to myself, because they are freeing, necessary, and beautiful.

Truly, interdependence is an immeasurable gift.

–Renee Roederer

I had to remind myself that productivity is not my central value. I typically take Fridays away from work, and I keep that time away pretty sacrosanct. But goodness, I hit Thursday, and my mind, body, and spirit said, “Stop working.”

I didn’t want to stop, mostly because this is the schedule that I had set for myself. But it’s important to listen to our bodies, especially when we have the ability to be flexible. How are we supposed to act during a siege of Capitol Hill? What’s a typical workday during an attempted coup? How about threats of domestic terrorism?

I did listen to my body. I had to do that. Productivity isn’t my central value, though sometimes I want to keep going because I feel that’s what I can control within a whirlwind of what’s beyond our control.

Care is my central value.

Sometimes, that means, stop. And if we can advocate for others to have choices to stop — if we can pick up the load at times so that everyone has the freedom to choose this — that is a good and helpful thing.

–Renee Roederer

Psychologist Bruce Perry shares a particular adage in in some of his books which may seem a bit pithy, but there is a lot of wisdom and thought behind it too. He says,

So often,

“We prefer the certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty.”

There are times when we assume that pain, chaos, or conflict are going to be constant. Maybe not in every situation, but at least, in particular ones.

There are times when harmful rhythms, patterns, and practices (our own or others) become normalized to us, even though they are causing great difficulty.

There are times when we come to expect very little with resignation or cynicism.

These cause misery, but we can feel settled in their sense of certainty. Rather than risking uncertainty, we sometimes prefer what we have become accustomed to because goodness knows,

uncertainty is vulnerable.

Risking hope is vulnerable.
Saying, “No More,” is vulnerable.
Cultivating new possibilities is vulnerable.

It really is vulnerable.

And if we’re doing any of these things, or if we want to do these things, we can give ourselves a lot of gentleness and grace. But we can also give ourselves hope and trust. Uncertainty requires risk, but it is generally the pathway by which newness comes.

–Renee Roederer

For all of us, I just want to acknowledge that during this time of trauma, tragedy, and terror, we’re either living with way less hugs or no hugs at all.

In this, we may need to be gentle with ourselves and each other.

–Renee Roederer

*Here’s a piece about the value of giving yourself a hug. It really helps our bodies: Give Yourself a Hug