Author: gracesmuggler

While taking a walk, I spotted a Charlie Brown tree in one of the yards.

And by Charlie Brown tree, I mean a tree that looks rather pitiful and sad, like the famous and beloved Christmas Tree in the television special, “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” The tree grabbed my attention, and I paused there on the sidewalk to gaze at it for just a moment. I felt like I was honoring some kind of grief, likely because I am aware of a great deal of grief taking place right now in our world. I honored that tree, and hopefully, it didn’t mind that I snapped a photo (nor its inside humans).

There it was, bent over. I wondered how it had come to grow that way.

I wondered how it would continue to grow.
I wanted to add my acknowledgment.
“I see you.”

I wanted to add my hope.
“You’re beloved.”

Of course, this was just one tree in one yard that had tapped into larger realities beyond one yard. But an interesting thing kept happening as I walked through that neighborhood. More trees continued to grab my attention. Interesting and intriguing trees. . . I wondered what their stories were. How and why did their branches bend, stretch, snap, or grow just as they did? How did each one get to be a tree in its unique way?

As I continued to walk, other trees demonstrated grief and loss as well.

This tree has had its branches and leaves cut off.

Then one tree made me smile with its eccentric confidence.

It’s curvy!

Its house had a hopscotch game lovingly sketched onto the sidewalk. I looked over my shoulder first, but I won’t lie to you. With no one around, I hopped across it with eccentric confidence.

The entire experience of walking through these visual and imaginary tree narratives brought me back to an experience several years earlier. Before moving to Ann Arbor, I lived in Southern California, and one weekend, I had the occasion to visit Joshua Tree National Park. Until entering that place, I had never seen a single Joshua Tree, let alone an entire park of them. When I saw them together in one place, I was delighted, and I could not stop giggling in their presence. Instantly, I felt as though I had entered a Doctor Seussian reality. Like any of the trees in my Ann Arbor neighborhood, one Joshua Tree might grab my attention and express its uniqueness. But as I entered the Joshua Tree neighborhood, there was a sudden proclamation of particularity.

These trees were all shaped so differently. Some reached their branches upward in ways that seemed most typical for a tree.

This tree has its branches upward. The sun is setting. Public domain image.

Some branches grew entirely downward.

A tree in the foreground has two primary branches pointed downward.

Some trees appeared to be windswept, but had actually grown that way. “My left side is my good side,” they seemed to say.

This tree in the foreground is growing to the left! Public domain image.

“Well, I prefer my right side,” others would reply.

This tree in the foreground is growing to the right! Public domain image.

The branches of others burst with growth in all directions once, reminding me of the snakes in mythical Medusa’s sinister hairdo.

This trees branches are growing in many directions. Public domain image.

To see all of these together. . . It was nothing short of hilarious to me! And it was a freeing kind of hilarity — a delightful proclamation of particularity.

This delight piqued my natural curiosity. How could all of these be Joshua Trees, while each tree was so dramatically different in the presence of another? How could they be the same plant species yet so unique? I wondered how I could understand these differences.

Could it be genetics? Clearly genetics did not mold them uniformly or limit the directions of their growth. Could it be the environment? This might be true if they were scattered in different locations, but in this park, they were in one place with the very same environment that was granting them the freedom to be sculpted in a variety of ways.

So naturally, I did a Google search. And that’s how I came to learn the beautiful process by which Joshua Trees grow.

For the first few decades of their lives, Joshua Trees simply grow upward with no branches at all. Then at some point — who can predict it? — each Joshua Tree does something it has never done before. It produces a blossom. It’s monumental, and it’s beautiful.

A joshua tree blossom. Public domain image.

But that’s just the beginning of a new process of growth. When that blossom falls off, it leaves dried stalk behind, and from that stalk, a new branch begins to grow in an entirely new direction. It can literally jut out in the quirkiest of ways.

Image: Five light bulbs are hanging down in front of a blue background. From left to right, four of the lightbulbs are hanging straight down. The fifth and last lightbulb is swinging out as if it’s about to hit the remaining four and catalyze movement in them. Public domain image.

My friend and colleague Allen Brimer recently said this phrase during a sermon:

“Insight is tied to urgency.”

Isn’t that true?

When insight comes —
when the fog lifts,
when the unknown reveals itself, or
when the possibility emerges —
there is urgency to
act,
make a change, and
(re)/align ourselves with particular priorities.

When we know differently, we are summoned to act differently.
And often, there is urgency to this.

And likewise, isn’t the reverse true as well?

“Urgency is tied to insight.”

Sometimes, insight is hidden until urgent conditions emerge.

Urgency arrives,
and we cannot stay in the same
frame of mind,
space of heart, or
orientation of action (or inaction).

We simply cannot stay where we are.
New insight comes.
It changes us.

These things are connected,
insight to urgency, and
urgency to insight.
They unfold layer upon layer with each other.

—Renee Roederer

I love this photo of a darling, smiling 2nd grader. She’s Ruby Mae Foster, my Grandmother, when she was just 8 years old.

My Grandmother died at the beginning of 2018. We called her Memaw, one of the silliest sounding Grandma names in the lexicon of Grandma names — though of course, it was not said with silliness but affection. Thankfully, she lived a long, full life. She was partnered with Jim Foster, my Grandfather (Papaw) for many years, though sadly, he died much sooner. She had two children and four grandchildren, and now, she has four great-grandchildren in the world.

I recently found this photo of Ruby Mae once more, and then, I found myself thinking,

Our lives begin before our lives.

I would not, and I could not exist as the person I am, had this 8 year old also not lived. In part, I come from her. And there is a whole period of her life, a whole historical period, to which I am connected (1933-1982) simply because she lived it before I was born. My life is inextricably linked to these things.

And this is true all the time — yes, in relatives with whom we share DNA, but also, so many others. A whole myriad of humans shape us and continue to shape us.

Our lives always begin before our lives.

I like to wonder sometimes. . .

Who shaped the people who shaped me,
Who mentored the people who mentored me,
Who gave me life in some way before my life ever started, and
How do these people show up in my living?
Perhaps in deeper ways than I am even aware?

Our lives begin before our lives.

And the lives of others are beginning in ours. We’ll meet some of them, but many, we’ll never know about. Individually and collectively, our lives are shaping the particularities that will shape others. It’s not totally deterministic – a good thing, after all, as some particularities are hard. But this is deeply connective. Deeply creative. I think this is a mysterious, marvelous thing.

–Renee Roederer

This year, I have a very small, precious baby bunny living in my yard (though she’s getting bigger!) I’ve named her Bellatrix. Yesterday, Baby Bellatrix ate a long piece of grass like a noodle, and it was cute. You can watch that below or here.

Audio: So close! Are you gonna finish it? Oh, you’re so close! You did it!

It’s really fun to watch her nibble her way through the yard. Here she is doing that. Munch, Munch, Munch.

Yesterday, my good friend Christina Berry sent me this poem, and it’s fitting for my relationship with this little one.

A Rabbit Noticed My Condition

Image Description: An American flag flies in the midst of debris and wreckage in Moore, Oklahoma after an EF5 tornado with winds exceeding 200 miles per hour tore through the Oklahoma City suburb. Public domain image.

There are times when you read a piece, and every single paragraph is a powerful expression of truth-telling. I want to pass along such a piece today:

America’s Optimistic Spirit is Killing Us Because We Don’t Know What Faith Is
by Chris Dela Cruz

I will lift just two quotes:

“These American coping mechanisms of super positive thinking, of ‘frontier’ sky’s-the-limit mentality, and optimistic framing have ill-equipped us to take a horrific pandemic seriously, to confront the realities of long-embedded systemic racism, and to actually use our dream-thinking where it could matter – to pool our resources to deal with an unprecedented economic disaster with actual far-reaching solutions that help people.”

-and-

“And so we are left with thousands of people dead of COVID-19 without acknowledging that it doesn’t have to be this way, with a country that cannot even deal symbolically with our racist statues without federal stormtroopers kidnapping people in rental cars.”

Image Description: A ballpoint pen lying on a piece of paper. Public domain image.

“And therefore, every possibility of a person putting words to something, especially something that’s been difficult, is in itself a sacrament.” – Pádraig Ó Tuama

Years ago, while experiencing some conflicts, I sat down with a pen and a piece of paper. I thought it would be a good exercise to journal in a stream of consciousness. As I sat there, I wrote down whatever came to me in the moment. Then one question jumped off the page and suddenly caught my attention:

“What if they’re write?”

In a moment of self-doubt, I meant to say, “What if they’re right?” But that’s not what I had written on the page.

“What if they’re write?” I asked myself.

This was a big aha moment for me. I realized I had been grappling with a fear that I wasn’t going to be able to use my voice and words to craft my own story, but that instead, others would do that for me. I was so afraid of being silenced.

Of course, in life, there are times when we are indeed silenced. In such experiences, it is important to be gentle with ourselves (it’s okay to give time) and then we can begin to empower our voices in a way that feels right (write) to us. We need the right (write) people and the right (write) moments to let our voices speak truth and meaning.

When we are able to make meaning of our stories — large and small stories, alike — we are able to cultivate narratives that open possibilities for ourselves and create space for others too. I know this to be true: When we make meaning, we heal — in the passive sense (we receive; though is that passive?) and in the active sense (we actively live as healers).

So is there a story you need to tell? Or write down? Or re-imagine?

Maybe you can start small. One step at a time. Or maybe this is finally the time to launch a big narrative in the world. Whatever is best, may you be supported and empowered. You are deserving of such support and empowerment. Your voice matters.

“Don’t let the terrible narrative be the thing that holds you. There is the possibility that you can be the site of generosity from which you, and also your own, can benefit. You can be the place from which goodness and generosity can come — that is, the person who has held in their body the most hostility might be the possibility of the place of hospitality also. And that is a story worth telling.” – Pádraig Ó Tuama

– Renee Roederer

Image Description: An illustration of sheep dogs with black, white, and brown fur. One is lying down, and one is standing up. Public domain illustration.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.

Many years ago, while preaching on Psalm 23, one of my most formational people shared that this phrase can evoke imagery of sheep dogs — as if goodness and mercy continually guide us and lead us, not always in front of us, but often from behind us. We are followed by goodness and mercy in ways that shape our path. Sometimes, goodness and mercy might even limit our path necessarily because they’re steering us away from danger.

They are behind us, following us.
I find this interesting because we don’t always choose to follow goodness and mercy.
Sometimes, we follow other instincts.
Perhaps we need them working behind the scenes.

Goodness and mercy can reveal
what is most true,
what is most needed,
what is necessary for change,
what is expansive for growth,
what is invited for healing, and
what is possible, even when it feels as if no pathway is possible.

Guilt and shame are never good guides.
We don’t need these to hem us in.

We need goodness and mercy.
These form us best and cultivate the best pathways.

Behind us,
Shaping what is before us.

–Renee Roederer

Image Description: Two hands come together and make the shape of a heart. The light of the sun is shining through it.

Never underestimate the power of connections.

This is something I tell myself often. When I say this, I’m not talking about networking or schmoozing. I’m simply talking about the power of being connected in relationship.

I’m talking about building awareness of one another. Knowing names. Introducing people and deepening friendships. Living in kinship. Understanding the stories people carry. Engaging with the giftedness people have to offer. Living in awareness of needs.

Hugh Hollowell of Love Wins Ministries, a community of care and presence with people experiencing homelessness, often says, “The opposite of homelessness isn’t housing. The opposite of homelessness is community.” People often fall through the cracks because they do not have a community deep and wide enough to hold them up in a time of crisis.

So never underestimate the power of connections.

You never know how someone’s story might connect to someone’s story.

You never know how someone’s presence might connect to someone’s need.

You never know how someone’s awareness might increase empathy, solidarity, and action.

Introduce people. Cultivate community space. Learn more about people around you. See what commonalities you might find. Because when we do all of these things, we create the conditions that make support possible — sometimes in ways we’ve yet to imagine.

–Renee Roederer

Image Description: Pádraig Ó Tuama.

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to listen to an interview with Pádraig Ó Tuama on Krista Tippett’s On Being. I was so grateful to hear it because it has turned out to be one of my favorite episodes of her podcast.

Pádraig Ó Tuama is a poet, theologian, and at the time of the podcast, he was the leader of the Corrymeela community, a peace and reconciliation center in Northern Ireland. On this podcast, entitled, Belonging Creates and Undoes Us Both, Pádraig Ó Tuama says so many powerful things about voicing and hearing stories. He describes the experience as sacramental.

Have you ever thought about story as sacrament? A means of grace? An opportunity to connect with God and neighbor? An moment to make the past or hoped-for-future present? An invitation toward recreation? The promise of belonging, no matter what? New life — resurrection?

Perhaps when we have the opportunity to tell or hear a story, especially one that is very true and formational to life, we can remember this framework. I’ll share some of Pádraig Ó Tuama‘s quotes below:

“And therefore, every possibility of a person putting words to something, especially something that’s been difficult, is in itself a sacrament.”

“Words are the way to put narrative onto something, and to turn an experience — and especially, I suppose, thinking of conflict situations — to turn an experience that you would rather not have had into something where you can say, at least I’ve had the capacity to tell a story about it, even when that story is painful and unfinished and unresolved, nevertheless, there is a way in which to have words for it. You’re crystallizing it. You’re sacramentalizing it.”

“Let’s begin to be gentle and soothe the fear of fear and find a way that story can be its own liberator if you can find a way to hold it in a generous way.”

“And that is where language is limited because language needs courtesy to guide it and an inclusion and a generosity that goes beyond precision and become something much more akin to sacrament, something much more akin to how it is you can be attentive to the implications of language in the room for those who may have suffered.”

“Don’t let the terrible narrative be the thing that holds you. There is the possibility that you can be the site of generosity from which you, and also your own can benefit. You can be the place from which goodness and generosity can come — that is, the person who has held in their body the most hostility might be the possibility of the place of hospitality also. And that is a story worth telling.”

–Renee Roederer