A pile of magnets with various words on them. Public domain image.
I’ve been thinking lately about benedictions. These are simple phrases we say at the end of a moment, a gathering, or a conversation. When we begin to expect them, they gather weight. They remind us that we belong somewhere. Over time, they become a form of care we carry with us.
Before he died, my chosen Dad and I had a benediction we offered one another at the end of phone calls. He would begin with a smile I could hear through the line:
“Now remember, you’re loved as strange as you are.”
And I would respond,
“And you’re loved as strange as you are.”
It was playful. Affectionate. Uncomplicated. I’m smiling as I write this now.
Sometimes, in recent years, as I’ve helped lead worship services, I’ve noticed myself ending with another benediction:
“There’s a love you cannot lose. And that means it’s yours to share.”
Typed out, it might sound matter-of-fact. Maybe even a little plain. But spoken aloud, it carries the tone of discovery — warm, steady, and freeing. I like saying it. I like offering it.
Benedictions aren’t conclusions. They’re reminders. They send us out knowing we are already claimed, already held.
“It’s the art show!” I announced as two of my favorite young children darted in and out of the room. Just beyond my view, they kept rummaging through a bin, pulling out artwork they’d made over the past year. One by one, they carried each piece over to where I was sitting so I could see it properly.
“Look at this!”
“This is a bear.”
“Here’s my rainbow.”
“This is a Mommy Salmon, a Daddy Salmon, and a Teenager Salmon.”
It was part art gallery, part fashion runway. They moved back and forth down the hallway, proudly presenting their work, again and again.
I loved every minute of it. And as I watched, I found myself thinking about the power of our gaze. Children want to be seen. They want to be known. They want to be delighted in.
And then I thought — adults need this too.
Maybe we’re no longer holding up paper gazelles or bees or a “whale with icebeuhhhgs,” like the one in the photo above. But I don’t think that longing disappears. I think it stays with us.
What changes is how rarely we pause long enough to really look — at one another, at what someone has made, at who someone is becoming. But when we do, something shifts. We can do a lot with our gaze.
Sandhill cranes flying in a V formation. Photo: Renee Roederer.
When we stepped outside to take a walk this Christmas morning, we were greeted by a cacophony of sound above us. We opened the door, and that very instant, large numbers of sandhill cranes were flying above us.
The sound was inviting. As we ventured beyond the house, our eyes were delighted too. Along with the calls above us, the sandhill cranes made a gorgeous display in the sky. Continuous waves of V-formations passed above us throughout our walk. The birds were flying remarkably low for all to see, and soon, neighbors began to take notice as well.
We passed people along the road, and our platitudes about the uncharacteristic weather — “Can you believe how warm it is today?” — turned into exclamations about what we were seeing. “Can you believe all these cranes? And they’re so low in the sky!” This was a gift to the entire neighborhood.
A sandhill crane walking in a field. Public domain.
Sandhill cranes are majestic, and they have captured the attention of cultures throughout history. People have assigned various forms of meaning and significance to them. Some consider sandhill cranes to be harbingers of good fortune and longevity. Some consider them to be symbols of justice, and others look to them as a flight of peacemakers.
I spent a little time learning about these associations once we returned, and of all the descriptions, this meaning stood out to me: When cranes arrive in our lives, they invite us to use our past as a source of strength for our present.
This is the kind of belonging I want with me in present moment. This is the kind of belonging I want to create alongside others in the days ahead.
I am grateful for the surprising view and birdsong that greeted us this Christmas morning.
The past becomes a source of strength for our present. Those cranes seem like the right kind of heavenly host to usher it in.
On Christmas Eve, I was riding an e-bike with joyful abandon alongside people I love. It was nighttime, and the weather was in the 70s. Perfection. We rode through a neighborhood to see Christmas lights, and they did not disappoint. These homes have beautiful patios and exquisite lawns. At one point, we circled a large roundabout again and again. In the center, trees with sprawling branches were wrapped in countless white Christmas lights.
I felt elated. I looked up and saw a macaroni moon — a sliver in the sky. I heard kids laughing, shouting that they had won races of their own making. “Core memory!” I yelled, recognizing in real time that I was creating one of my favorite Christmas memories.
We kept biking through the neighborhood, marveling at the lights everywhere. But then a different question surfaced, and once I thought it, I already knew the answer.
Who hung these lights?
I’ve been here before. I’ve walked and biked through this neighborhood and noticed how many Hispanic people work in the yards. It’s likely that some of the same people who care for these lawns also strung the lights I was enjoying in every direction.
Some are likely citizens. Some probably are not. Still, they are residents of this beautiful city I’m visiting.
And what is their experience on Christmas Eve?
I imagine it’s varied. Some immigrants, children of immigrants, and grandchildren of immigrants are laying down their own core memories. But some have loved ones in detention. Some live with the constant fear of family separation. Some exist in a kind of functional lockdown. Many are always looking over their shoulders.
That very Christmas Eve, when I returned home, I saw a news article that stopped me cold. The current administration is making plans to build or repurpose seven to eight warehouses — actual warehouses, a word they themselves are using — to hold nearly 80,000 immigrants. All of this in service of creating a deportation machine. It is wildly dehumanizing. It is dangerous. It is traumatic. It is a public health crisis.
This Christmas, we are living very different experiences. We are moving through the world from different social locations. And if the season means anything at all, perhaps it is this: that joy and beauty invite us not into forgetting, but into seeing more clearly — and choosing care, dignity, and human rights for all our neighbors.
Rudolph from the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer TV Special. Public domain.
To all who celebrate, Merry Christmas!
I’m writing you from the airport where I’m currently waiting to board a plane to a much warmer destination. Hooray! The sun is rising, and it’s a gorgeous view from the large windows at my gate. And overhead, I’m hearing a commonly played song at this time of year: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
When you were a kid, did you sing the echo parts? You probably know what I mean:
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (Reindeer!) Had a very shiny nose (Like a Lightbulb!) Etc.
Did you know that some of these echo responses are regional? For instance, where you grew up, what kind of reindeer games did they play?
I’ve heard… (Like Monopoly!) and (Like Yahtzee!) and (Like Parcheesi!)
And now, for another portion of the song, I want to tell you about an overly specific response from the place I grew up.
Like whom did you “go down in history”?
You’ll go down in history! (Like ______!)
I’ve heard (Like George Washington!) and (Like Columbus!)
But in my hometown elementary school — I have no idea why or how this started — we said,
(Like Elvis! Presley! Junior!!!)
And to clarify how we did this precisely, when we shouted at the end, there were spaces between the names:
Not a real person and such a silly answer, but at elementary school morning meetings, we reveled in saying it in unison with joyful abandon. So there’s a fun factoid from my younger years.
How about you? Any overly specific memories for you at this time of year?
To all who celebrate, Merry Christmas. I appreciate you. whatever you’re doing today, and however you’re spending your time, please know that you are valued.
Last year, at a Christmas Eve service, we sang “O Little Town of Bethlehem.”
How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given! So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His heaven. No ear may hear His coming, but in this world of sin, where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in.
I was thinking about how in the story of Christmas, apart from the shepherds who hear about this birth in their fields, hardly anyone knows about any of this. This birth is silent to most, unknown. People don’t know that this has taken place. How silently, how silently…
And whether this story is a part of your traditions or not, and whether you find yourself drawn to religious texts and stories or not, there is something beautiful in this message.
A birth has happened and in the most unlikely of places. This child will eventually become a person who speaks and works for liberation, transformation, and love, and as of yet, hardly anyone knows this goodness is coming. He’s not on their radar. This movement-to-come is not on their radar.
Could it be that there is goodness taking place in our own day? People, experiences, connections, communities, and synchronicities having their beginning now, which will one day lead to liberation, transformation, and love? And maybe we don’t even yet know about it?
Broken bread, and a communion chalice with juice. Public domain.
Once a month, I’m grateful to lead a Sunday morning gathering with a church community called Parables — a space shaped around the needs of disabled and neurodivergent members. Over time, this community has become one where I’ve formed meaningful friendships.
Last Sunday, after finishing the sermon, it was time to receive Communion together — a weekly practice that sits at the center of our life together. We always invite a couple of participants to come forward and hold the bread and the cup as we remember Jesus’ meal, pray, and begin to share these together.
I asked for volunteers, and two people raised their hands.
“Come on up,” I said with a smile.
“Reporting for duty,” James* said as he took his place in front of everyone. Maisie* lifted the chalice high, and James did the same with the bread.
But then I heard, “Oh no!” Maisie had spilled a small bit on the floor. “I’m so sorry!”
“It’s okay,” I said gently. “Accidents happen, and it’s all going to work out.”
Some of the juice had splashed onto the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “I’m going to have to wash it. I’m so sorry!” she said again.
James tried to comfort her. “There’s no sense crying over spilled milk,” he said.
Then someone else stepped forward and said to Maisie, “You know what I like to tell people in moments like these? I say, ‘Thank you,’ because you just gave us an opportunity to care for you. Sometimes these things just happen.”
So we tried again. I said the words I usually say, finishing with Jesus’ words: “Do this in remembrance of me.”
That’s when I looked over and saw that Maisie was about to lift the chalice again. James leaned toward her and asked, “Do you want me to help you?” Now his hand was wrapped around hers.
Then together, they held the chalice high — both of their hands joined — as if it were a champion’s trophy.
Such a lovely image.
Father Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit priest and the founder of Homeboy Industries, once said:
“I think we’re afraid of the incarnation. Part of that fear is the idea that the sacred has to appear a certain way — gold-plated, costly, elaborate. So we wrestle the cup out of Jesus’ hands and replace it with a chalice, as if that were somehow more sacred, even though Jesus didn’t use one. Jesus doesn’t worry that we’ll forget the Eucharist is sacred. He worries that we’ll forget it’s ordinary — a meal shared among friends. That’s the incarnation, I think.”
A fluffy orange cat, sitting outside. Public domain.
My family-name is “Noozle.”
Many years ago, it began as a nickname, but now it’s more than that. I am also a Noozle. It’s a family role. There are some kids in my life who have grandparents, aunts and uncles, and a Noozle. That’s me.
One of my Noozlets was recently walking through his neighborhood with one of his parents — many states away from where I live. Often, when they pass a nearby house, a cat is outside, and my little friend always hopes to spot this kitty for some pets.
But alas, no kitty today.
“Looks like the cat isn’t there. Maybe another time,” his parent said.
“Maybe you could text Noozle,” he suggested.
“Why would I text Noozle?” the parent asked, puzzled.
“Because maybe she’ll come out and let us pet her cat.”
I’m not sure when it happened, but at some point, he came to believe that I live in that house. I think that’s so lovely.
Even though he only sees me in person a few times a year, I’m a bit of a fixture in their lives. I’m often on the phone in their household, and we regularly sync up our Nintendo Switches and play together from our respective houses. But I suppose, rather than imagining that happening states away, he pictured me doing that from across the street…?
I love that.
For all my loved ones, of every age, I hope that even across distance we feel connected enough to feel like we live in one another’s neighborhood. My little one is teaching me what that is like.
Smuggling Grace 