Author: gracesmuggler

Yesterday, I wrote about the anti-racist posters that were placed around the University of Michigan over the weekend.

I’m quite sad and concerned about what happened on Sunday evening. Fascists arrived on the campus, tore down Black Lives Matters flyers, threw some away, and then accosted students with others. They harassed students and made nazi salutes. It was scary. 

I want to share the statement from CAWS (Collective Against White Supremacy):

“Early this morning, several CAWS members and supporters posted flyers across U-M’s campus to counter a national white supremacist flyering action. This evening, two white supremacists tore down those posters in broad daylight, shoving them in people’s faces. When a CAWS member encountered them, they were aiming a nazi salute at three women, one who was a woman of color. Upon being called out, those same white supremacists then called the police on the CAWS member present, for harassing them. These white supremacists were bold, confident, and felt that the police are their allies. The police responded by “mediating” this “political dispute” and helping the white supremacists file a report. 

“We have a lot of work to do, Ann Arbor. . . To the Black folks, trans folks, and folks of color who had to see this racist event and see these flyers in the trash: we are sorry that this happened, saddened, and angry. Black lives matter. Your lives matter. We value you and if we can help you hold space to process this event, please contact us.”

This is how real white supremacy is. This is how emboldened white supremacists are becoming.

This is why we all have to be in the work. 

Less than 24 hours later, I was glad to discover that someone pulled the posters out of the garbage and displayed them again. The work continues.

And they forgot to tear this one down.

Around the U.S. yesterday, universities were on watch because white supremacists from Identity Evropa and the ‘Alt-Right’ had announced plans to flyer college campuses with racist propaganda.

In my local context, a group woke up early on Sunday morning to check for flyers at the University of Michigan. Fortunately, we didn’t find any of theirs here. But we did post different flyers around the campus to address white supremacy and affirm the lives of those most impacted by it. Some of our flyers had a quote from Alicia Garza, one of the co-founders of the Black Lives Matter movement. I would like to share that today:

“#BlackLivesMatter doesn’t mean your life isn’t important — it means that black lives, which are seen without value within white supremacy, are important to your liberation. Given the disproportionate impact state violence has on black lives, we understand that when black people in this country get free, the benefits will be wide reaching and transformative for society as a whole. When we are able to end hyper-criminalization and sexualization of black people and end the poverty, control, and surveillance of black people, every single person in this world has a better shot at getting and staying free. When black people get free, everybody gets free. This is why we call on black people and our allies to take up the call that Black Lives Matter. We’re not saying black lives are more important than other lives, or that other lives are not criminalized and oppressed in various ways. We remain in solidarity with all oppressed people who are fighting for their liberation, and we know that our destinies are intertwined.”

– Alicia Garza, #Herstory

Our destinies are intertwined.

We need to do the work of dismantling white supremacy. White supremacy does physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual, social, and economic violence to people of color. This work before us involves internal questioning and awareness, and it involves external solidarity and truth telling because systems of power frequently discriminate and oppress along the lines of race. When we do this work, little by little, we will all untangle ourselves from the internalization that some lives matter less than other lives.

Our destinies are intertwined.

– Renee Roederer

 

Do you know what’s great? Handwritten letters.

I didn’t really know I was missing this. In fact, I viewed letter writing purely as a genre from the past. But one of my very best friends has started mailing me handwritten cards recently, and they are such a gift. In fact, she’s making this a personal practice. She sends many people handwritten notes these days. I love it.

This has helped me think about something within the letters too. It has me thinking about the beauty of slow connections. We need these.

When I say slow connections, I’m talking about more than the amount of time between sending and receiving mail, though that’s certainly a slow connection. I’m also talking about the types of life snapshots we might capture in handwritten letters – how letter writing depicts them in a slow and unique way, then uplifts their value as we share them with others.

As I mentioned, this person is one of my very closest friends. We talk over the phone about all the big things that are happening in our lives. I send her photos and videos over texts. We’re connected about large things and immediate things. But when she writes me a handwritten card, I have the opportunity to learn what’s going on that particular day and that particular moment through written words.

For instance, the cats just jumped across the room in a funny way, though they were cuddly a few minutes before. The tea is really good this morning. Her husband just said a funny one-liner.

Slowness takes time to capture these, prioritizing the small things as meaningful. Slowness takes time to share these with a friend.

To enjoy them. To choose them. To write them down. To put them in the mail in the anticipation of a friend seeing them too.

We need slow connections.

– Renee Roederer

This little fish, y’all.

This tiny, seemingly insignificant pufferfish astounded me the other day. I have never heard of such a little artist until I watched a BBC Earth video a few days ago.

Check out this video, and see what he does to impress a mate.

This little fish creates an artistic structure in the sand – one that’s complex in its detail and mathematical precision. It’s astonishing. We’re left curious, how does this little being have such an ability?

And we feel a sense of wonder.

I think we need a sense of wonder, particularly in times of great stress. We need to be reminded that there is a world worth feeling awe about – a world worth living in, a world worth protecting.

Perhaps there are times when we struggle to access a feeling of wonder. And if so, that’s completely understandable and okay. But thankfully, curiosity and wonder are things we can practice. They aren’t goals or benchmarks. They’re play. We can always engage them. 

So what initiates your sense of wonder these days?

– Renee Roederer

Franchesca Ramsey is a writer, Youtuber, comedian, and podcast host. She is most well-known for her time as a writer and contributor on The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore and as the host of MTV’s Decoded, where she cultivates conversations about race.

Among other characteristics, she’s smart, honest, and funny. Those are her three, chosen words.

I follow Franchesa Ramsey on Snapchat. Recently, she shared a story about a moment that changed her direction. She met with a coach who encouraged her to choose three words to define her work and way of being in the world. She was invited to say or ponder these words like a mantra before she engaged in work or meaningful tasks. She wanted these three words to come from her sense of who she was — from her aliveness, if you will. And she wanted those characteristics to weave their way through all that she was doing.

As she recounted this story, she encouraged us to choose our own three life words and do the same.

I’m curious. . . what three words would you choose?

Mine are hanging on the fridge now.

–Renee Roederer

Do you know this saying?

If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well. 

Don’t get me wrong. I support hard work and excellence and all of that, but ultimately, I think this saying is garbage. G.K. Chesterton was known for turning common sayings on their head in order to gain greater meaning from them. He started to say this instead:

If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing badly.

That’s better. It may sound strange to our ears, but it’s more life-giving. Because if we think about it, it brings home this truth: If a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing. Period. No matter the result.

– This saying bolsters people who are willing to try something innovative, even as they recognize the possibility for failure. If it turns out badly, it may be the necessary catalyst for learning. The process or the failure itself may yield insights and discoveries toward the next idea, one that would have never been conceptualized beforehand.

– This saying bolsters people who are pursuing a calling, even as they reckon with the reality that some will place roadblocks in their path. The journey toward any kind of calling takes twists and bends. At times, the these turns are remarkably unfair. At times, they are thoroughly unjust. I do not make light of this. They are harmful — not good. But the calling can emerge in spite of them.

– This saying bolsters people who are willing to tell the truth, even as they recognize it marks them for risk. Whistleblowers come to mind, in particular. There are times when we honestly cannot afford such risks. But when we can, there is life and vitality in speaking truth to power. Even if we do not shift the power entirely, those words of truth are out there in the world. They keep working. I trust that they take on a life of their own, especially as they inspire more people to come forward and speak truthfully.

It’s messy.

But if a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing badly.

– Renee Roederer

These days, I’m working to place hope in unknown seeds. Have a look at this video:

Death Valley, a desert in California, gets its name for obvious reasons. It’s rare for much to grow there. Most of the time, it’s just not habitable.

But every once in a while when the conditions shift, seeds sprout all over the place. Often, people didn’t even know these seeds were there… And Death Valley experiences a surprising phenomenon called a Super Bloom.

We certainly place hope in actualities we can count on. Thank goodness we can name and trust some of those. It takes courage, perhaps, to place hope in the possibilities we cannot fully anticipate. Yet often, life is found right there.

Even in the driest of conditions, some of those possibilities can begin to form –

When people discover new visions for their communities,
When voices long-silenced rise into leadership,
When we discover the gift and grace of unanticipated abundance,
When Love becomes the foundation of resilience and liberation . . .

Yes, a Super Bloom.

May it be with us.

– Renee Roederer

May the return of Life completely surprise us.

With astonishment,
May we find ourselves
Upright,
Steady,
Moving Forward.

Vigor enlivening brittle bones,
Vision enlivening dormant dreams,
Vitality enlivening trauma’s torrents.
YES!

A couple of evenings ago, I sat on the floor with some beloved people, and we pushed lights around. We gathered around a map of the earth. Together, we held a Service for Peace, singing meditative music and placing candles prayerfully over many nations.

I was very moved by this. 

I do admit, however, that there was a moment when I wondered, are we really accomplishing anything here? Does prayerful intention change things? 

It certainly opens us to listen. If we listen, we find ourselves called to be a part of the prayers we make. We discover pretty quickly that we are called to action.

But we are also called to sit with the pain, recognizing that we fall drastically short of peace. We do violence with grave consequences. Some of this is beyond our control, but we participate in this reality.

One day after moving the lights around, along with the rest of the world, I heard the news that the U.S. had detonated the largest, non-nuclear bomb in human history. This made me deeply concerned for civilians, military personnel, and the world at large.

And as I write this, I am concerned that we might wake up to discover that bombs have been dropped over North Korea as well, the third nation in two weeks. We don’t know where this is headed, but it feels devastating.

We need care and support in one another, but as much as can, we need to sit with the pain too. That’s part of what solidarity is about. It’s about action, but in order to get there, we have to grapple with the pain.

Today is Good Friday in my faith tradition. On this day, we remember the trauma of death in the face of state violence. We sit with that pain, recognizing our complicity.

Tonight, I will remember the lights that we moved around. And I hope that they move me.

– Renee Roederer

If I could choose a person to be my personal patron saint or even an additional Grandpa, I would likely choose Fred Rogers. I admire him so much – not only for his tremendous work but for his way of being in the world.

A couple of days ago, I ran across a testimony that demonstrated how crucial and life-saving his work truly was. It involved a continual commitment to remind vulnerable people how special and valuable they were. He changed the lives of children, including children who were abused at home. This testimony said,

“. . . he seemed to look me in the eye when he said, ‘And I like you just for being you’. In that moment, it was like he was reaching across time and space to say these words to me when I needed them most. . .  I was sure I deserved every last moment of abuse, every blow, every bad name. I was sure I earned it, sure I didn’t deserve better. I knew all of these things … until that moment. If this man, who I hadn’t even met, liked me just for being me, then I couldn’t be all bad. Then maybe someone could love me, even if it wasn’t my mom.”

I believe we need a renewed commitment — as a spiritual leader, I will also say a renewed theological commitment — to uplift the intrinsic worth and value in human beings. We need this in the wake of hatred, poverty, racism, exclusion, violence, abuse, and more. . . These forces are intense and entrenched among us. They require us to speak truth to power, so I don’t mean to be reductionistic or say that a simple declaration of worth is all that it takes. But it’s never not about that.

It’s a life-giving, foundational truth, that —

despite the pain we know,
despite the pain we cause,

despite the harsh words we hear,
despite the harsh labels we believe,

despite the forces which declare some to be ‘less than,’
despite the despair which internalizes the same,

we are loved with a Love we cannot lose.

And that Love says that we are worth it.

–Renee Roederer