Grief is love. It can be felt. It can be known. It can be supported by others, and it can be supportive of others. However it feels, may the love within it bring tenderness toward yourself.
As Jamie Anderson says,
“Grief, I’ve learned is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.”
I had the occasion to go to the Toledo Art Museum to see an exhibit entitled, “The Age of Armor.” It was filled with armor from the Renaissance. These pieces were designed for battle, of course, but some of it was merely ceremonial, and in a few cases, we knew who wore it. In this image above, you can see the armor of Henry Herbert, second Earl of Pembroke. It dates from the 1560s. He was a nobleman in the time of Queen Elizabeth I, and he was a sponsor of the theatrical company that likely included William Shakespeare.
So if I’ve met this armor, and I indeed have, I guess I’m two only degrees of separation away from The Bard.
When we see items like this at a museum, it makes time feel small. Even though it came from an era that feels like a different world in many ways, it’s just not that much time when you think about it. I also saw paintings from the 1200s and a clay hippo that is 6,000 years old!
Such different eras of time, but also… it’s not as long ago as it feels. In the scheme of larger time, this was just yesterday, and we were weirdos wearing metal, riding horses, and jousting others off their horses.
–Renee Roederer
Following up from yesterday’s post — It’s a Shmita Year — I’m wondering, have you ever read any of the reflections of Tricia Hersey, The Nap Bishop?
I invite you to be eased and challenged alike by The Nap Ministry. You can read about Sabbath, rest, renewal, and system change, as well as how they are all interconnected.
Visit The Nap Ministry Here.
For the last year, I’ve been gathering monthly with the Rosh Chodesh Circle, a communion of women who practice spiritual growth together and are informed by the Jewish Renewal Movement. Lucinda Kurtz, my friend and the facilitator, recently shared with us that this is a Shmita Year. That means this is the seventh year in a cycle of seven years. It’s a Sabbath year. Shmita means, “year of release.”
In the Torah, the seventh day of the week is a Sabbath day of rest and renewal, and likewise, the seventh year serves as a Sabbatical year. Debts are to be forgiven, the agricultural land is to lie fallow, and food storage and harvests are to be open and shared by all. This is a time of redistributing resources.
So often, I find myself believing that work, striving, and stress are needed to care for others. Of course, sometimes, these are part of those commitments. But I’m asking myself new questions: Why have I assumed that my own rest and renewal are for myself alone, and therefore, are perhaps selfish? Maybe personal rest and renewal begets rest and renewal among others. And maybe this is something collective in the first place.
What if we released more of our work, striving, and stress in this Shmita year — this very year of release? What could be possible for ourselves and others? And what if let this be a resetting, paradigm shift?
–Renee Roederer
In a couple different ways, I was really moved by this tweet from @rachelismuhname. She says,
When I struggle with body size,
I remember body size is mostly genetic.
When I hate my body,
I am hating my mom’s body,
My grandmother’s body,
My great grandmothers body.
Two of the three are no longer with us, and I would give anything to hug them again.
Bodies are blessed.
The body we have deserves our love.
The same could be said for
internalized ableism,
internalized misogyny,
internalized racism,
internalized xenophobia.
The body we have deserves our love.
We have a beautifully beloved, peopled body.
–Renee Roederer
We need each other’s questions. When we meet people and they share the questions they have carried within their experiences, we are invited to ask our own questions as well.
When an experience is new in our lives or a set of needs emerges in new ways, in all honesty, there are whole areas questions we don’t even know to ask until we’ve met people who have already asked them.
This is true in so contexts.
I find that this is true in my work in community at the Epilepsy Foundation of Michigan. People who are newly diagnosed don’t always know that certain treatments or types of specialists are available until they’ve met other people with epilepsy who have asked those questions before them. Parents don’t always know that their children have particular rights in education or that accommodations that can be initiated until they meet other parents who have had to ask those questions before them. People don’t know always how to get involved in advocacy until they’ve met other advocates and activists who have asked questions before them.
In this context, and in so many contexts,
we need each other’s questions.
–Renee Roederer
Over the weekend, I saw this salient tweet by Drew Brown. It reads:
Talking with a pastor friend in the US and these words fell out of my mouth. “Churches are dangerous when their past is more important to them than their future.”
Dead silence on the other line.
“Wait. Say that again.”
This is so true… When churches cannot prioritize the future, and are instead driven to recapture the past, they cannot be relevant, at best. At worst, however, they begin to prioritize the most damaging instincts of the past, or they drive off the people, visions, and innovations that could move them forward.
This is also true in families.
This is also true in politics.
This is also true in systems of any kind.
There is wisdom here.
–Renee Roederer
Okay, I’m doing it, just like so many others are now. And I’m here to try to get you to do the same. All the cool kids are in on it, and I want you to have as much fun as we are.
Play Wordle.
It’s just one word per day, and it’s a really fun way to start the morning, especially knowing that your friends are playing too and solving for the same word all at the same time.
Enjoy!
–Renee Roederer
There are times in our lives when we need to live a stance like this:
“I’m not done with you, but I’m done with this.”
“I’m not done with you all, but I’m done with what you’re doing right now.”
“I’m not done with this vision, but I’m done with these dynamics.”
“I’m not done with hoping, but I’m done with this thing I never hoped for.”
“I’m not done with me (self love) but I want to be done with this pattern/expression/unconscious behavior/lack of self love.”
It takes strength to hold to both sides of this, and we might need to come back to both sides of this stance multiple times in order to recommit or adjust in the ways we feel are helpful for the situation. We may need others to help us with this too. When we hold to these and live them, we invite transformation. That is certainly true for ourselves, but it can be true within relationships and communities too.
–Renee Roederer
Smuggling Grace 