Smuggling Grace

Last month, I had one of the most delightful opportunities: I spent ten days with a toddler who I love very much. She became a great teacher to me. I spent the Christmas holiday with her also-very-loved family, and it was a joyful respite for my mind and body as we all finished the year.

Toddlers have one primary mode — they are living in the present. They are constantly exploring, noticing, playing, learning, and feeling in the now. They are not projecting anxieties upon the future, nor are they are not fixated on the pains of the past. They are in the moment, constantly taking in everything. I loved noticing this Noticer and watching her live this way.

And I thought, “I want that mindfulness.”

During the same trip, I gave myself another gift. For small periods of time, I checked social media twice a day. I think I’m going to keep this up for a while. It was so good give this compulsion over to a fixed, more intentional rhythm. The algorithms helped me too because they prioritized the most significant posts for me to see. Suddenly, I looked forward to checking because it felt connectional, and it was no longer something I was doing mindlessly.

And I thought, “I want less media.”

More mindfulness, less media. Or to say it another way, I want more presence in my living.

There are so many painful experiences and dynamics in our world. I want to be informed without being immersed. Our feelings are always valid, including those of trauma and pain. Alongside this, I realize that no one is helped particularly by us swimming in the bad news. I want to know about it, and I want to care about it. But it helps no one when we are utterly immersed in it, just feeling it, rather than acting upon it (again, more presence in the living).

More mindfulness, less media. This is going to be a major part of 2022.

–Renee Roederer

I’m not particularly great at keeping New Year’s Resolutions, and if I may be honest, I don’t care very much for them. I’d rather make plans with different goalposts — for instance, trying a new practice or rhythm for a month to see if might be a long-term keeper.

That being said, this may be the only time I’ve been able to say I’ve kept a resolution for a whole calendar year: I’ve posted a piece on this blog every day in 2021. Happy 365th post this year.

Most of all, happy new year to you and all those you love. Thanks for following along here.

–Renee Roederer

“Humans and history both grow slowly and often move three steps forward, two steps back. We expect people to show up at our doors fully transformed and holy before they can be welcomed in. But growth language says it is appropriate to wait, trusting that change of consciousness, what the Bible calls in Greek metanoeite, can only come with time. This patience ends up being the very shape of love.”

-Richard Rohr

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!

It’s pretty rare for a Facebook post to have more shares than likes, but that’s what the stats currently tell me about a post I made: As of now, there are 63 likes, but there are 113 shares.

I follow the MisterRogersQuotes handle on Twitter, so my screens receive daily quotes from Fred Rogers. I’m glad for that. Occasionally, I’ll screenshot one on my phone and then share it to Facebook also. That’s what I did last week.

He says,

“Some days, doing ‘the best we can’ may still fall short of what we would like to be able to do, but life isn’t perfect — on any front — and doing what we can with what we have is the most we should expect of ourselves or anyone else.”

In an screenshotted image, this simple but very helpful quote spread fast on Facebook. And I realized, people are really longing for this kind of grace, hoping to be in the presence of people who convey, “‘the best you can do’ is truly enough.” And, of course, we need to hear that we’re worth loving and are ourselves ‘enough’ even when ‘the best we can do’ falls short as well. This is true when circumstances inhibit us or when we fail. Our worth and acceptance need not be conditioned on ‘the best we can do.’ Worth and acceptance can be unconditional. This is grace.

It seems that a large and quick number of shares reveal that we need to hear this message again.

So I wonder, which ongoing stories in our lives need this posture from us?

–Renee Roederer

CW: Addiction
Years ago, when it was still on Netflix, I would occasionally watch the show Intervention. Do any of you remember that show? It was originally on A&E.

On the show, families worked with interventionists to implement an intervention to address and confront the addiction of a particular family member. Family members and close friends would gather together, express love for their family member, name the ways that the addiction had harmed them personally, and share what they were going to change in relationship to the addiction. Then, ultimately, they tried to convince their family member to go to treatment. That very day, in fact.

The interventionists often helped the larger family choose wellness for themselves. Too often, they had let their health go by the wayside. They needed to get well for themselves. Their wellness might also create conditions for their family member to choose the same. I remember Jeff VanVonderen, one of the interventionists, encouraging the families to take a particular posture toward their member with an addiction. He modeled this statement for them, saying,

“I want you to get well, but I’m going to get well whether you do or not.”

This is a helpful decision — in cases of addiction, yes — but also in regard to many kinds of challenges or conflicts.

“I want you to get well, but I’m going to get well whether you do or not.”

Years ago, I did a lot of studying of Family Systems Theory. This area of study explores the ways that communities function — families, workplaces, religious communities, schools — and considers how self-differentiated members can impact the larger health of these communities. This doesn’t involve internalizing the need-for-health of the whole organization. This doesn’t involve staying unwell, holding the stress of the organization, or continuously trying to convince the community that it needs help. It often involves prioritizing one’s own health.

“I want you to get well, but I’m going to get well whether you do or not.”

When we do this, we definitely move toward health. Sometimes, others will never choose it, and we need to choose it for ourselves. But sometimes, a surprising thing happens too. That choice adds additional health to the family, community, or organization (not saving it, or taking it on, but a healthy side effect) and sometimes, others begin to choose it too.

So I wonder, what ongoing stories in our lives need this posture from us?

“I want you to get well, but I’m going to get well whether you do or not.”

–Renee Roederer

Thinking of those who experience this season with

anxiety, or
loss, or
loneliness, or
isolation, or
distance, or
estrangement, or
exclusion, or
disregard, or
financial challenge.

May you feel seen, valued, surrounded, and upheld. You’re worth it all.

–Renee Roederer

Christmas exclaims that Time
is an ever-expanding universe of arrival.

Christ has come,
Christ is coming,
Christ will come again.

Above and among,
Beyond and beside,
God stuns with sacred presence.
Abstract and adnate,
Boundless and bodied,
God surprises with sudden reverence.

In this universe of Christmas,
Time accelerates with increasing, expansive speed, and
Time slows with easing, pensive stillness.
Advent jumbles all eras of time together,
Collapsing them into one another —
colliding galaxies,
continually merging.

Sacred past and sacred future converge,
revealing a sacred present,
A Holy, Sacred Now
for

The One
Who Was,
Who Is,
and
Who Is to Come.

Mary was a universe of possibilities,
God’s Mother, a cosmos of potentiality,
“For in this rose contained was
heaven and earth in little space,
Res miranda. . .” [3]
Res miranda! — A Wondrous Occurrence. . .

The Holy Spirit appears
to reveal the sacred prospect,
And Mary adds her YES,
ushering in Emmanuel,
God With Us.

Mary,
Theotokos,
bears God into the world.
Res Miranda.

Mary,
Theotokos,
bears God’s child,
Res Miranda!
a galaxy of unending grace.

[4]

And. . . if Christmas is a swirling collision of Holy Time,
making all things present,
making all things new. . .
Perhaps the Holy, Sacred Now
is upon us,
Perhaps the Holy Spirit
is appearing among us,
Right now,
Right here,
This very hour,
summoning us to add our YES,
so that we too
might bear God into the world.

[5]

–Renee Roederer

References:

[1] This is an image of Spiral Galaxy ESO-137-001 as captured by the Hubble Space Telescope.

[2] This image was created by Deborah Koff Chapin and is part of her Soul Cards collection.

[3] This text is a portion of “There Is No Rose of Such Virtue,” a 15th century English Carol. Feel free to listen to the version that the King’s Singers perform:

[4] This is a NASA image of colliding galaxies.

[5] This image comes from wallpaper created by Fanpop.com. You can access the image here. 

When I was 9, I heard about a white elephant gift exchange for the first time. My friend’s Mom was having one. I no longer believed in Santa, but for about two weeks of my life, I sincerely believed my friend was about to receive a small, white elephant as a pet.

And because I was over there all the time, I was about to receive a small, white elephant as a pet.

I was so very excited.

I still enjoy white elephant gift exchanges, but this one had the cutest expectations.

–Renee Roederer

… the Solstice has passed, and now the days are growing longer…