Smuggling Grace

You Are Valuable.

It’s that simple.
It’s that profound.

It is Truer than True.
You have worth that cannot be diminished.

No matter
any of the words that have stung in the past,

No matter
any of the dismissals people have thrown your way,

No matter
any of the failings that keep you up at night,

No matter
any of the items left unchecked on your to-do list,

No matter
any of the unkind comments said to your own reflection,

No matter
any of the the stigma people associate with the diagnosis,

No matter
any of the “gaps” on your resume,

No matter
any of the things pundits have said about you,

No matter
any of the fears you carry inside your living cells.

No matter
anything
anything
anything.

You are valuable.
Full stop.

With a love that can’t be lost.
With a life that can be lived.

—Renee Roederer

And now for something completely different, but still nature. This week, I MET A REINDEER!

— Photos by Renee Roederer

Dear Subscribers, though YouTube videos are embedding straight to my website, I’ve learned that they’re likely not coming along to you in emails. I apologize for that. So for you, here’s an excellent link. Did you know that the theme song in every episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood is performed live and has unique differences? Enjoy!

I was sitting in a circle with college students, and we were discussing this saying of Jesus:

“When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers and sisters or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” (Luke 14:12-14)

There was some discomfort among students with the last portion of that teaching: If you will be repaid in a great resurrection, aren’t you still doing this to get something — at least in part? And is this just charity? Does this banquet have meetings of equals? Good questions.

But we were also moved by this thought:

When Jesus spoke these words, and when the first readers of the gospel heard them or read them, this list of invitees would have evoked names in their minds and hearts. They lived in small towns. They knew each other. They knew who was not getting invited.

Today, our society so greatly separates our socioeconomic realities, that many times “the poor” remain some kind of abstraction for us. We’re not always in relationship.

That’s when someone added,

“Gustavo Gutiérrez used to say,
‘If you say you love the poor,
name them.'”

—Renee Roederer

Video Short: Naomi Klein on End-Times Fascism

“We are in a moment where our elites, whether they admit it or not, do understand that our economic model is at war with life on earth. What unites this kind of strange, Frankenstein coalition that Trump represents where he’s bringing together the richest people in the world who have ever existed with many working-class people. So what binds the vision? They all have given up on this world. They have all bought into an apocalyptical fever. I’ve been in a lot of progressive spaces in recent months where we’ve talked about building these very broad coalitions. I’ve never encountered a potential coalition more broad that the idea of, ‘How about if we believe in this world? How about if we believe in the future?” Because we’re up against people who are actively betting against the future.” — Naomi Klein

Did you know that you can actually buy an FM/AM Radio-Cassette-Playing-Boombox at Best Buy? You can. Apparently, they are still being made new. In the Year of Our Lord 2025.

You may be wondering why on earth I would want to buy an FM/AM Radio-Cassette-Playing-Boombox. Turns out there’s a lovely reason.

I was rummaging through some things in my basement, when I found cassette tapes. They are sermon tapes from David, one of my most significant influences who died in 2009. It’s been many years since I’ve played any of them. In fact, I thought they were all lost when I had water damage in my basement four years ago. It turns out that the repair crew had just moved them.

I have hours of him talking — often, wise and deep, and sometimes, with hilarious stories and rants. I decided I would like to find a cassette playing boombox so I could revisit these, and I asked if anyone had one on an online Buy Nothing group. No luck there. So on a whim, I decided to search online, wondering if I might order one from a warehouse somewhere. It turns out that Best Buy still sells them, and my local store had them in stock. I went right over and bought one.

Last night, for the first time in years, I listened to David’s wisdom and hilarious stories and rants. I loved it so much. You might think that after losing a loved one, a voice might evoke tears of sadness or tears of joy. I actually did feel joy, but no tears. I realized that hearing him felt like the most normal experience in the world.

I think I’ve felt very connected to him the whole time.

—Renee Roederer

We’ve hit September, and we’re in the last few months of the year. We’re not in the last quarter quite yet (sorry to sound so corporate) but we’ll be there soon.

Maybe it’s a good time to ask: What did we hope for in 2025?

I can already hear some of us us scoffing at the question, and I can’t blame anyone for doing that. I think many of us entered this year with genuine fear and trembling, expecting hardship especially as politics impacts our collective life. We weren’t wrong, and that is, of course, devastating.

But when we think about hope for the year, was there something deeper than a simple resolution? Something less cynical? Some kind of vision or values that we wanted?

I wonder if this might be a good time to take stock of that. We still have some time to return to these and act on them.

What comes to mind for you?

— Renee Roederer

We have more wrinkles now. Some of our own kids have even joined the marching band. Some of us have moved away, while others have lived here the whole time. As the decades moved on, some of us have started businesses. Some of us joyfully came out of the closet. Some of us are caring for parents. Some of us are teaching. Lots of us can talk about physical changes, and lots of us can talk about the ubiquity of Teams Meetings.

Over the weekend, I went to my High School Reunion, and it was a great time. We set up space in a pool bar, while talking, laughing and yes, occasionally, watching our own senior yearbook photos scroll across a screen.

I admit that I don’t know exactly where all the fault lines used to lie — that is, who could hang out with whom, and who could easily gossip about whom — but undoubtedly, those used to be there, and now, they are totally gone. None of my closest friends from that time in my life came to this particular reunion. But if we recognized someone, the primary response wasn’t hesitation or distance, but an easy, ‘Hey! How are you doing?’—as if time had folded in on itself and we’d been old pals all along. I had engaging conversation all night long.

Sometimes, time itself erodes those lines. They’re just gone. No cliques. Friends who can start as friends again, at least for this night and maybe longer, too. We are certainly people who take an interest in wanting each other to be well and do well.

No doubt, there are bigger, more significant conflicts in this country and in our personal lives than the divisions of our high school days. But if time itself can erase those, what might be possible with real intentions to do the work in good faith — healing what can be healed?

—Renee Roederer

— Photos by Renee Roederer