Smuggling Grace

A story from Zen Buddhism:

A man was walking across a field when he saw a tiger. Fearing for his life, the man fled, but the tiger gave chase. The man reached the edge of a cliff, and just as he thought the tiger would get him, he spotted a vine growing over the edge of the cliff. Grabbing on to it, he swung himself over the edge to safety.

The tiger came to the edge and snarled at him from above. While precariously perched like this, the man saw another tiger growling at him from below. Trembling, he held on to the thin vine that was keeping him from being dinner for the tigers. What could be worse than this, he wondered.

Just then, two mice scampered out and began gnawing at the vine. As they chewed and the man pondered over his fate, he saw a juicy, red strawberry on a ledge next to him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. Ah, how sweet it tasted!

If you Google information about this story, you will quickly learn that there is debate about its meaning. Some hold the interpretation that this story is about living in the present moment and enjoying pleasure right in front of us, even in times of trial. Others, however, say that this a misunderstanding; the story is about the foolishness of getting distracted by pleasure when we have the occasion to remove ourselves from a perilous situation.

With both interpretations, we choose our life.

I will leave the interpretations to communities of Zen Buddhists, as it is their story, and they know it best.

But lately, here is something I’ve been thinking about…

There are times when loss is so great or stress is so high that we are plunged into present moment living because that feels like only way to make it — one day at a time, one moment at a time, one feeling at a time. But as we do this… we discover that present moment living is also the best way to live. It’s freeing and filling.

And

There are times when loss is so great or stress is so high that we are plunged into choosing our life in order to survive — our bodies, our in-the-moment daily needs, our rhythms, our memories, our values, our loves, and our communities. And as we do this… we often discover that there are still so many gifts in our lives. There are times when we say yes to the broad fullness of it.

With both of these, we choose our life.
And that invitation is always there.

–Renee Roederer

“Would you like to hold it?” he asked me.

I was deeply honored by the question but also concerned about dropping it or making ignorant missteps, so I declined. I did smile though, and the Torah scroll was handed over to another person for additional whirling and merriment.

More than a decade ago, I was a Presbyterian seminary student, and I was grateful to visit a Conservative Jewish synagogue with members of my class. We were present for Simchat Torah, a Jewish holiday that marks the end of a cycle of public Torah readings and a new beginning for the next cycle. On this night, the Torah scrolls of the ark are removed, and the community dances with them.

I knew I was going to experience a meaningful interfaith encounter; I had no idea I was going to cut a rug with Torah scrolls. And cut a rug we did!

This celebration was joyous and gleeful, and it lasted for a couple of hours. It was an meaningful experience, and along with my classmates, I was grateful to be welcomed into the community holiday. It was the kind experience you cannot quite anticipate as a guest. You have to be present with it as it unfolds, finding yourself within a moment in the midst of community.

The dancing was meaningful and memorable, but right alongside it, there was an another moment when I suddenly found myself within a community experience I could not have anticipated. The Rabbi invited everyone to come close together, and members of the synagogue unrolled the Torah scroll so that it encircled the people. We were inside the text, in a sense. Then the Rabbi traveled around that circle of text and shared its stories as the larger, unfolding story of the people. He said things like,

“This is when we were created, along with the entire world.”

“This is when we were liberated from slavery in Egypt.”

“This is when we received the law.”

This is when we…

We stood there, peopled.

And I was so drawn to that sense of being gathered together, encircled by story and peopled together by a shared story.

It was the kind experience you cannot quite anticipate as a guest — the kind of experience when you find yourself suddenly peopled too.

Renee Roederer

There are many ways to say, ‘I love you’
There are many ways to say, ‘I care about you’
Many ways, many ways
Many ways to say, ‘I love you’

There are many ways to say, ‘I love you’
Just by being there when things are sad and scary
Just by being there, being there
Being there to say, ‘I love you’

Cleaning up a room can say, ‘I love you’
Hanging up a coat before you’re asked to do it
Drawing special pictures for the holidays
And making plays

You’ll find many ways to say, ‘I love you’
You’ll find many ways to understand what love is
Many ways, many ways
Many ways to say, ‘I love you’

This song has been an earworm in my head lately. It’s a nice reminder.

The song and the connection between Mr. Rogers and Officer Clemmons follows the intro music. This scene was also planned deliberately as an act of anti-racism. This is a lovely moment:

While walking around, I watched the crows embark from their nightly roost. I enjoyed how they took up the whole space of the sky. There were so many of them, cawing, leaving collectively and moving collectively to wherever they were going.

I immediately thought of this wonderful quote from adrienne maree brown, the author of Emergent Strategy, a phenomenal, imaginative book about collective change. On page 13, she writes,

“There are examples of emergence everywhere.

“Birds don’t make a plan to migrate, raising resources to fund their way, packing for scarce times, mapping out their pit stops. They feel a call in their bodies that they must go, and they follow it, responding to each other, each bringing their adaptations.

“There is an art to flocking: staying separate enough not to crowd each other, aligned enough to maintain a shared direction, and cohesive enough to always move towards each other. (Responding to destiny together). Destiny is a calling that creates a beautify journey.

“Emergence is beyond what the sum of its parts could even imagine.

“A group of caterpillars or nymphs might not see flight in their future, but it’s inevitable.

“It’s destiny.”

As I continued to walk outside, I saw cars moving around town, driven by their people, and I wondered, do we feel connected to one another? I saw students walking around, listening to music on their own phones as I also do so often, and I wondered, do we feel connected to one another?

I thought about several community efforts to keep people safe in winter weather. Some truly work to survive in weather like this. I wonder, do we feel connected to one another?

It’s good to keep pondering and strengthening those connections. The crows were a good reminder.

–Renee Roederer

Just some lovely photos of a sunset and a moonrise.

I love the colors in the sky.

You make each day a special day. You know how, by just your being you. There’s only one person in this whole world like you.

He said this daily with emphasis and intention. Occasionally, he said it with playfulness. He always meant it, and young children across the United States internalized this message inside themselves. They came to believe it. Very likely, many came to memorize it, and in anticipation, they said it along with him, either aloud or inside their own minds.

You make each day a special day. You know how, by just your being you. There’s only one person in this whole world like you.

This was a litany of sorts. A daily recitation.

We might also call it liturgy.

Liturgy literally means, “Work of the people” — sacred words voiced, shared, and enacted. Perhaps in these days, we need to voice, share, and enact the convictions behind this daily statement.

You make each day a special day. You know how, by just your being you. There’s only one person in this whole world like you.

And maybe part of our work as a people is to internalize these words inside ourselves as well.

After all, I notice one intriguing word in this daily liturgy. It’s the word your. Fred Rogers could have easily said, “You make each day special. You know how, by just being you.” But instead, he added the word your. “You know how, by just your being you.” His phrasing is actually a bit more clunky than it has to be.

But it’s also important. We are invited to know our specialness, worth, and value as ours. We are encouraged to be in relationship with ourselves — “being you” — knowing that even in our days of doubt, we are worth loving. We can live in conversation with this truth, recognizing when we are living in alignment with its values and when we have temporarily acted outside of them. We can always return.

And this isn’t ego, a way of setting ourselves against others or above others. It is a truth we live in relationship with others. So we hear and speak it again in relationship:

You make each day a special day. You know how, by just your being you. There’s only one person in this whole world like you.

And we come to make it ours.

–Renee Roederer

Hi. I’m a Christian, and I’m a socialist.

I don’t speak for all Christians, and I don’t speak for all socialists. I’m more committed to being a Christian than being a socialist. The first invites me to love my neighbor. And politically, I find resonance with socialism.

This isn’t about partisanship. I believe in holding all parties accountable. I’m more concerned with particular values and how expansive we can be in caring for people collectively. I don’t always practice those values well myself, and I believe that people should hold me accountable too.

I like the vision of democratic socialism — moving away concentrating power in only a few people, or a small wealthy class, or one central leader who has enormous, sole power to determine the future or control/dole out most of the resources.

I don’t want us to be less democratic than we are. I want us to be more democratic than we’ve ever been.

I want workers to determine the vision for their labor and to be paid well.

I want people to have universal access to health care as a human right.

I want the public to have access to natural resources, rather than privatizing what is necessary for living.

I want the determination for the future to be more collective. I’m not talking about uniformity. And I’m especially not talking about a culture of uniformity-or-else.

I mean an ethic of care for the whole of society.

I mean loving our neighbors as ourselves.

–Renee Roederer

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!

I had my first viral tweet. It was a super niche joke that I didn’t expect to go viral, but it turns out that audiences who get niche jokes also like to share them a lot. Here it is:

Remember when Q was just shared source material between Matthew and Luke?

— Renee Roederer (@renee_roederer) January 18, 2021

Fun Facts: There are four gospels in the New Testament — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke have lots of similarities. John tells some of the same stories, but overall, it’s very different. So it seems Matthew, Mark, and Luke have some common sources.

Most scholars think the Gospel of Mark was written first because Matthew and Luke say a lot of the same things as Mark verbatim. It seems that both of those gospels used Mark as a source.

But also, Matthew and Luke have material in common nearly verbatim that is not in the Gospel of Mark. So… it seems that the authors of Matthew and Luke used another source as well. And that one is lost to history.

Scholars call that source material Q, which is German for Quelle, meaning ‘source.’

So the joke is… remember when Q wasn’t QAnon but just shared source material between Matthew and Luke?

See — niche-y, nerdy!

This older Q includes the material that becomes the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew and the Sermon on the Plain in Luke. The QAnon crowd would do better to listen to the ethics of that Q, as would we all.

–Renee Roederer

Detroit Disability Power is a non-partisan organizing collective that advocates for people with disabilities through the intersectional framework of Disability Justice. Over the weekend, I attended their virtual event in honor of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. This event included music, poetry, and workshops.

Detroit Disability Power places high value on accessibility and adds time and space to ensure that everyone is fully included. When we all arrived on the shared Zoom, there were many more participants than expected (a great outcome) so it was taking longer to make sure everyone could be assigned to the correct breakout rooms for their workshops.

One of the leaders apologized for the extra time this was taking, and right then, someone said in the chat,

“This is a gracious space.”

And I loved that.

Yes, it was a gracious space. It’s okay to take time. Inclusion is worth it. And this is certainly needed when an event has many more participants than expected.

I found myself thinking about the power of a gentle word. Sometimes, we can say a soft, true statement, and it puts everyone at ease.

“This is a gracious space.”

That’s a gentle word.

–Renee Roederer