Smuggling Grace

Hello, Dear Friends,

I am starting this day with a lot of gratitude. As I begin this post, I want to thank you for reading Smuggling Grace. It is such a joy to connect with you here. So often, these posts lead to real-life conversations and connections with you, and I find myself thankful every single time that happens. Thank you for your presence here.

Today, I want to let you know about a personal project that is underway. Some of you know that I’m in the midst of a fundraising campaign for my work as a Community Chaplain.

Community Chaplaincy is a entirely new kind of role in ministry. With gratitude, I entered into partnership with the Presbytery of Detroit to bring it into being, and that partnership has provided official status to my work. The challenge, of course, is that I do not currently have any formal funding for this kind of position.

For this reason, I am in a campaign currently to raise an initial $15,000 to support my work in ministry.

My work as a Community Chaplain allows me to do many things I love:

-For the last two and a half years, I have served as the organizer of a new community in Southeast Michigan called Michigan Nones and Dones. Sometimes, participants describe this as a community for people who are “spiritually curious but institutionally suspicious.” Our community includes people who are religiously unaffiliated and people from a variety of religious traditions who have become a bit uneasy with organized expressions of religious community. We meet in coffee shops, restaurants, and homes to build friendships and talk about faith, spirituality, and meaning.

-I have several meaningful partnerships at the University of Michigan which allow me to build relationships with undergraduate and graduate students and faculty and staff. One of these vital partnerships is Canterbury House, a student ministry on the edge of campus, which provides space for worship, shared meals, community conversations, and music (both concerts and jam sessions!)

-I have the privilege of being connected to a variety of local faith communities, organizations, and activist communities that are doing tremendous social action in Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, and the broader Southeast Michigan region. I am grateful to be present to them and help connect others to their work.

-I have the great joy of writing on this blog five times a week. Thank you for following this work here. It means a great deal to me.

If you would be interested in supporting this work, there are two primary ways to do that:

1. Northside Presbyterian Church has been a tremendous partner to me in my vision, and they are holding the funding I raise so that it is a) tax deductible and b) provides an accounting structure. If you would like to donate, the best way to do that is to write a check to “Northside Presbyterian Church,” then write “Renee Roederer: Community Chaplaincy” in the To line. You can mail that to

Renee Roederer
2648 Lookout Circle,
Ann Arbor, MI 48104

I will make a note for my records, and then, I will pass it along to Northside Presbyterian Church.

2. You can also give a gift to support my writing. If you’d like to do so, you can give at this link: https://www.paypal.me/ReneeRoederer

Many thanks, friends, for your cheerleading in these efforts. That always means so much! And if you have any questions, you can email me at revannarbor@gmail.com.

Best to you,
Renee

 

A few months ago, I wrote a piece on this blog called, “My Aquakening.” In that piece, I shared that I have become rather Quaker-curious. This all started when I made a handwritten list of my curiosities and hopes for what church could look like if it were more ‘horizontal.’

The list was not based on my own personal preferences alone, but it has been informed by being in relationship with many so-called Nones (folks who are religiously unaffiliated) and Dones (Christians who have left institutional churches), along with many young adults, both religiously affiliated and unaffiliated.

After making that list, I realized, “Oh. . . wow. . . Quakers practice all of these things, don’t they?” That’s how my Aquakening started.

Well, last Sunday, I’m pleased to say that I attended a Quaker meeting for the very first time. And I loved it.

I feel there is a lot to learn from the Religious Society of Friends, including. . .

. . . what horizontal, non-hierarchical church can look like (I think some are doubtful that this can be possible, but a variety of communities use leadership models based on agreed-upon practices and procedures rather than classes of various roles)

. . . how worship can be experienced in participatory ways, with multiple people speaking, sharing, and teaching,

. . . how a community can be deeply committed to 1) contemplation and quiet reflection and 2) social action – so deeply committed, in fact, that there is an expectation that each will inform the other.

. . . how a Christian tradition can stay rooted in its historical and spiritual identity while also authentically making space for people who have a variety of spiritual beliefs and practices, including people who are religiously unaffiliated, with a commitment to receive from all people’s contributions and insights.

I experienced all of these things at my first Quaker meeting. And I’m still very curious to learn more. The Aquakening continues!

I plan to keep attending when I’m available, and I want to meet more people from this community. I’m curious how following this lead might shape my hopes and practices, both in my own life, and as I think about community formation.

Or to keep a mantra going this week,

If we are to love. . . we are to learn.
If we are to learn. . . we are to grow.
If we are to grow. . . we are to change.

So let’s see where this goes.

–Renee Roederer

I love this affirmation of faith from the Uniting Church in Australia. Sometimes, I invite people to speak it aloud collectively in worship:

I know a pastor who often says a particular phrase when he prays in worship:

“Help us to be a part of the very prayers we make.”

It’s a phrase I have taken on as well when I lead prayers. Prayer can mean many different things and take on many different forms. I suspect if we pray, most of us pray in many different formats, and we likely infuse that process with many forms of meaning.

But certainly, praying should call us to action.

We need to be a part of the very prayers we make.

So if you pray, what do you pray for these days? Or if you would use a different word than prayer, what do you hope for? Or long for? What need is grabbing your attention in this world, your community, your family?

Whatever it is, how might we take an action to be present to that very need? Or to address that very need?

How might this be important especially for neighbors who are so often out of view?
– Those in prison,
– Those going hungry,
– Those experiencing homelessness,
– Those in the throes of addiction,
– Those who are immigrants,
– Those who live in fear in the shadows,
– Those who are sick without healthcare,
– Those who are stigmatized because of mental illness,
– Those who have lost jobs,
– Those who are foreclosing on their houses,
– Those who have received a challenging diagnosis,
– Those who are harassed or bullied. . .

Whatever and whomever comes to mind. . .

May we be a part of the very prayers we make.

–Renee Roederer

This post is part of a series this week. Feel free to check out the other pieces too:

The Price of Incarceration
The Deeper Questions
Connections Matter
Providing Support to Immigrant Families

These days, there are times when we might experience a visceral feeling I’ll call ‘can’t-ness.’ It’s a sensation of powerlessness — an inability to turn things around. I feel this most acutely right now when deportations are happening in my town, or when I hear about them across the nation. Daily in this country, families are being torn apart.

Of course, my feeling of powerlessness pales in comparison to what families and close friends are feeling. This is trauma on a massive scale and on a deeply personal scale.

Yesterday, I heard about the deportation of a man who has lived in the United States for 13 years. He is married to a U.S. citizen, and his two children, ages 3 and 5, are U.S. citizens. He came to this country from Guatemala under asylum, and he’s been working with ICE to gain permanent residency. He works and pays taxes. He has no criminal record at all. But nevertheless, around Christmas he was told that he had to leave the country in 28 days. Papers and processes from his attorney were filed, but they were not allowed to proceed to their end. Yesterday, he had to get on a plane, and he was separated from his family.

Also yesterday, ICE did raids in restaurants where I live in Ann Arbor. This stirred up so much fear and pain. Now family members are working to raise bail money. Now family members face an uncertain future, and the remaining parents are trying to take care of their children alone with at least half of their income in danger.

These are horrific things. They are traumatic. I am going to boldly say that they are evil. There is a large amount of dehumanization happening, and empathy for immigrants is decreasing.

It can feel overwhelming to sense that it is hard or near impossible to turn deportations around. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be present and add aid in tangible ways. All of this families need money. Gracious. . . how horrific to lose a family member and then lose economic security for children. . . People need money to care for emotional trauma. People need food. People need childcare.

What agencies are working for immigrant rights in your local area? Which families need support? The truth is, there are some things we can do quite tangibly.

–Renee Roederer

This post is a part of a series this week. Feel free to check out the other pieces too:

The Price of Incarceration
The Deeper Questions
Connections Matter
To Be a Part of the Very Prayers We Make

 

 

Never underestimate the power of connections.

This is something I tell myself often. When I say this, I’m not talking about networking or schmoozing. I’m simply talking about the power of being connected in relationship.

I’m talking about building awareness of one another. Knowing names. Introducing people and deepening friendships. Living in kinship. Understanding the stories people carry. Engaging with the giftedness people have to offer. Living in awareness of needs.

Hugh Hollowell of Love Wins Ministries, a community of pastoral care and presence with people experiencing homelessness, often says, “The opposite of homelessness isn’t housing. The opposite of homelessness is community.” People often fall through the cracks because they do not have a community deep and wide enough to hold them up in a time of crisis.

So never underestimate the power of connections.

You never know how someone’s story might connect to someone’s story.

You never know how someone’s presence might connect to someone’s need.

You never know how someone’s awareness might increase empathy, solidarity, and action.

Introduce people. Cultivate community space. Learn more about people around you. See what commonalities you might find. Because when we do all of these things, we create the conditions that make support possible — sometimes in ways we’ve yet to imagine.

–Renee Roederer

This post is a part of a series. Feel free to check out the other pieces too:

The Price of Incarceration
The Deeper Questions
Providing Support for Immigrant Families
To Be a Part of the Very Prayers We Make

I have a friend who experienced homelessness for about two years. She struggled through Michigan winters and often spent time panhandling for donations on the street. Now, things have turned around immensely for the better, but those were painful years.

In addition to having a desperation for money, she had a desperation to be seen. Truly seen as herself, behind the labels and stigma. People experiencing homeless are often seen to the degree of not being seen. In other words, people notice them and then do everything they can to avoid them.

About ten years ago at a conference, I heard Ben Johnston-Krase say something that stuck with a lot of people. He shared what often goes through our minds when someone is panhandling and asking us for money.

He talked about this back-and-forth dialogue that happens instantly inside our own minds.

“Do you have $5?” we’re asked.

Ben slowed down this inner dialogue.

“Well, I do have $5. Maybe I should give it. . . ”

“But. . . how can I know that this person won’t spend it on alcohol. No, I better not.”

“But. . . I don’t know that this person will spend it that way. What if he’s hungry right now?”

“Oh, I know. . . I’ll just go down the street and buy this person a sandwich. Then I’ll know.”

“But I’m not his Mommy. Shouldn’t he have the dignity of choosing how he spends his money? Why should that be up to me? Yeah, I should probably give the $5.”

“But. . . what if I lean down to give it and he steals my wallet? What then?”

“Why I am I so afraid? He didn’t ask me to be afraid.”

Ben Johnston-Krase said that in the midst of this back-and-forth dialogue, we either give or don’t give the money. Then, we often step away asking ourselves, “Did I do the right thing?”

Instead, Ben shared that maybe this isn’t the best question. Maybe in these moments we need to see our neighbors as our neighbors and say, “How is this person’s liberation bound up together with mine? How am I called into solidarity with this neighbor? How is my life called to address the larger, systemic forces of poverty?”

Perhaps we see one another better when we ask deeper questions.

–Renee Roederer

This post is a part of a series this week. Feel free to check out the other pieces too:

The Price of Incarceration
Connections Matter
Providing Support to Immigrant Families
To Be a Part of the Very Prayers We Make

On Saturday, I had the opportunity to attend a local meeting for the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. Have you heard yet about this campaign? If not yet, my assumption is that it will be in the news quite a bit this summer. I recommend learning more, and if interested, please consider plugging in yourself.

The Rev. Dr. William Barber II and the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis are Co-Chairs of the Poor People’s Campaign, a renewed, second chapter of the campaign the Rev. Martin Luther King initiated just before he was assassinated. This campaign seeks to challenge the evils of systemic racism, poverty, the war economy, and ecological devastation through conversation and direct action.

Each meeting of the Poor People’s Campaign seeks to center the voices, stories, and experiences of people who are directly impacted by these systemic forces. On Saturday, one of our speakers was a person who was formally incarcerated. He said that he speaks openly about his experience as often as possible because he wants to uplift the challenges that incarcerated people and their families carry while reducing the stigma that so many experience.

He mentioned the deep, economic costs to incarcerated people and their families. An experience of poverty increases the odds of incarceration, and undoubtedly, incarceration can solidify poverty in the life of individuals and their families.

When a person is arrested, the first hurdle is cash bail. A judge sets a dollar amount for that bail. Those who can pay are permitted to return home and await trial, but those who are poor languish in jail. In addition to not being able to pay, poor, incarcerated people are not able to return to their workplaces. This can compound the challenge for an individual or a family.

Once incarcerated, phone calls with loved ones — including children who need parental contact — cost $15 per phone call. The family ends up paying that.

Many jails and prisons, including where I live in Washtenaw County, Michigan, are moving away from in-person visitation. Instead, they only permit “visitation” via video, and families also have to pay for each usage of that video service.

Incarcerated individuals and families have to pay for attorneys, and these services can cost thousands of dollars. The speaker on Saturday mentioned that he had to pay $10,000 for his attorney.

Prison food is notoriously bad. Because of this, incarcerated individuals often need funds to buy things at the commissary. They can earn small amounts of money through work (a whole other, necessary conversation should be raised about this) or their families can send money along.

Some prisons, including here in my state of Michigan, charge incarcerated people a rate per day to stay in prison. Can you imagine? There is no choice to leave, but there is also a fee to stay. “They are charging us for the privilege to stay in prison,” our speaker said.

And then, of course, when people leave an experience of incarceration, stigma makes it virtually impossible to find employment. Our speaker has a Master’s Degree, but he couldn’t even find a job waiting tables. “And we wonder why recidivism is high?” he asked.

Think about the enormous economic costs to individuals, families, and entire communities. . . Our incarcerated neighbors are our neighbors, but sadly, they are often out of view. Certainly, some have made mistakes they deeply regret, but isn’t it possible that the system is doing violence as well?

–Renee Roederer

A very important fundraiser is underway to raise funds for cash bail where I live. No one should have to stay in jail entirely because they cannot pay. If you’d like to donate $10 or more to that today, I know that many would appreciate it. I’ll leave the link below:

Poverty is Not a Crime: Bail, Legal, and Support Fund

This post is a part of a series. Feel free to check out the other pieces too:

The Deeper Questions
Connections Matter
Providing Support to Immigrant Families
To Be a Part of the Very Prayers We Make

 

 

A few months ago, I had the opportunity to listen to an interview with Pádraig Ó Tuama on Krista Tippett’s On Being. I was so grateful to hear it because it has turned out to be one of my favorite episodes of her podcast.

Pádraig Ó Tuama is a poet, theologian, and leader of the Corrymeela community, a peace and reconciliation center in Northern Ireland. On this podcast, entitled, Belonging Creates and Undoes Us Both, Pádraig Ó Tuama says so many powerful things about voicing and hearing stories. He describes the experience as sacramental.

Have you ever thought about story as sacrament? A means of grace? An opportunity to connect with God and neighbor? An moment to make the past or hoped-for-future present? An invitation toward recreation? The promise of belonging, no matter what? New life — resurrection?

Perhaps when we have the opportunity to tell or hear a story, especially one that is very true and formational to life, we can remember this framework. I’ll share some of Pádraig Ó Tuama‘s quotes below:

“And therefore, every possibility of a person putting words to something, especially something that’s been difficult, is in itself a sacrament.”

“Words are the way to put narrative onto something, and to turn an experience — and especially, I suppose, thinking of conflict situations — to turn an experience that you would rather not have had into something where you can say, at least I’ve had the capacity to tell a story about it, even when that story is painful and unfinished and unresolved, nevertheless, there is a way in which to have words for it. You’re crystallizing it. You’re sacramentalizing it.”

“Let’s begin to be gentle and soothe the fear of fear and find a way that story can be its own liberator if you can find a way to hold it in a generous way.”

“And that is where language is limited because language needs courtesy to guide it and an inclusion and a generosity that goes beyond precision and become something much more akin to sacrament, something much more akin to how it is you can be attentive to the implications of language in the room for those who may have suffered.”

“Don’t let the terrible narrative be the thing that holds you. There is the possibility that you can be the site of generosity from which you, and also your own can benefit. You can be the place from which goodness and generosity can come — that is, the person who has held in their body the most hostility might be the possibility of the place of hospitality also. And that is a story worth telling.”

–Renee Roederer

 

Our DNA carries stories.

Of course, our DNA articulates the building blocks of how our bodies grow — a type of narrative, so to speak — but beyond that, our DNA carries stories of our ancestors too. Researchers have discovered that our DNA carries imprints of our grandparents’ life experiences, and perhaps, further back as well.

Sadly, this was initially discovered by looking at the impacts of trauma. When ancestors have endured trying experiences, descendants carry some imprints of those experiences. See this:

Grandma’s Experiences Leave a Mark on Your Genes

But we are not stuck in these stories. The same discovery tells us that we are writing our DNA even as our DNA writes some aspects of our lives.

So. . .

All the work we do
to heal,
to grow,
to connect,
to create space,
to write new stories
in our lives, and
in the lives of our communities,
shapes the physical building blocks
of ourselves and generations that follow us.

That’s a powerful thing.

–Renee Roederer