Smuggling Grace

So I love, love, love this story: He’s 22. She’s 81. Their Friendship is Melting Hearts.

This article from The New York Times tells the story of Spencer Sleyton and Rosalind Guttmann. There is a nearly 60 year age gap between them, but they became friends while playing the game Words with Friends on their phones. Spencer is a rapper and producer from East Harlem; Rosalind lives in Palm Beach, Florida.

The article starts with this really great line. Spencer Sleyton and his friends were sitting around one day naming their best friends. “When it was his turn, he said: ‘My best friend is an 81-year-old white woman who lives in a retirement community in Florida.'”

That was a bit of an exaggeration — maybe not best friends — but they had authentically become quite close. They were assigned to each other via the randomized game player process on Words with Friends, and then they played over 300 games. Throughout these games, they began to use the chat feature to connect, and then they shared wisdom from their lives.

Recently, Spencer Sleyton flew to Palm Beach to meet Rosalind Guttmann for the first time. Such a special experience. Two people who could have easily been strangers now have a special bond.

This is Kinship.

And it’s a reminder that just about any occasion or medium can make this possible. In this case, even a Words with Friends app!

I find myself reflecting on this in my own life and in the lives of people I hold dear. I think about how many simple occasions became entry points to build such life-giving and formative bonds. Many times, I could not have foreseen where they would go.

One common entry point in my relationships seems to be coffee shops. 🙂 I think about how many meaningful relationships started with getting coffee somewhere. I can look back on various locations and think about them with names attached. This is where I met _______. Here’s where I met ________. Now, these are the kinds of people I cannot imagine not knowing.

There have been other launching points: Returned emails; sitting next to someone at a meeting, then realizing commonalities; Facebook chats, including with people I’ve not met in person; being introduced via shared friendships; showing up for a Meetup Group event.

It always starts somewhere. It can start just about anywhere.

So what new occasions might open doors for Kinship, maybe even soon? We can look for these. We can cultivate these.

–Renee Roederer

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

Kinship: Open Wide the Circle
Kinship: “We share the same soul”
Kinship: Our Language for Family is Too Limited

The Youth Advisory Board is changing things. Hearts. Minds. Connections. Empowerment. Policy Statements.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to go to the Open House of the Michigan Juvenile Youth Advisory Board. This community effort is led by youth who have experienced incarceration in Washtenaw County, Michigan. Along with some students from Eastern Michigan University and the University of Michigan, these youth are working to create changes that are more just and compassionate before, during, and after incarceration.

Most recently, the Youth Advisory Board worked hard to encourage the Washtenaw County Commissioners to create a statement in support of raising the age of adult convictions from 17 to 18. The County Commissioners passed this unanimously.

The Youth Advisory Board is the first to lead a Michigan county toward such a statement. Since this policy shift is not actual until it happens on the state level, they are now encouraging other youth to make changes in counties across the state.

It was really moving to see these youth come into leadership in a sense of their own empowerment. They are also a great encouragement for one another. Though I can imagine some aspects, I can barely grasp what it is like to be young and incarcerated, then what it is like to try to make a life beyond that experience. Each person has a story. Each person remembers what it is like to be cast aside and placed outside the circle of belonging. Collectively, the Youth Advisory Board now writes letters to people in jails and prisons who are in the midst of such experiences.

These things are also true for incarcerated people where I live in Washtenaw County:

– It costs $15 to have a 1 to 10 minute phone call. This greatly affects families and their abilities to connect.

– When people are released from jail, they either have to take the bus home during the daytime or ask someone to pick them up at midnight.

– Washtenaw County Jail only allows visitation to happen in video form. There is no physical visitation.

– Sometimes, people linger in jail with only a $100-250 bail. But people could be reunited with families if they had the ability to pay. (See and consider giving to this Bail, Legal, and Support Fund in Washtenaw County).

I suspect, in many cases, our dismissal and exclusion of people who are poor, leads to all of these outcomes, thus compounding the separation, exclusion, stigma, and impoverishment.

Mother Theresa says, “If there is no peace, it is because we have forgotten we belong to each other.”

Belonging. Connection. Flesh of flesh and bone of bone. Spirit of spirit.

Kinship.

No daylight to separate us.

Only kinship. Inching ourselves closer to creating a community of kinship such that God might recognize it. Soon we imagine, with God, this circle of compassion. Then we imagine no one standing outside of that circle, moving ourselves closer to the margins so that the margins themselves will be erased. We stand there with those whose dignity has been denied. We locate ourselves with the poor and the powerless and the voiceless. At the edges, we join the easily despised and the readily left out. We stand with the demonized so that the demonizing will stop. We situate ourselves right next to the disposable so that the day will come when we stop throwing people away.

– Father Greg Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart

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

Kinship: The Myriad of Entry Points
Kinship: “We share the same soul”
Kinship: Our Language for Family is Too Limited

If you’re a part of a liturgical church community, or perhaps if you were raised in one, you may know that when people come forward to receive the communion meal together, servers will often say particular phrases while they offer the bread and the cup:

“This is Christ’s body, broken for you.”
“This is Christ’s body, given for you.”
“The Bread of Life.”
“Receive what you are, the Body of Christ.”

“This is Christ’s blood, shed for you.”
“This is the life of Christ, given for you.”
“This is the Cup of the Covenant.”
“This is the Cup of Salvation.”

I prefer some of these to others, but they are examples of what you might hear.

Many years ago, I was living in Austin, Texas, and often, I would share this meal together with college students. I was just one year out of undergrad myself, and the oldest students in this community became some of the closest friends of my life. They still are. Today, I’m remembering a wonderful moment when we shared this meal together.

Two of my friends were servers, and as people came forward, they continued to say these phrases:

“This is the Bread of Life.”
“This is the Cup of Salvation.”

They said them very quietly, kind of reverently.

But then one of them turned to the other and said, “Why do we always whisper it?” I was nearby so I heard this, and it made me smile. After asking that question, they started staying these things much more loudly — with declaration, with confidence!

“The Cup of Salvation!” They didn’t yell it or make a joke of it. They just said it with confidence. Except it did make us smile because it was so out of the ordinary. We got what they were doing. It was wonderful.

So, a word like salvation. . .

Salvation may seem like Christiany jargon. And given how some Christians are behaving and asserting faith publicly against others these days, we may bristle at a term like salvation. Too often, that word has been used to assert who is “in” and who is “out.”

But one of its primary meanings is healing — simply and wonderfully, healing. Like salve. How wonderful it is to imagine people saying with confidence,

“This is the cup of healing!”
“Healing is possible!”
“This healing is for you!”
“This healing is for us!”
“This healing connects us to each other and the larger world!”
“This healing calls us to be healers!”

This is one more reason that this Eucharist meal — again, Eucharist means, Good Gift — is a prelude to all our meals and all our connecting. It sends us outward to live this way all over the place.

With confidence!

Good gifts.

Eucharist.

Every day,
Every moment,
Every meal,
Every relationship.

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

Abundant Bread Crumbs
Small, Enormous Kindnesses
The Time He Held Up the M&Ms
Solidarity Eating

These days, I’m on a Cancer Solidarity Diet, eating and drinking some of the same things as a loved one who is going through cancer treatments. In the midst of this, some who know me well will find this rather shocking: I have temporarily given up coffee.

Move over, daily rounds of multiple cups of Joe.
Enter lots of green tea.

These eating patterns involve a combination of 1) choosing alkaline foods over acidic foods (coffee is really acidic) and 2) anti-angiogensis foods. That’s a big word to describe a process of reducing the growth of blood vessels in our bodies, as these can allow some challenging things to grow along with them.

In other words, in both categories, lots and lots of fruits and vegetables, lentils, and green tea. If you know a loved one who has cancer, or if you want to learn some eating habits to reduce the risk of cancer, I cannot recommend this video enough:

And all of this has brought up a recognition in my mind that when we eat, we are always connected to others, perhaps in ways we’ve yet to ponder.

Yes, we may enjoy the same foods in a moment of connection, or we may even make food choices in solidarity. But beyond these, think about how many people are involved in the making of even one food item. . .

Who planted this? Who tended to this? Who watered this? Who harvested this? Who brought this to a grocery store? Which employees stocked it and checked it out? Which restaurant workers made this into a meal on a plate?

Who gets paid in this process and how? Who has access to this food? Who doesn’t, and why? Whose land is used in this way, and whose land has been occupied?

When we sit down to eat, we are always connected in one way or another. So I wonder what kind of communion could be created if we pondered these connections more intentionally?

Perhaps somewhere within this awareness, we also find,

Good gifts.

Eucharist.

Every day,
Every moment,
Every meal,
Every relationship.

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

Abundant Bread Crumbs
Small, Enormous Kindnesses
The Time He Held Up the M&Ms
“The Cup of Salvation!”

More than a decade ago, I entered a worship space a bit early. I joined some people from my community in in assembling sack lunches. Together, we made sandwiches and placed them in bags with some fruit and just a bit of candy. Then we put the bags on and under the Communion Table. That night, we were going to engage a practice we decided to call “Communion Table Extended.” During our service, we shared the Eucharist meal together, and afterwards, we walked around in the neighborhood to share those bags of food with anyone who might enjoy them — mainly, neighbors experiencing homelessness and hungry college students.

As I think of that night so many years ago, a particular image comes to mind. I think of my mentor who celebrated communion with us that night. After saying a prayer, breaking the bread, and pouring the cup — all part of what is typical and sacred — he voiced some words that are also both typical and sacred: “These are the gifts of God for the people of God.”

But instead of lifting up the bread and the cup as is usual, in this moment of practicing Communion Table Extended, he lifted up the bread and a bag of M&Ms.

Bread. And M&Ms. “These are the gifts of God for the people of God.” And they were.

This meal of bread and cup… So many people have taught me how sacred this is. But I also thank this mentor of mine, both in this moment and many other moments, for teaching me how ordinary it is – that is, how God’s grace and incarnation are found among us in ordinary, everyday, relational experiences.

In fact, this sacred meal is intended to be a prelude for many meals and connections. In these too, we can be surprised at how God’s grace and incarnation are found among us through ordinary, everyday, relational experiences.

The image of holding up those M&Ms has stayed with me all those years.

It is another reminder of

Good gifts.

Eucharist.

Every day,
Every moment,
Every meal,
Every relationship.

–Renee Roederer

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

Abundant Bread Crumbs
Small, Enormous Kindnesses
Solidarity Eating
“The Cup of Salvation!”

Last week, I walked into Subway to grab a quick bite before heading to a choir rehearsal. I had experienced quite a day — a load of stress in the morning, followed by some help with that same stress in the afternoon. I was ready to enjoy a sandwich, then sing to my little heart’s content.

I simply expected to go through the motions on this plan, then get back in my car and drive away. But my experience opened up in a wonderful way.

And it was all because of a person working at Subway.

When I stepped inside, I was the only customer. When he started to make my sandwich, he asked a simple question, “So how was your day?” It was nice to be asked, but mainly, it was how he asked. I could tell he asked with intention, like he really wanted to know.

“Well, it started out rough, but it actually got better.” I went on to tell him about a helpful phone conversation I had with someone. He took real interest. Then I had the chance to ask him how his day was going. He shared some things too.

This personal encounter was so refreshing. When I sat down to eat, other folks came in, and again, he asked all the people how their day was going. This pattern of asking this question with interest really seemed to have a wonderful effect. He was cultivating an occasion where simple, authentic kindness was positively impacting people.

It was truly refreshing.

This is everyday communion.

Yesterday, I wrote a piece about the Eucharist, pondering if among other things, the Eucharist is a proclamation of eucharists — an announcement that moments of everyday communion can be cultivated and found all over the place.

I think this moment was a wonderful expression.

Good gifts.

Eucharist.

Every day,
Every moment,
Every meal,
Every relationship.

–Renee Roederer

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

Abundant Bread Crumbs
The Time He Held Up the M&Ms
Solidarity Eating
“The Cup of Salvation!”

If we pay attention, especially if we allow ourselves to enter relational space and participate in connection, we will discover that communion is taking place all around us.

I am a person who has the sacred opportunity from time to time to lift bread and a cup before of a community while speaking life-giving words: “This is my body. This is the cup of salvation. Do this in remembrance of me.”

This is Eucharist, which literally means, Good Gift.

This kind of Eucharist, this kind of Good Gift, is a Sacred Prelude to a host of eucharists. There are many good gifts of food, nourishment, and connection, and I would say that the same spirit is present in them. After all, every moment of the story of Jesus is about incarnation — the Sacred discovered to be embodied, right in the midst of ordinary moments.

This makes me ponder. . . Among other things, the Eucharist may be an announcement — a proclamation — of eucharists. This is an invitation to experience God in the midst of one another. Where can we find such moments of everyday communion? If we look for them, I imagine we’ll find them all over the place.

Yesterday, in fact, I saw a Eucharist in the midst of the Eucharist.

Four children had gone forward along with the rest of the community to receive the Eucharist, but beyond that first bite, they were excited to discover that they were given huge pieces of the bread to take with them. Not just a little morsel, but an abundance of bread. So they came to the back of the worship space and showed their pieces to each other with joy on their faces. Then, they ate together with smiles, making bread crumbs all over the place.

I suppose in some traditions, this might be seen as risky – children holding something sacred and then making crumbs of it. But I don’t see it that way.  This is the kind of welcome Jesus makes, to children, to all of us. This is the kind of invitation that allows us to find God’s presence joyfully in one another, marveling at the good gifts we’ve been given.

Good gifts.

Eucharist.

Every day,
Every moment,
Every meal,
Every relationship.

–Renee Roederer

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

Small, Enormous Kindnesses
The Time He Held Up the M&Ms
Solidarity Eating
“The Cup of Salvation!”

Some of you know that Father Greg Boyle is a person I really appreciate. Though I haven’t spent much time with him in person  (at some point though, I might!) he has been one of my greatest influences. He’s the founder and spiritual leader of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles. Homeboy Industries provides jobs, training, tattoo removal, therapy, and a variety of classes for people who are leaving gangs and people who have been recently incarcerated. In the midst of these opportunities, Homeboy Industries has created a large, extended family of kinship — many, many meaningful relationships over time.

Earlier this week, I was listening to the rerun of Krista Tippett’s interview with Father Greg on On Being. It was aired again last weekend. During that interview, he uses a beautiful phrase about the mutuality of relationship. He says that in kinship, we serve as enlightened witnesses, helping each other ‘return to ourselves.’

Toward the beginning of the podcast, he uses some language from Cesar Chavez. Once, a reporter said to Chavez, “These farm workers sure do love you. . .” And to that, he replied, “The feeling’s mutual!”

That line came up again when he discussed this beautiful experience of returning to ourselves. To bring it home, he told a story about one of the homies named Louie and a mutual blessing they shared with some humor. I want to share Greg Boyle’s words below:

“You want to be as spacious as you can be, that you can have room for stuff. And love is all there is, and love is all you are. And you want people to recognize the truth of who they are — that they’re exactly what God had in mind when God made them.

Alice Miller, who’s the late, great child psychologist, talked about how we’re all called to be enlightened witnesses — people who, through your kindness, tenderness, and focused, attentive love, return people to themselves. And in the process, you’re returned to yourself.

Like I have a homie named Louie who just turned 18. And he’s kind of a difficult kid. You know, he’s exasperating, and he’s whiny. And he works for me — although work may be too strong a verb. But homies lately have asked me for blessings, which is odd — it’s like in the last three years — and they always ask me on the street or in my office. And they never say, “Father, may I have your blessing?” They say, “Eh, G, give me a bless, yeah?” And they always say it the same way.

So this kid Louie, I’m talking to him, and he’s complaining about something. And finally, at the end of it, he says, “Eh, G, give me a bless, yeah?” I said, sure. So he comes around to my side of the desk, and he knows the drill. And he bows his head. I put his hands on my shoulder. Well, his birthday had been two days before, so it gave me an opportunity to say something to him. And I said,

‘You know, Louie, I’m proud to know you.
And my life is richer ’cause you came into it.
And when you were born, the world became a better place,
And I’m proud to call you my son.
Even though — ‘

And I don’t know why I decided to add this part —

‘– at times, you can really be a huge pain in the ass.’

And he looks up, and he smiles, and he says, ‘The feeling’s mutual!’

And suddenly — kinship so quickly. You’re not sort of this delivery system. But maybe I returned him to himself, but there is no doubt . . . that he’s returned me to myself.”

Friends, I hope you’ve had this kind of experience lately.

Or I hope you can recall this kind of experience — of returning and being returned — in a way that fills you right this instant in the present moment.

Suddenly, kinship so quickly.

–Renee Roederer

Have you all ever heard of Quantum Entanglement? It’s one of the weirdest discoveries of science — namely, that two particles can become inexplicably connected, to the point that even across great distances, what happens with one always impacts the other.

So why wouldn’t it also be true that we human beings are more connected than we assume?

– Renee Roederer

I recently told a friend, “I think somewhere within myself I’m becoming a Quaker.”

“You’re having an Aquakening!” he replied. “Lots of my friends are.”

Of course, I laughed. What a silly, wonderful, and apt term: An Aquakening. My friend is not a Quaker, and in actuality, neither am I.  I also don’t have any tangible plans right now to become one, at least officially. It’s just that lots of my hopes for church these days are beginning to look a lot like the Religious Society of Friends.

I realized this months ago when I wrote down a list of things I dream about for church. I recognize that others may have a very different list or feel quite alive in church cultures different than what I might articulate. But here is one thing I dream about most of all —

In its faith convictions and its practices,

I want to participate in the life of a church community that values egalitarianism as a core, identity value.

Of course, egalitarianism —

a recognition of the worth of all, particularly, uplifting marginalized people;
an invitation for full participation and leadership;
and a practice of sharing power collectively —

is never lived perfectly in any community. Hardly. This is something that must be reflected upon, worked through, and course-corrected all the time. But I wonder, what would happen if egalitarianism were held as a core, identity value to the point that a church community would not really be itself apart from this perspective and practice. . .?

What might this look like? Well, here’s the list of wonderings I created a few months ago. I find myself desiring. . .

1) Highly participatory worship, where everybody has an opportunity to speak, with a conviction that it’s best when multiple people add their voices.

2) Egalitarianism as a high shared, community value and norm, rooted in faith and practice, as articulated above and below.

(An aside: In my own tradition, the Presbyterian Church (USA), this seems to be more of a method than a norm, i.e. we’ll practice this in some ways when we can. The PC(USA) actually has some of the best written language for sharing power — the Book of Order, one of our Constitutional documents, talks a great deal about that — but in practice, in a variety of ways, I don’t think we often do this well.)

3) Moving toward much less difference between clergy and laity, both in both role and perception, perhaps even being clergyless,  i.e. I’d like to see more church communities organized in ways where agreed-upon group norms, procedures, and shared practices guide the collective, rather than a person, class of persons, or even a particular role.

This is not to diminish the value of people having strong, theological education. But I wonder, how do we more intentionally hold this education with and for the collective, as opposed to it being held primarily in a class? In actuality, I think this is often the case. And ultimately, I’m getting at this: How might we better empower the collective with theological education, so that more and more people have it, share it, and live from it together?

In my statement above, I also do not mean to diminish the reality that some will have particular gifts for leadership. Of course! This is to be celebrated. But again, how can that leadership be connected more deeply with and for the collective body, so that it compounds the egalitarianism? So that all people have particular ways of leading? What I intend to lift up is the particularity of leadership. What I intend to disrupt is the norm of hierarchy.

4) A conviction that church is always embodied as a community on behalf of a larger community, which is to say that the vision for church always exists on behalf of the neighborhood, town, city, and world to which it belongs. Without that connection, it ceases to be itself.

I dream of a church that is primarily building-less, where the concept of church means more and more, an embodied group of people who live and love alongside neighbors, rather than a place we go or don’t go to (“Do you go to church?” “I go to church.” “I don’t go to church.”) What if that understanding, conception, and framework could completely open up in a different, transformative way? Even if folks meet from time to time inside a building?

And the vision of community on behalf of a larger community always means that social action and justice alongside neighbors will be one primary reason for the church’s existence. If we want to follow Jesus, we have to walk in the way of Jesus. This means kinship with and among the marginalized, healing (both personal and collective), and the transformation of our connections — with God (who is Triune, and also a community) and one another, both in interpersonal relationships and society at large.

These things are on my mind all the time. When I wrote them down months ago, I looked and realized, “Oh, huh. . . The Quakers do all of these things.”

Maybe I need to learn more about that.

– Renee Roederer