Smuggling Grace

I really love this poem by Rumi.

It seems perfectly Rumi-esque too. Rumi was a 13th century Persian poet, whose language is at once so simple, so casual, and so evocative. I imagine translators do an amazing job communicating his work across language and time. I wouldn’t expect a poet from 700 years ago to build a prayer off of a word as casual as, “Hey.” But that’s how he wrote, centuries ago and in another language. I’m grateful for it.

What would it mean to say, “Hey,” to more of our surroundings today? What might we gain from that? How might we feel a greater sense of relationship even with things?

Does God welcome our “Hey”? I think so. How might Ultimacy be greeted, even casually? Even today?

–Renee Roederer 

 

“I need to tell my story properly.”

One day later, this repeated sentence from Hannah Gadsby is still ringing in my ears and in the most inviting way.

This is from her one-hour comedy special (though is it comedy?) called “Nanette.” It was released on Netflix two weeks ago and has been gaining a lot of attention for many powerful reasons. I watched it yesterday, and it had such an deep impact on me that I actually watched it twice in one day. I can’t recall ever doing that before.

There are parts that are indeed very funny; she is an incredible comic, both in her content and her delivery. As she says more than once — and this grows deeper and more serious throughout — she knows how to create tension and then deliver a punchline.

In the end though, this special is about trauma and the ways that comedy can fall short. This leads to potent and challenging moments of personal storytelling from Hannah Gadsby, and ultimately, it calls forth the power of vulnerability and human connection.

We all have stories to share, and we all have stories we need to hear. For personal reasons, there may be times when we want to hold our stories close, but sometimes, external forces keep them covered or internalized. There is strength and release in the sharing. Storytelling changes lives. Storytelling connects us with empathy, love, and care.

As Hannah Gadsbury says,

“Because like it or not, my story is your story, and your story is my story… All I can ask is just please help me take care of my story… And that is the focus of the story we need — connection.”

Have a watch. Let me know what you think.

–Renee Roederer

Here’s an NPR story about “Nanette” — Hannah Gadsbury’s ‘Nanette’ Is a Scorching Piece on Comedy and Trauma.

My friend calls them “the Grief Ninjas.” I think it’s the perfect description.

She’s talking about those moments when you’re in the middle of a run-of-the-mill day or routine task, and all of the sudden, seemingly out of nowhere, feelings of grief come on very strongly. A wave of grief quickly emerges and interrupts whatever you’re doing.

I had a visitation of the Grief Ninjas last night. I was watching the phenomenal new documentary about Fred Rogers, aptly called, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” (Go see it! You won’t regret it).

At the end, there’s some space to ponder in gratitude the people who helped make us who we are, people who “smiled us into smiling, and loved us into loving.” And well… quite suddenly, there were the Grief Ninjas. It just ached.

Of course, the Grief Ninjas were dancing around with Gratitude and Love because that’s often how grief works. Grief is love that longs. Grief is love that misses or prepares itself for missing.

Those Grief Ninjas show up whenever they will.

And the love also keeps arriving. (please love, keep arriving)

–Renee Roederer

It was very kind, sweet even, for them to invite me to the batch pad.

Last semester, I spent time with a student group that’s creating an important, new educational opportunity. They’re talking about gender, and in particular, the ways we shape and limit our definitions of masculinity (can’t show emotions, can only like certain things, etc.). Then, these students are going into high schools to both talk about these limitations and do training on aggression, boundaries, and sexual assault prevention. Students of all genders are doing this work together, and I think it’s great.

One night at the end of the semester, we put the work away for a night because folks wanted to watch a movie. And kindly, they invited me as well. The 36 year old person showed up at the college batch pad to watch How to Train a Dragon (which is a great movie by the way!)

When I arrived, I knew most of the students, but just a couple were new to me. Then I got a wonderful introduction that made me laugh, because Laura* said, “Hey, you all, did you know… Renee is like…. a real adult!”

And this turned out to be true. Not only am I 36 years old, but also… I brought a legit popcorn maker.

I used that popcorn maker to provide students with movie deliciousness. This included melting butter in a microwave that lives on the floor. Again, college batch pad. It was kind, sweet even, for them to invite me into their space.

I take that privilege of inclusion very seriously and meaningfully. When I knew this movie was going to happen, I said to one of the student leaders, “I mean, this can just be a student night if you’d like” — after all, they were organizing it — but she said, “No! Please come. You’re in the group!” I’m grateful that students want to hang out with a person who is now double the age of a college freshman.

I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit. In relationship with students, I provide from myself, and this includes providing from my own stage of life (turns out that this is more than having a popcorn maker). I work with students, and they’re “real adults!” too. I respect them as adults. This is important.

But I’m also a couple life stages older, and it turns out, there is a lot to provide just from this. I am always providing from my age. And I have found that students value this, especially if they also feel that their adulthood, passions, and wisdom are valued (and they have wisdom in spades).

I have served as a pastor, and several times as a campus minister, within congregations. I think older adults sometimes assumed that students would probably have no interest in spending time with them. But this is very untrue. Students love having relationships across age and life stage. I mean, they spend almost all of their time with people who are 18-25. Why not have some older friends? And often, bonus parents, aunts and uncles, and grandparents? That’s special.

Age is a great gift. And this is true in all directions.

–Renee Roederer

*Name is changed.

Sometimes, I don’t know exactly what to do, except to just…. choose hope.

This is intentional; this is hard work. Sometimes, it feels foolish. Sometimes it feels just right. It’s not something that I would place on a person or community when they’re feeling down or reasonably afraid — “Just snap your fingers and choose hope!” That’s insensitive and harmful. But when we can choose it (sometimes, we can’t, but sometimes, we can) it can help others do the same.

Yesterday, I looked through my social media feeds and saw fear and near-despair. The news cycle is very difficult. Some are wondering how these things will affect their lives. People are feeling all the stories, and along with them, a sense of helplessness.

So perhaps we have to look to where we can to find hope, maybe even unexpectedly.

-Yesterday, I found that in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — not only that she won her race unexpectedly, but most of all, just in who she is herself.

-Yesterday, I found that in the words of Rep. John Lewis, who certainly knows what it is like to face adversity and even violence. In a Tweet, he said, “Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble. #goodtrouble”

-Yesterday, I found that in the words of M Barclay. They said it so much better than I can, so I want to leave you with their words:

A friend shared this wonderful poem on social media yesterday, and I’m so glad to have encountered it. It’s by the Rev. Micah Bucey, minister at the Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village.

I love it, and I want to share it here too.  This is kinship.

A Prayer of Queer Thanksgiving

I sing praises to this little boy, no more than seven or eight,
Who just pranced right up to me and interlaced his own tiny, nail-polished fingers
With my own, and cried out, “Twins!”
I sing praises to his choice of glittery green,
Which perfectly complements my shimmery purple.
I sing praises to his guts, his gumption, his presumption
That I am a friend, a familiar, a fellow fairy — family —
Even though we’ve never met.
I sing praises to the street that brings us together
And to the fabulous whomever he, she, they will become.
I sing praises to the well-coiffed mother, bubbling over and teary-eyed,
As she exclaims, “He saw you all the way across the street and just had to say, ‘Hello.’”
I sing praises to the baseball-capped father, looking on with quiet pride,
As he asks, “Do you paint yourself or do you have them professionally done?”
I sing praises to the grandma and the grandpa, holding hands and smiling wide,
As they look one another in the eye and celebrate what their love has made.
I sing praises to the dozens of witnesses to this family reunion,
The ones who hurry by and the ones who slow down,
The ones who look up from their phones to watch history being made,
The ones who set aside their cynicism for one, brief, shining moment,
So they can join in the smiles,
Join in the connection,
As I squeeze the tiny fingers of this seven-or-eight-year-old unicorn and proclaim: “Twins!”
And I sing praises to the cloud of invisible witnesses that surrounds us,
And in the singing and the praising, I feel them appear around us.
This is fantasy, but this is real.
This is fantasy, but fantasy is what painted our nails in the first place.
I see Marsha, brick in hand, ready to take no shit,
And Sylvia, microphone primed, ready to take us to task.
I see Christine, done up and glamorous, no hair out of place,
And I hear Marlene and Sylvester and David, crooning as Billy tickles the ivories.
I see Langston and Lorraine and James and Oscar, scribbling away,
As José and Eve and Michel critique and queer and complicate.
I hear Divine and Candy and Jackie and Andy and Hibiscus whispering,
“Don’t be so serious. Let this just be the silly thing it is.”
I feel the breeze as Alvin twirls by,
And I feel the squeeze as Alan computes the logic of it all.
I see Harvey and Audre and Michael and Harry,
And Gilbert and Edie and Jane and Dick,
Satisfied and still nudging, content and continuing to fight.
I hear Leonard and Howard composing a hit,
As Michael choreographs a group number,
And Frida lines us all up for what will surely be a kooky portrait for the ages.
I feel the forces, see the faces of the famous and the foreign,
And the cloud opens wider to reveal our mess of martyrs.
I see Matthew and Brandon and Roxana and Joan and Ali.
I see faces I’ve never seen before,
I hear names I’ve never known,
I hear voices I’ve never heard before, shouting, “Twins! Twins! Twins!”
We are nothing alike and we are everything alike,
We are on the street together and we are more than worlds apart.
We are a rainbow and we are a cloud,
Born of color and tears, of triumph and tragedy,
Feeding the arc of a moral universe that has trampled us,
Even as we decorate the damn thing and teach it how to bend.
We are serious and sassy, glittery and grim,
Furious and filled with fear that fools itself into fabulosity.
We are everything I describe and nothing I describe.
We are everything I see and so much I do not see.
We can pick out one another on the street,
And we can be strangers in the same parade.
We are more than fits inside our ever-expanding initials,
And we are only as much as we allow ourselves to be.
We are a rainbow and we are a cloud,
Bending and bursting, beautiful and terrifying.
And I sing praises to the rainbow and I sing praises to the cloud.
I sing praises to the colorful progress,
And I sing praises to the storm that shouts, “Progress is a myth.
Stop acting so small. You are the Universe in ecstatic motion.”
I sing praises to the Universe that we are,
To the rainbow that we’ve been, to the cloud we will all become,
And I feel that word fizzing up inside me, though it often frightens more than frees:
“Family.”
I sing praises to this family
That claims me for who I am and gently shoves me into who I can become.
I sing praises to the saints who don’t want to be saints,
To the martyrs and the heroes who ask for none of the notoriety.
I sing praises to the bloodless ties that keep us afloat until the blood ties catch up.
I sing praises to the clouds that cry out, “Families belong together,”
And know that it means so much more than what some want it to mean.
I sing praises to this fleeting moment on the street,
A moment that begins between two nail-polished people,
And then prisms out, extending the rainbow, creating the cloud.
We are twins and we are nothing alike.
We are seeking a tribe and we are extending the tribe.
We have so much to teach and we have so much to learn.
We have eternal praises to sing and we have eternal thanks to give.
Our greatest gift is the light of our color and the salt of our tears,
As we recognize one another like children on the busy street and insist on saying,
“Hello. I see you. I feel this between us and I can’t quite explain it.”
I sing praises to our gift of family recognition,
And until all families bend to the love of difference,
Until this country bends to love of family,
I sing praises to this growing familial cloud,
Rainbow saints painting paths for their yearning children,
And I pray not with my own hands clasped together,
But with my polished fingers interlaced with any other child I can recognize.

Amen

You can find the poem in its original setting on Rev. Micah Bucey’s Facebook Page.

I think this is incredible.

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), of which I am a part, is gathering this week in St. Louis for the biannual gathering of the General Assembly. This is a communal and procedural process by which the PC(USA) makes a lot of its decisions. Sometimes, people bring overtures for consideration which were formulated long before the gathering begins. Other times, overtures for consideration come directly from committee work while gathered together.

Yesterday, a powerful (and surprising!) overture came out of committee and is moving forward. It advocates that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter From a Birmingham Jail should be added to the Book of Confessions, one of the constitutional books of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

I think it’s fantastic.

Dr. King wrote this letter in the margins of newspapers from a jail cell, responding to the criticism of eight, white pastors who claimed he was a troublemaker, saying that they could not agree with his “methods of direct action.” He was arrested for marching without a permit. Dr. King had his lawyers smuggle out the letter, in which he argues that people have “not only a legal but a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”

The letter is very convicting. I believe it could instruct us during a crucial time. It would also honor Dr. King and his influence 50 years after his assassination.

Here’s a story about it: Assembly Urged to Add Dr. King’s ‘Letter From a Birmingham Jail’ to Book of Confessions.

–Renee Roederer

Yesterday, I published a piece on this blog which was very significant to me personally. “I’m Reclaiming My Epilepsy,” I said, expressing a desire to inhabit the identity of my experience with epilepsy throughout my childhood.

I shared some of the particular challenges of this experience, including how my epilepsy was always present, yet also, held primarily in secret and out of view. There is much more I can share about all of this, of course, and I hope to do that in conversation. (This is also an invitation to ask me more about this experience. I am so grateful that I’m having occasions to talk about this.)

Truly, so grateful.

Along with that, I’d like you to know this:

In all of my 36 years, I have never talked about this in any public forum until yesterday. Thank you for reading. Likewise, and probably more significant, I’ve never talked about this so broadly. Yesterday, in the span of 24 hours, many people who have known me, including people who have known me well, heard this for the first time.

As I shared in the piece, this experience hasn’t really been a secret during my adult years. It occasionally comes up naturally in conversation, and it’s always meaningful to me when it does. But beyond those smaller moments, I’ve never had the occasion to share so broadly, not like I did yesterday. Now, many more people know about this unique experience I had, and they know me a little more deeply too.

I am grateful for this.

Yesterday, I spent the day seeing people see me. As you can imagine, given the particularities of the story I told, that was remarkably significant. People showed me interest, gratitude, curiosity, celebration, and above all, compassion and embrace. I was moved by it all. This is what I expected; in part, the choice to share was a joyful act of trusting the loving relationships I’ve entered over time. But this was still received so profoundly.

People entered my story with me, and then, another wonderful thing happened. Several people told me some of their stories too — entirely different experiences unique to their lives, yet resonant with the commonality of being difficult to voice. I was moved by these stories and honored by the opportunity to hold a piece of them. Vulnerability often opens space for more vulnerability, and vulnerability often leads to meaningful connections.

And I’m realizing that connections change the stories, or at least how they are held and how they are felt.

I’ve been pondering this quite a bit, in fact. I now have an expanding community around knowledge of this experience. Likewise, I’ve invited people to see this identity as I seek to reclaim it. I’ve never had this before, but now, I will never not have it. That changes things.

For all my growing up years, I feared, what will people think about me if they know I have epilepsy? This thing… that honestly, at the time, I didn’t even fully understand.

Later, I came to understand more fully what epilepsy was and how it affected me, and much of the shame faded. Still, though, when I pondered people knowing my story, I probably continued to frame it as an occasion where people would likely associate epilepsy with me.

In one sense, I suppose that is true. But after receiving what I experienced yesterday, I recognize that this is even more true: People are now going to associate me with epilepsy. That is, they are going to interpret their own connection to epilepsy – knowing what it is, how it functions, or even just hearing the word itself – through the lens of loving me. People now have a connection to epilepsy because they have a connection to me. I felt this in relationship yesterday, and this was a piece I didn’t quite anticipate.

So all of this is immensely healing and clarifying, filled with connection and gratitude. That’s what this feels like.

– Renee Roederer