Smuggling Grace

Here we are. It is a precarious, chaotic week in many places and among many communities.

In the United States, many people are experiencing mental, physical, and emotional expressions of trauma, and/or dedicating themselves to personal practices of self-care and community-care to make sure those do not completely overwhelm us. Wherever we are, and whatever we feel, it’s all valid.

Trauma has a way of making time swirl together. What I mean is that experiences of trauma call up moments of difficulty from the past, and they become launching pads for anxieties about the future. It’s as if past and future (that is, an imagined and feared one) converge into the present. And when we have an inauguration and a flurry of painful executive orders, why wouldn’t that bring up memories and physical sensations from the initial presidency from 2016-2020, while also causing serious anxieties about what is ahead in 2025 and beyond? Those bookends of time can feel present — past and future — even when some of them haven’t happened yet.

So while these may absolutely be felt, and likely need to be processed, I want to invite us into an exercise so we may call in our deepest values and see how those might impact our present moments, too. These can also impact our mental processes, our physical bodies, and our emotions.

What are some of your deepest values, and some of the commitments you have that no matter what, you are determined to live and show forth in the world?

Think about these or write them down.

Think about a moment in the past when these values were really alive in your life or in the life of your community… Go ahead and get specific. You might want to think about a memory for each of the values, or a memory where they came together.

Think about these or write them down.

Rehearse those moments in your thinking and feeling. What was it like? Tell it like a story. Remember the sensations and what you saw and felt. Let your body feel that. You can come back to this any time.
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Now think about what it might look like to put these values into action and into relationship in the future — the near future or maybe slightly ahead of that. Visualize it. Who would be there? What would it sound like? What would it feel like for these values to be a much bigger force than our fears? What would it feel like for these to make a difference in our own lives and in the lives of others?

Think about these or write them down.

What if this form of the past and this form of the future can also converge in our present, allowing us to feel fortified mentally, physically, and emotionally? What if these can be our bigger and better bookends of time, alongside or even transcending the bookends of a presidency?

We can’t control everything that is happening. But no one can take these memories, values, forms of imagination, and action from us. No one.

Keep calling them in.

— Renee Roederer

I am grateful for spaces where we can bring all of ourselves — our joys, our fears, our connections, our concerns, and our hopes.

Once a month, I have the great pleasure of leading a Sunday morning service at a local church among a community called Parables. This community centers the needs of disabled and neurodivergent community members. I have loved building friendships with this community. This Sunday, I was touched as we made space to share community celebrations and deep concerns alike. Among them, we expressed worries for undocumented children in our school systems and beloved people who are waiting for travel visas. We surrounded each other in these concerns and honored the love that people feel.

I’m so glad we made space for this.

Later, after I gave the reflection, I moved into our time of communion. Two community members held the bread and the cup. I began, “On the night of his betrayal and arrest, Jesus gathered with his friends — his disciples — to share a meal, and –”

I paused.

“Oh my gosh, look at Fergus,” I continued. “Look at his tail wagging! Yes, Fergus, this meal is so wonderful,” I said, addressing him.

Fergus is one of the therapy dogs who comes on Sundays. He was in the very front row, looking directly at me, smiling in that way that golden retrievers can, and wagging up a storm as I continued to speak.

After we shared the bread and the cup together, we had some more time to name additional needs or upcoming events. “Yes, J,” my co-leader said, gesturing and calling on someone to speak next.

“Fergus is in a really kissy mood today!”

It’s true. He was. He had come over to these two adolescent boys and licked them enthusiastically for which they were overjoyed.

I’m so glad we made space for this, too.

— Renee Roederer

I turned off my news alert notifications. I want to do this for at least a week.

I will still engage news, even daily, but on my own terms. As we move into the next few days, I think we will see a slew of difficult executive orders that will come at us with a strategy of shock and awe. In the end, not all of them will stick, though some certainly will. They will feel troubling, and we may easily feel overwhelmed.

But we need not be inactive or feel entirely powerless. We’re not: We can care. We can act. We can reach out to one another.

I appreciated this paragraph from a lesson on Liven, a self-care app:

“… coping can be proactive and reactive.

“Proactive coping refers to the strategies we’re using to prevent the stress we experience from affecting us more than we’d like it to. Reactive coping is merely a response to the stress that’s already occurred, and its goal is to help us manage the impact.”

We need both of these, and this might be a good time to build up our strategies for each one.

You matter.
We matter.

You’re not powerless.
We’re not powerless.

— Renee Roederer

— Photos by Renee Roederer

This piece was originally posted in June 2022. A few days ago, I was thinking about it again and thought I’d re-share.

“Ancient Teeth.” I’m definitely aware that that’s an odd title for a blog post.

But I’m also laughing about it this morning.

These days, I’m doing something I haven’t done in many years: I’m reading the Bible from cover to cover. As I’ve done so, I’ve encountered passages that have moved me deeply, and I’ve found some that puzzle me too. But I also need to share this: The Bible is also funny. I have found some snarky, one-liners from characters that have made me guffaw aloud. Or at times, the narrator of one of the books will make an aside about a situation, and that also makes me chuckle. I love the humor.

There’s a section that wasn’t intended to be funny, but it’s made me giggle too. When I got to the Song of Solomon, I encountered King Solomon and his great love passing on an array of compliments that sound so strange to us millennia later.

“Your hair is like a flock of goats!”

“Your brow is like a slice of pomegranate!”

And there’s this one. It actually shows up several times throughout the poetic book:

“Your teeth are like a flock of newly shorn sheep coming up from washing, each one having a twin and not one missing.”

Gurrrl, you look so good! You have all your teeth!

This complement shows up multiple times. Not one of your teeth is missing!

But then, I started thinking about it, and this was a thought I have never had in my life: Without dentists or even toothbrushes, ancient people were likely missing teeth. Throughout most of human history, people were frequently missing teeth. I’ve never thought of this before.

So I guess it is high praise after all:

Not one of your teeth is missing! Not a single one of your newly shorn sheep teeth! You look gooooood!

— Renee Roederer

When I was growing up, The 700 Club, James Dobson of Focus on the Family, and Rush Limbaugh were all a part of my day-to-day life. When I was in elementary school, I attended churches that seemed to believe, “We’re not the only Christians, but we’re the ones who are most right.” No one ever said this overtly, but I could feel that we all believed it. I was, however, told overtly, “The United States is the best country on the face of the earth.”

I had ventured away from these influences and expanded some of my thinking, feeling, and believing in adolescence, but I dabbled back in a bit during college. During that era, 9/11 crushed us with emotions of grief and anxiety. It felt safer to be “right” and “the most right ones.” These descriptors could have summed up my self-perception as a Christian or as an American.

If my 20-year-old self were alive now in the context we’re in—if we just plopped her from that time into this one—she would probably be a Christian Nationalist. Maybe she wouldn’t be the most cultic kind, but I think I would have wanted our government to take on “Christian principles” and be “a Godly nation.”

What I’m trying to say is that contexts, theological beliefs, forms of belonging, and emotions—including anxiety about our world—are shaping some people in these directions. And without a doubt, so are racism, xenophobia, and beliefs about gender identity and expression.

Thankfully, my current self is not a Christian Nationalist. I do not believe that we should be a theocracy. Far from it. And I believe we should do all we can to build a safe, inclusive world where we learn from people whose identities and ways of life are different from our own.

But I am seeking to learn some of the dynamics that have created and continue to shape this movement. Right now, I’m listening to Season 2 of the Extremely American podcast, which is reporting on this movement broadly and on a particular circle of it in Idaho. The reporters do not hold these beliefs, but with the permission of the communities they’re reporting on, they have immersed themselves to learn and, frankly, sound the alarm.

I’m listening, and I wonder if you might like to do that too. Check it out:
Extremely American Podcast: Season 2 — Onward Christian Soldiers

— Renee Roederer

I am done with Doomscrolling. I gave it up.

Who knows? Maybe I’ll have a weak moment and go back, but I’ve taken a substantial break, and I’m going to recommend this to everyone I know. Doomscrolling drains us emotionally and physically, and on its own, it doesn’t add any important action to the world.

Here are things I’m not suggesting:

I’m not suggesting that we become uninformed. I’m definitely not talking about putting our heads in the sand metaphorically (which is also a great privilege some cannot choose). I’m not talking about leaving social media to the point that we feel wildly isolated from the updates of our friends.

But I am talking about noticing those moments when we’re drawn to scroll repeatedly through bad news, feeling shock and horror, and immersing ourselves in hard things.

Instead of Doomscrolling, here are things I am planning to do:

— I want my news to be peopled. I want to engage news intentionally as a regular part of my day. These days, read a few newsletters, and I listen to a particular podcast. Then I am asking questions like, how can I act on what I just heard? Is there a person I need to reach out to? Should I share this somewhere? Can I give to a resource, or is there a resource I should with others? Should I follow this organization on social media? How can I connect with loved ones impacted by this?

So often, we hear, see, or scroll through these things passively and feel like we can’t take action. When we do take action, even if it’s just to ask a question about possible action, our bodies feel active instead of passive.

A friend said recently to me, “We probably wouldn’t listen to a person tell the same story 15 times at the dinner table. Why am I doing that with media?”

— I am still going to post on social media, and I’m going to check in with friends’ posts, but I am going to spend way less time there. I read recently that the average person in this country is spending two hours a day on social media platforms. These algorithms are initiating our emotions at best, and inciting us or manipulating us at worst. I don’t feel like giving these algorithms that much of my thinking and feeling space. I’d rather give that time to people I love with voices, texts, conversations, and in-person time.

So goodbye, Doomscrolling. I’d rather do these.

This is just me, and others may have different rhythms that sustain them. But whatever they are for each of us, I invite us to choose them intentionally again. What are yours?

—Renee Roederer

“Nobody is home until everybody is home.”

This is the motto of Project HOME in Philadelphia, an organization I’d invite us to learn about today through this 13 minute podcast below:

As longtime housing activist retires, the fight to end homelessness continues

“Is there something that you would encourage ordinary people to do in their daily lives to address homelessness?” Ari Shapiro asks.

Sister Mary Scullion replies, “Sure, all of us can see, and acknowledge, and affirm another human being as simply that, a human being, at a minimum. But I think social policy is the most impactful way to end and prevent homelessness. And it’s not just about building new units. It’s about protecting existing units, and renters, and homeowners to afford and keep their homes safe and upgraded. It’s about each one of us deciding what kind of country we want to live in and holding elected officials responsible for how our resources are spent to further a country where everyone can afford a place to live.

“And that means voting, it means getting involved in the civic life of our neighborhoods and communities. And it means not putting on our blinders. We have to see our brothers and sisters. We have to see our brothers and sisters, who are not only living on our streets, but in doubled up and unsafe living conditions. We have to see the kids that are going to movies in all-night theaters so people don’t know they’re unsheltered or that they’re homeless. We have to see the elderly on our streets and those with mental illness.”

How might we take action locally?

Last week, a close friend texted me in the morning and said,

“Are you awake?”

“I am,” I said, and she called immediately.

I assumed she was going to chat with me about something going on in her week, but instead, she was calling to check on me. I had had a really difficult day a few days before. I was very touched by this, and it impacted my day meaningfully.

A few days later, someone popped in my mind, and I called her.

“I’m not calling about anything in particular,” I said, “I was just thinking of you and thought I would check in to see how you’re doing.”

It turned out that she had had a difficult day, and I seemed to call right on time.

We may be amazed how much a single, “I’m thinking of you” text, or a 5-10 minute phone call can impact a person in helpful ways.

This Mental Health Monday post is simple. When you think about someone and have the time — even just a little moment of time — make the reach out. It may make a big difference.

— Renee Roederer