Smuggling Grace

— Photos by Renee Roederer

This week, I had a delightful moment in the car when an unexpected intersection of music and feeling came together. I was driving to work when Stevie Wonder’s For Once in My Life came on. The chorus always makes me smile:

For once in my life, I have someone who needs me.

I smile because this reminds me of a community member I deeply admire. She’s found so much joy and purpose in advocacy work that she decided this song was her song. For her, it captures the beauty of feeling needed and making a difference in community.

As I drove, I felt gratitude for her. Then, a thought struck me, and I couldn’t help myself. This year, in our work at the Epilepsy Foundation of Michigan, we’ve been training interns and high-level volunteers to take on leadership roles. As our community continues to grow, we’re inviting others to participate in that work.

So I changed Stevie’s lyrics for me. With gusto, I sang:

For once I can say, “This ain’t mine, you can take it.”
As long as I know I have love, I can make it.
For once in my life, I have someone who doesn’t need me.

And I laughed while I sang it.

Have you ever thought about the gift of not being needed? Being needed is wonderful, but there’s also a deep satisfaction in seeing others step up, carry the weight, and help the work flourish. It’s freeing, empowering, and a reminder that the best work happens when it is shared.

For me, it was a reason to sing boldly.

— Renee Roederer

Our brains and bodies weren’t built to hold the weight of the world’s suffering all at once. Yet that’s often what we face. Scrolling through newsfeeds or watching headlines, we are inundated by disasters, crises, and pain from every corner of the globe. This can feel overwhelming. We are living with global awareness in bodies that were formed by hundreds of thousands of years of human history, where people lived with local awareness, caring for the people and places closest to us. We aren’t physically designed for this.

Maybe in times like this, we need to widen our view, not just to the world’s pains, but to its loves. We need our loves—people we hold dear and people who hold us. We need the many relationships that sustain us, near and far.

This week, Southern California is devastated by wildfires, and this has had a massive impact on people I know personally. I want to spend less time on the news and more time in communication with them, holding them close in thought and action. Maybe our greatest gift is to tend to our connections and to let them tend to us.

— Renee Roederer

During my very first semester of seminary, I had a class with an adjunct professor who taught us about the history and theology of Christian worship. I am sad to say that I don’t remember his name. He was only with us for one semester, filling in for a professor who was on Sabbatical. I appreciated him.

But twenty years later (Um… Wow) from time to time, I still think about something he said to us:

“In worship, everything means.”

When we enter a time and place that is deemed sacred, and when we engage rituals that connect people to a sense of what they believe is most Ultimate and important, every single thing we do carries meaning.

I remember him adding, “So if someone is reading a scripture, and you’re up there looking at your worship notes, not paying attention, that carries a great deal of meaning, too.”

Now, two decades later, I also like to blur the lines between what is considered sacred and what is considered mundane or ordinary. If we are more aware of that which is Ultimate to us in every day life — yes, this may be for us, God; but it may also be Loves, or Values, or- or — perhaps everything might mean more to us.

“Everything means.” Everything carries meaning. And we are more aware to receive it and appreciate it.

Along those lines, here’s a story I love from Father Greg Boyle. He’s the founder of Homeboy Industries, an organization that provides healing, connection, and jobs to people who have left gangs or have been recently incarcerated. I’m lifting this from the transcript of a conversation he had with Krista Tippett on her podcast, On Being.

“I think we’re afraid of the incarnation. And part of it, the fear that drives us is that we have to have our sacred in a certain way. It has to be gold-plated, and cost of millions and cast of thousands or something, I don’t know. And so we’ve wrestled the cup out of Jesus’s hand, and we’ve replaced it with a chalice, because who doesn’t know that a chalice is more sacred than a cup, never mind that Jesus didn’t use a chalice?

“And a story I tell in the book about a homie who was — on Christmas Day, I said, ‘What’d you do on Christmas?’ And he was an orphan, and abandoned and abused by his parents, and worked for me in our graffiti crew. And I said, ‘What’d you do for Christmas?’ ‘Oh, just right here.’ I said, ‘Alone?’ And he said, ‘No, I invited six other guys from the graffiti crew who didn’t had no place to go,’ he said. ‘And they were all…’ He named them, and they were enemies with each other. I said, ‘What’d you do?’ He goes, ‘You’re not gonna believe it. I cooked a turkey.’

“I said, ‘Well, how’d you prepare the turkey?’ He says, ‘Well, you know, ghetto-style.’ And I said, ‘No, I don’t think I’m familiar with that recipe.’ And he said, ‘Well, you rub it with a gang of butter, and you squeeze two limones on it, and you put salt and pepper, put it in the oven. Tasted proper,’ he said. I said, ‘Wow. Well, what else did you have besides turkey?’ ‘Well, that’s it, just turkey.”

“’Yeah, the seven of us, we just sat in the kitchen, staring at the oven, waiting for the turkey to be done. Did I mention it tasted proper?’ I said, ‘Yeah, you did.’

“So what could be more sacred than seven orphans, enemies, rivals, sitting in a kitchen, waiting for a turkey to be done? Jesus doesn’t lose any sleep that we will forget that the Eucharist is sacred. He is anxious that we might forget that it’s ordinary, that it’s a meal shared among friends, and that’s the incarnation, I think.”

Everything means.

— Renee Roederer

Over the weekend, I listened to two important podcasts, and I would like to share them today if others may also find them helpful.

Sometimes, it’s difficult to revisit the details of the insurrection that took place on January 6, 2021. If those emotions are difficult or if they trigger fears, feel free to skip these and take good care. But I share them because in some circles, there has been so much gaslighting and re-writing of history of what took place on this anniversary four years ago. I believe it’s important to honor and remember those details accurately.

NPR’s Up First — On January 6: Does the Military Have an Extremist Problem?

“As Congress meets tomorrow to certify the results of the 2024 election, it also marks the 4-year anniversary of the attack on the Capitol. The participants of the riot on January 6, 2021 intended to disrupt the certification process of the 2020 election results. When it was all over four people were dead, 140 law enforcement officers were wounded and there was nearly $3 million in damage.

“There were people from all walks of life at the Capitol that day, but one thing that many of them had in common? Military ties. That reality is something that the military is still grappling with today. On this episode of The Sunday Story from Up First, we are joined by NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman and producer Lauren Hodges, who were both at the Capitol reporting that day.”

New Hampshire Public Radio — Emelia’s Thing: Trauma and Resilience on Jan. 6

“A young police officer unexpectedly finds herself back in New Hampshire, and she’s not the same person she was when she left. Something happened to her – to all of us. But for Officer Emelia Campbell, this thing still lives in her brain and her body.

“Lauren Chooljian of NHPR’s Document team brings you Emelia’s story of survival and resilience in the wake of Jan. 6, 2021.”

— Photos by Renee Roederer

Sometimes, we long for something very specific. Maybe it’s an experience, a hope, something material, or something relational. We picture it clearly, envisioning exactly how it will look or unfold. But if it doesn’t arrive in the way we imagine, or on the timetable we most desire, can feel like a profound loss. Deflation sets in. Sometimes, we even feel powerless.

But here’s a different way to think about it: What values are drawing us to that specific thing? What are the deeper needs or desires connected to it?

Once we name those values, we might find that there are probably like numerous ways to cultivate them in our lives. Maybe we’re longing for connection, creativity, security, or joy. The thing we’re imagining might feel like the perfect vessel, but it’s not the only one.

And who knows? That specific experience, hope, or relationship might still emerge, exactly as we envisioned. But even if it doesn’t, our emotions won’t feel as contingent on that one outcome. We’ll have already found other paths to the values that matter most.

There are many routes to the values. It’s worth exploring where they might lead.

— Renee Roederer

We often frame our lives as a series of steps leading to something else—the next season, the next opportunity, the next chapter. This forward-thinking posture is natural, but it risks eclipsing the fullness of where we already are.

What if we challenged ourselves to see certain moments not as launching pads for what’s next, but as culmination points? These are moments when we can pause to recognize the people and experiences that have brought a particular moment into being.

This year, I want to notice these culmination points. I hope to pause, notice how moments have emerged, and honor the gratitude for the people and experiences within them.

— Renee Roederer