Smuggling Grace

Once a month, I’m grateful to lead a Sunday morning gathering with a church community called Parables — a space shaped around the needs of disabled and neurodivergent members. Over time, this community has become one where I’ve formed meaningful friendships.

Last Sunday, after finishing the sermon, it was time to receive Communion together — a weekly practice that sits at the center of our life together. We always invite a couple of participants to come forward and hold the bread and the cup as we remember Jesus’ meal, pray, and begin to share these together.

I asked for volunteers, and two people raised their hands.

“Come on up,” I said with a smile.

“Reporting for duty,” James* said as he took his place in front of everyone. Maisie* lifted the chalice high, and James did the same with the bread.

But then I heard, “Oh no!” Maisie had spilled a small bit on the floor. “I’m so sorry!”

“It’s okay,” I said gently. “Accidents happen, and it’s all going to work out.”

Some of the juice had splashed onto the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “I’m going to have to wash it. I’m so sorry!” she said again.

James tried to comfort her. “There’s no sense crying over spilled milk,” he said.

Then someone else stepped forward and said to Maisie, “You know what I like to tell people in moments like these? I say, ‘Thank you,’ because you just gave us an opportunity to care for you. Sometimes these things just happen.”

So we tried again. I said the words I usually say, finishing with Jesus’ words: “Do this in remembrance of me.”

That’s when I looked over and saw that Maisie was about to lift the chalice again. James leaned toward her and asked, “Do you want me to help you?” Now his hand was wrapped around hers.

Then together, they held the chalice high — both of their hands joined — as if it were a champion’s trophy.

Such a lovely image.

Father Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit priest and the founder of Homeboy Industries, once said:

“I think we’re afraid of the incarnation. Part of that fear is the idea that the sacred has to appear a certain way — gold-plated, costly, elaborate. So we wrestle the cup out of Jesus’ hands and replace it with a chalice, as if that were somehow more sacred, even though Jesus didn’t use one. Jesus doesn’t worry that we’ll forget the Eucharist is sacred. He worries that we’ll forget it’s ordinary — a meal shared among friends. That’s the incarnation, I think.”

—Renee Roederer

*I’ve changed both names in this story.
**This quote comes from an interview Father Greg Boyle gave with Krista Tippett on her podcast, On Being.

My family-name is “Noozle.”

Many years ago, it began as a nickname, but now it’s more than that. I am also a Noozle. It’s a family role. There are some kids in my life who have grandparents, aunts and uncles, and a Noozle. That’s me.

One of my Noozlets was recently walking through his neighborhood with one of his parents — many states away from where I live. Often, when they pass a nearby house, a cat is outside, and my little friend always hopes to spot this kitty for some pets.

But alas, no kitty today.

“Looks like the cat isn’t there. Maybe another time,” his parent said.

“Maybe you could text Noozle,” he suggested.

“Why would I text Noozle?” the parent asked, puzzled.

“Because maybe she’ll come out and let us pet her cat.”

I’m not sure when it happened, but at some point, he came to believe that I live in that house. I think that’s so lovely.

Even though he only sees me in person a few times a year, I’m a bit of a fixture in their lives. I’m often on the phone in their household, and we regularly sync up our Nintendo Switches and play together from our respective houses. But I suppose, rather than imagining that happening states away, he pictured me doing that from across the street…?

I love that.

For all my loved ones, of every age, I hope that even across distance we feel connected enough to feel like we live in one another’s neighborhood. My little one is teaching me what that is like.

—Renee Roederer

–Photos by Renee Roederer

This is a very neato discovery this week:

Article

Video

We should never underestimate a kind, affirming word.

Maybe someone has been grieving,
Maybe someone has been depressed,
Maybe someone has been anxious,
Maybe someone has been lonely,
Maybe someone has been stigmatized,
Maybe someone has been scapegoated,
Maybe someone has been exhausted,
Maybe someone has been vulnerable,
Maybe someone has been hope-seeking.

There’s nothing particularly deep or creative in lifting up the importance of a kind word. I’m just saying something obvious. But I can point to several moments lately when people have done this, and it’s had even more power than they knew. We may never know fully what someone is carrying.

A kind word might not only land well. It might transform well.

–Renee Roederer

Trauma distorts our sense of time. This is true of both personal and collective trauma. As a gentler example, many of us noticed this during the pandemic — how difficult it became to locate ourselves accurately in time. Experiences from long ago felt recent, while things that had just happened already felt distant. I still notice this in myself sometimes, and I hear it echoed often by others.

More deeply, when trauma lives in our bodies, the painful past can feel as though it is being re-lived in the present. At the same time, we may project our anxieties into the future, and those imagined scenarios can begin to feel just as real. Past pain and future fear converge inside us. Time collapses. Our bodies respond accordingly, often through fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.

But what if we could also interrupt this process, intentionally bending time in our favor?

What if we choose to recall the most supportive and affirming people, experiences, and chapters of our lives, remembering them in ways that allow their presence to be felt in our bodies? What if we let those memories feel present?

And what if we imagine a future shaped by care, belonging, and resilience — one where things may not be perfect, but where we are held and able to adapt? What if that future, too, becomes something we can feel in the present?

In this way, an affirming past and a supportive future can converge in the here and now, not by accident, but by choice. We begin to work with time differently, using its perceptions not only as something that happens to us, but as something we can gently reclaim.

—Renee Roederer

I was recently listening to a Mumford & Sons’ song when one of their lyrics really caught my attention:

“… before I tumble homeward, homeward.”

I thought that was intriguing phrasing. It made me reflect on the times when I suddenly found myself in a homeward direction, perhaps when I wasn’t even expecting it. There are also times when I found myself feeling a sense of home, even though its process and arrival of getting there was messy.

Thank goodness these moments can happen.

I have had moments of return — to place, to family, to communities, to memory, to states of mind — that were sudden. I have had estrangements suddenly end. I have had reconnections with community open wide after this was previously closed. I have had moments when I realized I could reconnect with the feeling of a loved one’s presence after they died.

I have also had moments of tumbling home to uncharted places. I have moved across the country three times to live in four different states. I have weathered a pandemic from inside my house. I have been accompanied by friends and loved ones through daily living. I have come to feel at home in my body.

“… before I tumble homeward, homeward.”

How about you?

–Renee Roederer

Last week, I watched one of the best conductors in the world in concert. Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts more than six orchestras around the world. Most frequently, he works with the Metropolitan Opera, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Orchestre Métropolitain in Montreal. A year and a half ago, he and the Philadelphia Orchestra traveled to Ann Arbor to perform Brahms’ A German Requiem with the UMS Choral Union, the choir I sing with. It was a delight to work with him. Last week, he returned to town with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. I bought tickets in the second row. I wanted to see how he does what he does so well.

For someone who has never done it in any formal way, I think about conducting often. I wish I had studied choral conducting while I was in music school, and these days I find myself wondering whether there might be avenues to learn without going back to school. I would welcome that.

I imagine it would be immensely gratifying to conduct. But deep down, I suppose I’m a bit like a football player who wants to learn ballet in order to be better at football. I’m a nonprofit leader and community curator who wants to learn conducting so I can be a better nonprofit leader and community curator.

It really is the best analogy.

When you’re conducting, you don’t face the audience. It’s not about you. You face the performers. You find ways to look in their direction and see them in their strengths. You make eye contact and invite them in. You try to maximize the ways different sounds and rhythms work together. Sometimes you aim for the best possible blend of voices. Sometimes you make sure a particular voice part has the spotlight.

And as much as you need to stay in touch with the performers — really listening — you also need to stay in touch with the music itself. You need to internalize what is central. The vision, shape, form, and execution. You need to embody it. You need to live it in those moments.

See how this is a helpful analogy for serving community well? And for being a good leader?

Last week’s concert was incredible. As I watched Yannick Nézet-Séguin conduct, I noticed so much. He was absolutely locked in, connected relationally to the ensemble. And he truly embodied the music. He had most of it memorized, and he moved like a dancer up there —so expressive. And yet, the attention always remained with the performers.

The experience was deeply relational, even intimate. When the concert was over and it was time to acknowledge the soloists, he didn’t simply gesture for them to stand. He went over to each one, hugged them, and bowed to them. His appreciation was evident, and he was present throughout the entire evening.

Here’s one of my main takeaways: This conductor, who was embodying the music and gesturing to bring people in, was also receiving from the ensemble the entire time. I noticed a great deal of trust between them. He was receiving their energy, too. He wasn’t just keeping time or marking beat patterns. He was gesturing expressively with the music and connecting deeply with the performers onstage.

And yet, he wasn’t the center. That relational posture allowed others to shine.

So how do we lead by receiving? By marveling at the strengths people show in our communities? By inviting them in?

—Renee Roederer

“Ohhhh, we’re 1/2 there! Ohhhhh, livin’ on a prayer!”

I’m continuing to work daily on drafting my book — Beheld: A Spirituality of Kinship.
6 chapters complete. 6 to go.

One day at a time…

—Renee Roederer

— Photos by Renee Roederer