Smuggling Grace

When I was seven years old, I was sitting at a lunchroom table in the Cafegymatorium. Our lunchroom tables were the kinds that people could pull down from out of the walls. At my elementary school, this room truly was a cafeteria, gym, and auditorium space all at once.

Each day, that table was pulled down from the wall, and we would sit there patiently. (Were we patient though?) until it was our turn. Then our 1st grade glass would be dismissed to line up where we would approach the lunch ladies. Once we reached the window where food was distributed, we would step bit by bit sideways, going down the line and receiving the various prepared food items onto our tray.

One day, I was sitting at that table, having already received my food along with most of my class, when one of our classmates arrived, sat down, and announced to all of us,

“I told them I didn’t want the green beans, and they didn’t give them to me.”

Wait, what?

“You told them you didn’t want them?”

I remember that we were astonished at this. First of all, the thought had never crossed my mind, and if it had, I would have assumed that we could get in trouble for this. But most of all, we were flabbergasted because we realized we could say No.

No — We could do that! That was a thing that could happen! We did not see this coming.

Over the next month or so, we relished in telling the lunch ladies that we didn’t want some odd item. And most of the time, they left an empty spot on the tray where it would have gone. This typically involved side dishes of various kinds. There was no way, for instance, that we were going to refuse eating one of those square pieces of elementary school pizza.

We found tiny ways to rebel and assert autonomy for its own sake.

Saying No is important. And we can learn it anew any time.

— Renee Roederer

— Photos by Renee Roederer

I thoroughly enjoyed this podcast episode:

Vox’s Unexplainable: Do we live inside an enormous black hole?

An interesting question and thought experiment!

Let Evening Come by Jane Kenyon

Let the light of late afternoon

shine through chinks in the barn, moving   

up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing   

as a woman takes up her needles   

and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned   

in long grass. Let the stars appear

and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.   

Let the wind die down. Let the shed   

go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop   

in the oats, to air in the lung   

let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don’t   

be afraid. God does not leave us   

comfortless, so let evening come.

A friend of mine is in a band, and I had the pleasure to attend a house concert that he and his bandmates put on for their friends. They don’t play gigs or concerts so often, but they’ve been playing together once a week for many years. Basically, they do it just for their own enjoyment.

But they could probably perform for gigs and concerts if they wanted to do that. They were great.

They are largely a cover band, and they play many styles of music from a variety of decades. But they did perform an original song, too, written by my friend. This song seemed to sum up what they were doing, in fact. It was about creating just to create, just for the pure enjoyment of it.

“I did it just to do it, and now it’s done,” the lyrics said.

And it made me think about the power of doing things just to take pleasure in them, rather than having a particular result in mind.

You know what I’m going to start doing in earnest today?

Writing a book.

— Renee Roederer

If you’ve read the stories, it’s easy to envision lepers, sex workers, tax collectors, and Samaritans sitting at table with Jesus. He lifted up every one of them and included them in his community.

The Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics in Paris created an artistic tableau of Bacchus and additional Greek gods, portrayed by trans people and people in drag. Many assumed this was a representation of the Last Supper, and they expressed all kinds of outrage. How can these people play the roles at the table? some seemed to ask, and, Why are they mocking us?

If you’ve read the stories, it’s easy to envision trans people, those who are unemployed, Drag Queens, and Palestinians sitting at table with Jesus. Would he not lift up every one of them and include them in his community?

Where is the outrage for how members of these communities are treated?

— Renee Roederer

Over the weekend, I had an occasion to have an exhibitor table for the Epilepsy Foundation of Michigan, and our table was positioned next to a man representing an organization that promotes and celebrates organ donation. As I got to know him, he shared a few powerful stories with me.

He is the recipient of a heart transplant, and he met his wife, who is also an organ recipient, through their shared community. He told me that his wife had a chance to meet the family of her donor, and while there is certainly grief in the loss of a father and husband, there is also a strong bond and relationship between this family and his wife, who received one of this man’s organs. And this really moved me:

She was able to walk the daughter of this donor down the aisle at her wedding.

What an incredibly powerful connection, and in the midst of deep loss, there was a living connection in relationship. The life of this organ recipient was present at a wedding to share love with a beloved daughter.

And this has me thinking about how life continues to find us sometimes, even if we’ve endured loss or great change. There is no silver lining in this, of course. But there is an accompanied goodness. Memories emerge and fill us. Relationships find us anew. Possibilities continue to unfold.

And this is always a surprise. It never negates the loss. Never. But it accompanies it. It walks us down the aisle, so to speak. And when these moments emerge, there is gratitude.

— Renee Roederer

From time to time, we may need a reminder like this. As this image shares,

Your feelings with fluctuate

Your well being will fluctuate

Your performance will fluctuate

Your worth will not

This is true. There is nothing that any external forces, internal beliefs, relational conflicts, complex emotions, personal expectations, or failures can do — nothing — to diminish the worth of ourselves or our fellow human beings. So if that’s true, how will we view ourselves today? And how will we view those around us?

— Renee Roederer

— Photos by Renee Roederer