Smuggling Grace

A quote from Ram Dass:

“If somebody asks me, ‘Ram Dass, are you happy?’ I stop and look inside. ‘Yes, I’m happy.’ ‘Ram Dass, are you sad’ ‘Yes, I’m sad.’ Answering those questions, I realize that all of those feelings are present. Imagine the richness of a moment in which everything is present: the pain of a broken heart, the joy of a new mother holding her baby, the exquisiteness of a rose in bloom, the grief of losing a loved one. This moment has all of that. It is just living truth.  
  
“The saving grace is being able to witness suffering from the perspective of the soul. Another way to say it is that the saving grace is having faith. Living in the fullness of the moment with joy and suffering, witnessing it in all its perfection, our hearts still go out to those who are suffering.  
  
“If we live in the moment, we are not in time. If you think, ‘I’m a retired person. I’ve retired from my role,’ you are looking back at your life. It’s retrospective; it’s life in the rearview mirror. If you’re young, you might be thinking, ‘I have my whole life ahead of me. This is what I’ll do later.’ That kind of thinking is called time binding. It causes us to focus on the past or the future and to worry about what comes next.  
  
“Getting caught up in memories of the past or worrying about the future is a form of self-imposed suffering. Either retirement or youth can be seen as moving on, a time for something different, something new. Start fresh. It’s a new moment. Aging is not a culmination. Youth isn’t preparation for later. This isn’t the end of the line or the beginning. Now isn’t a time to look back or plan ahead. It’s time to just be present. The present is timeless. Being in the moment, just being here with what is, is ageless, eternal. ” 
  
– Ram Dass, Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart

This week, I had the occasion to see a special art exhibit by Niki de Saint Phalle, a French-American sculptor, painter, filmmaker, and author. When I stepped into the exhibit, I saw one of her quotes on the wall. It says,

“I used to think there was a need to provoke… And then I understood that there is nothing more shocking than joy.”

I think the greatest shock of joy takes place when we move away from personalized hedonism and toward occasions to co-create joy in relationships, in community, and in systems that would prefer to keep some people marginalized and down. In those occasions — as in all times — every emotion is valid, including grief and anger. But when joy can emerge and be cultivated, it is truly shocking, isn’t it? It is truly provoking, isn’t it? It is truly transformative, isn’t it?

— Renee Roederer

I’m not sure if anything gives me more joy than when worlds collide — that is, when some of your connections in relationships build their own between each other.

This week, I’m spending time with multiple friends from multiple streams of life who now work together. They serve as consultants and coaches for city governments to help them be more effective with performance data management and special projects. Simply put, they are rocking what they do and having a huge impact.

One of my best friends from high school co-founded a business with one of her closest friends in her city. They recently hired their first employee, and that, too, is a close friend and chosen family member who I met in a totally different state in another stage of life. (I introduced them, so we colloquially call me “the HR Department”).

This is joy for me. Do you also take pleasure when your worlds collide?

I love hanging out with them at the same time!

— Renee Roederer

@soupygarbagejuice

The Biggest Croissant in Malaysia by Billy Joel

♬ original sound – Soupy Garbage Juice

Eagle Poem, by Joy Harjo

To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can’t see, can’t hear,
Can’t know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren’t always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon within a
True circle of motion, 
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us. 
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.

On Sunday, the Israeli military bombed tents in an area that had been declared a safe zone just outside of Rafah. At least 45 Palestinians have died in these traumatic tent fires. The majority were women and children. No place in Gaza is fully safe. Where are people supposed to go? Where do they flee?

Each of these children, a whole loved world, has become lost. Children should never become a casualty of war.

A friend texted and asked if I wanted to join her on a tour of a historical cemetery in our town. In honor of our city holding its bicentennial year, this tour would tell significant stories through the gravestones of people who shaped our history.

“Sure, that sounds interesting,” I said. She also invited another friend. While waiting for the tour, the three of us struck up a conversation with an additional person. Then together, the four of us hit it off, meandered among graves, learned history, and laughed.

We also shared hopes. We all want to go to as many community events as we can this summer. For a variety of reasons, we want to enjoy our city intentionally. Some of us are new and want to learn the place. Some of us are considering moves and want to savor this time. Some of us are always up for meeting new friends and having adventurous experiences. Before we left, we exchanged numbers and started a group text. Now, having known each other for a total of one week, we’ve already gone to multiple community events together. We’ve also added a fifth person, and I suspect that we’ll add more.

To honor the quirky context of our meeting, we’re colloquially calling ourselves Plots and Places. 🙂 That’s our group thread. We met in the plots; we’re going to the places.

Sometimes, just say yes. You never know what can develop.

— Renee Roederer

When healing trauma, it is important to work through grief.

“We reenact what we do not resolve.”
“We cannot heal what we do not feel.”

And we don’t have to do this alone. We can grieve with support.

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