Smuggling Grace

Dr. Ellen Langer, scholar and researcher on mindfulness, uses a particular phrase to describe the ways we become disconnected from the present moment. She says that so frequently, we live in a perpetual state of constant partial attention. 

Constant partial attention. . . Isn’t that a perfect way to describe that kind of experience? So often, we move through our days simply going through the motions, rarely paying attention to what is right in front of us. Instead, our minds gravitate toward our to-do lists or the situations that make us most anxious. We get stuck mulling over the past or worrying about our imagined future. In the process, we miss the present moment.

And sadly, this means we lose some awareness of our surroundings, our inner life, our neighbors, and the deep stirrings within us.

I’m curious, in this video, what do you notice?

My Doubt, by Jane Hirshfield

I wake, doubt, beside you,
like a curtain half-open.

I dress doubting,
like a cup 
undecided if it has been dropped.

I eat doubting,
work doubting,
go out to a dubious cafe with skeptical friends.

I go to sleep doubting myself,
as a herd of goats
sleep in a suddenly gone-quiet truck.

I dream you, doubt,
nightly—
for what is the meaning of dreaming
if not that all we are while inside it
is transient, amorphous, in question?

Left hand and right hand,
doubt, you are in me,
throwing a basketball, guiding my knife and my fork.
Left knee and right knee,
we run for a bus,
for a meeting that surely will end before we arrive.

I would like
to grow content in you, doubt,
as a double-hung window
settles obedient into its hidden pulleys and ropes.

I doubt I can do so:
your own counterweight governs my nights and my days.

As the knob of hung lead holds steady
the open mouth of a window,
you hold me,
my kneeling before you resistant, stubborn,
offering these furious praises
I can’t help but doubt you will ever be able to hear.

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Last weekend, I led a women’s retreat at a local congregation. The outline for the day had reflective exercises that allowed insights and directions of conversation to form in emerging ways. Borrowing some language from Fred Rogers, we did a writing exercise where we reflected on this two-part question:

“Who loved you into being, and how has that shaped your story?”

After writing the names of these loved ones and listing some of our significant moments with them, people had time to share in small groups at their tables. I sat toward the front and could take in the whole scene at once. From there, I heard this unfolding litany of names and descriptions of beloved people.

“She was always there for me.”

“He was a big influence.”

“She taught me who I wanted to be.”

“She shaped a generation.”

“I get my humor from him.”

I heard all of these sentences voiced at once, along with many significant names. A community of people was named and honored.

What a gift to see and hear that unfold.

—Renee Roederer

What is EMDR?

Adam Copland writes,

The Best Drug I’ve Ever Taken Wasn’t Even a Drug. It was EMDR Therapy.

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, and it’s a highly effective treatment for trauma. Here’s how it works:

EMDR is a helpful form of therapy for people who

1) want an experience that is somatic (reorganizing the brain and body’s reactions to trauma, stress, and anxiety) and/or

2) want to do something that can accomplish a lot in a relatively short period of time and/or

3) want to do less talking with a therapist (though this can be part of it too if desired), particularly if it’s hard to put emotions into words.

Dr. Bessel Van der Kolk, the author of The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain, and Body in the Healing of Trauma shares that “I’m pretty sure that our EMDR study had by far the best outcome of any PTSD study ever done… It proves that there is something unique and amazing about EMDR.”

— Photos by Renee Roederer

Today by Billy Collins
If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house

and unlatch the door to the canary’s cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,

a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies

seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking

a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,

releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage

so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting

into this larger dome of blue and white,
well, today is just that kind of day.

Does any word, phrase, or image stand out to you in a particular way?

I was Zooming down the bike lane, when I heard several red-winged blackbirds singing. They’ve returned. This is always my marker that we’ve arrived toward a warmer season. The wind began to blow, and I smelled the scent of the sunscreen that has been in a drawer all winter.

It’s a different time, and a different part of me is showing up too.

What are your markers of a new season?

—Renee Roederer