Smuggling Grace

Recently, I had the opportunity to hear some folks encourage a particular person, and I noticed that something kept happening quite naturally. Instead of simply saying, 

“We’re with you. . . We believe in you. . . We know you can do this. . .”

they also kept adding the person’s name:

“We’re with you, [Name]. . . We believe in you, [Name]. . . We know you can do this, [Name].”

Throughout all of this, I was reminded of how powerful names can be. In the context of expressing love, gratitude, or encouragement, names themselves can be words of deep affection.

After I had already been pondering this, in a different context, a friend said that she wanted to hear her name more. She felt like people hadn’t said her name as often lately, a name she shares with a relative she lost years ago.

Perhaps somewhere within us, we’re all longing to be addressed by name. This sacred process of speaking and hearing names comes from a place of being known and honored as the ones we are. We are seen and cared for in all our uniqueness.

When addressing others with love, gratitude, and encouragement, I’m going to start speaking names much more often and much more intentionally.

– Renee Roederer 

Here’s an image from the desk of my colleague. I share it in the hope that it might resonate with any unfolding directions of our lives.

This purple rock reads, “Be Scared and Do It Anyway.”

Belle Isle

-Photos by Renee Roederer

It’s a great time of year to watch them bloom.

–Renee Roederer

I really appreciate this thought from @just-shower-thoughts:

“When people talk about traveling to the past, they worry about radically changing the present by doing something small, but barely anyone in the present really thinks that they can radically change the future by doing something small.”

What an excellent thought.

We can.

I’ve made this observation multiple times over the last year, and I experienced it again last night:

My local Panera Bread has a culture of people holding the door open for each other.

The staff doesn’t do this, though they’re very kind too. The customers often open the door for each other, and more frequently, they hold the door open for each other. I notice this when people are carrying big orders, but I also notice that people do this for each other generally and quite frequently, à la,

“I’m coming in, but I see through the multiple glass windows that you’re coming out. Here, let me hold the door open for you.”

Isn’t that kind of sweet?

I am curious how this happened. I’m sure most people don’t think of this as a feature of this specific store. But I go to Panera a lot because I’m a “Sip Club” member. I pay a monthly $12 subscription and get unlimited coffee (this includes unlimited tea, juices, and fountain drinks too). I have both seen and experienced this door opening phenomenon quite a bit in this store. I also don’t notice it at other Panera locations in a parallel way.

How does this happen? How did it catch on? I don’t know how it started, but as it’s continued, my assumption is that a lot of people have had this happen for them at this particular store, and having experienced it here, they suddenly have the idea during another visit (maybe not even recalling that memory) to do it for someone else.

Anyway, kindness catches on. And it can even create a whole culture.

–Renee Roederer

Have you ever considered that you can play an important role in your community and world by experiencing and expressing awe? Or that you can participate in shaping community meaningfully through intentional efforts to curate awe?

I found myself thinking about both of these questions after listening to the Unexplainable Podcast’s episode, entitled, Awestruck. This podcast episode is an interview with Dacher Keltner, a scientist who has studied the emotion of awe for decades. He explores the ways that awe is experienced physically in the brain, the ways it is expressed in relationships, and the ways it impacts us socially. I encourage us to listen to the episode.

Think about the last time you experienced awe — a sense of wonder, a sense of mystery, or a sense that you are part of something collective or far bigger than yourself alone. Maybe you saw or heard something beautiful. Maybe you were in nature. Maybe you were participating in a collective mission or purpose. What did that feel like?

We are living in an era that includes social fracturing. We interface regularly with divisiveness, and far worse than mere disagreement, this often takes form in discrimination, stigma, and narratives that “other” individuals and whole communities. We need to dismantle these kinds of narratives and protect people from these kinds of actions. That’s the most important work.

But can awe provide a meeting ground where we remember (and re-member) our sense of shared humanity? Perhaps that is also a place to meet. Here’s an extended quote from Dacher Keltner:

“Humans are hyper-social — hyper-collective, and we needed to evolve mechanisms that shut down self-interest, that made the self small so we can thin about other people, collaborate with others, and coordinate our actions with others, right? Well, awe is a very powerful solution to what evolutionary types call the ‘cooperation problem,’ or the problem of self-interest. For a lot of human social life to thrive, we needed to not follow our self-interest, not take someone else’s mate or food, but share and collaborate.

“And awe does that. It just immediately deactivates the regions of the brain that are involved in self representation — the self itself — and it makes you open to other people, [be] altruistic, and [be] collaborative. And I think that the evolutionary story has come into focus because we evolved this emotion that helps us merge with others to become a collective to face peril. It makes us strong, and mysteries require strength. They require collective knowledge, collective discourse, and collective physicality to protect ourselves. And so we bond together through these experiences to face the mysteries or perils. And that’s what awe does.”

What kind of awe would you like to discover? What kind of awe would you like to curate? What kind of awe would you like to share in your work, your life, and your community?

—Renee Roederer

Orcas have fads, and I am thoroughly enjoying this knowledge. I’m hoping that you will too.

This summer, orcas have been dismantling rudders off of boats in the Strait of Gibraltar, thus complicating the lives of Spaniards in Southern Spain who would prefer not to have their boats sink. Scientists initially speculated that a female elder orca might have been injured by one of these boats because she’s the one who has been teaching other orcas to do this. Now others are curious if this is simply the current orca fad.

Because it turns out that orcas have fads!

Less dangerous and more silly, there was the Great Salmon Hat Fad of 1987. Basically, a single orca killed a salmon and began wearing it on her head. Then she became an orcafluencer and let all the cool kid orcas that they should doing it too. They did, and it lasted one summer. In 1988, a few others tried to bring it back, but by that point, salmon hats were basically crocs.

@ianisfun

Replying to @Katie 🌺 | Lawyer & DJ Part 3: more on the orca “attacks”. #orca #learnontiktok

♬ original sound – ianisfun

Isn’t this neato?

–Renee Roederer

-Photos by Renee Roederer

I was present in the midst of a group conversation where multiple people said,

“You just don’t see that anymore.”

and

“I just don’t see many present examples right now.”

and

“It’s so rare to experience that these days.”

At one point, we were talking about forgiveness. At another point, we were talking about kindness. No one in this conversation had become cynical; instead, I believe I was hearing a yearning for expressions of care, both public and personal.

Or to use another word, we need gentleness. We need to practice it. We need to receive it. We need a gentler world.

This is different, of course, than needing a comfortable world. There is no need decrease the tenacity and strength of voices crying out in anger and pain when they are experiencing violence and being marginalized. Sometimes, we make calls toward kindness and “civility” so we don’t have to be uncomfortable with the righteous anger and pain people are expressing. No, not this.

But I wonder what would happen if we responded with kindness and tenderness? I wonder what would happen if we responded not with defensiveness but gentleness?

I also wonder what would happen if we chose to practice more gentleness toward ourselves right now. This is a human need all the time.

In all these things, I’m just wondering aloud today. I would love to hear from you too.

What do you wonder?

What do you think?

What do you long for?

–Renee Roederer