Goodness Weekly 2.20.23

“One tiny idea at a time, one small heart at a time, through and for God, I choose light.”
— Laura Strong

What’s Good:

Our coffee trailer is getting a new look this week at a local auto body shop and we can’t wait for the big reveal soon! Thanks so much to Kyle & Asher Fry and Suzan Browning for towing the trailer to the shop, which should be back onsite next week. Our team is working hard to get everything in order for a grand opening in March!

Season of Lent:

Join us this Ash Wednesday as we mark the beginning of the season of Lent.

We will gather together in the Chapel at 7:00 pm for a family friendly interactive Ash Wednesday service. Childcare will also be available if needed.

Lent is a forty-day observance where we honor the season of wilderness experienced by Christ. We make space during this time for grief, solitude, and lament.

As a community we will be using author & theologian Kate Bowler’s Bless the Lent We Actually Have to guide our worship in this season. Kate has provided this beautiful forty-day devotional to use for free. It is a companion to her new book of blessings The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days.

Click Here to learn more!

Message from Jess:

This is a safe space, right?

Can I tell you that one of my life’s “mountaintop moments” took place at a tiny dive bar called Jojo’s in a village of less than 2,000 people?

As I was reflecting on the lectionary passage for this week in Matthew 17, the moment of Jesus' transfiguration, I considered the thin places in my life that I hold as sacred and I kept coming back to July 7, 2015 at Jojo’s Bar in Woodville, Ohio.

Our best friend, Laura Strong, had passed away a week earlier after an incredible fight with cancer. We were all in our early thirties, many of us scattered across the country, and all completely invincible because of our youth. Until we weren’t.

A 33 year old mother of three young children who was beloved by every person she met, hardworking, generous with her time, energy, love, and resources, a volunteer at her church, a best friend you could ever ask for, and hilarious, witty, and snarky—these were all qualities that put her death in the imaginary category of things that “can’t happen.” You hear the words, “The cancer has metastasized” but still it is in can’t happen territory.

Until it does.

This beautiful brat would drag me from her house, where our families were having dinner and hanging out, to a dive bar called Jojo’s down the street where we could have a beer, talk about life, laugh, and play songs on the jukebox. So as we all gathered from across the country to celebrate her life and eat lunch in the church fellowship hall, it felt impossible to just go our separate ways. There was nowhere else to go except to Jojo’s.

For hours we took up the whole place—we played music, told stories, and laughed about all of the crazy things she made us all do. And for a moment I watched the whole scene…the transcendent love of God pouring through the hearts of these people and this place as we gathered together in our deep suffering and celebrated the immense joy we had of knowing Laura.

I didn’t want it to end. I wanted to recreate it somehow. But it wasn’t possible for me to stay there, just as it wasn’t possible for the disciples to stay on the mountain top. But my heart carries with great joy those memories of the day that I experienced the sacredness of a holy, thin space in the middle of a dive bar.

We are all invited into a greater story—one of holy presence—where the noise and chaos subside, where the anxiety lessens, and where we are each fully seen and known right here and now, in this time and place, just as we are.

May we be the people who can be this presence for the humans we meet. And may we all know the goodness of being seen.

I invite you to carve out some time this week to consider where the thin spaces in your life have been. Maybe you can journal them, create a piece of art, pull out some photos—whatever gives you a time of joyful presence as you reflect.

May the memory of these moments carry you through your darkest days and remind you that you are never alone.

Love, Jess

Upcoming Events:

Wednesday, February 22nd, 7:00pm Ash Wednesday Service in the Chapel
Sunday, February 26th, 4:30pm Chapel Worship & Liturgy
Saturday, February 25th, 6:30pm Young Adult Group: Spaghetti Dinner at The Stirmans

Charis Calendar