Goodness Weekly 4.17.23
“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough”
— Meister Eckhart
What’s Good:
We’re so excited to share that ground has officially been broken on our neighborhood park!
Our construction team began breaking up asphalt last week into large piles around the site and a new fence surrounds it.
Follow along on our new Instagram page @charis.park to see the parking lot transform!
You can also see a virtual reality tour of the new park at www.chariscollective.org/charis-park
When the news isn’t good…
Our hearts are broken at the violence in the world, and this past week in our own neighborhood where a domestic shooting took place.
We have been connected to an account set up for the family to help with medical costs, funeral expenses, and counseling. This past Sunday, all of our offering from the Charis worship service was given for this purpose, as a small way that we help right now.
If you would like to make a contribution you can give directly to the GoFundMe here:
Message from Jess:
On April 11, 2016 I was at a painting party with a group of women from the church and women who were living at the Guadalupe Home. I sat next to a very pregnant young woman and we each painted a whimsical tree. We held up our paintings at the end of the night with pride, smiled for a photo, and didn’t see each other again. The goal was simply to have a nice evening doing something special together, and to get out of the small communal living environment and the stressors and burdens that brought the women to the Home.
On April 13, 2017, through the CPS foster-to-adopt program, I walked into the NICU to meet my daughter for the first time. She was 11 days old and small enough to fit in my hand. She came home to us 21 days later.
On April 11, 2018 Facebook popped up with a memory photo from two years earlier of me and the young pregnant woman at the painting party.
By this time we were in a 9-month long legal battle for custody of our daughter. I was in the courtroom sometimes 2-3 times a month during those days, and on one occasion her birth mother was present.
When the Facebook memory photo popped up I did a double, triple, quadruple take—my daughter’s birth mother was the woman I painted the tree with.
A year before she was born, in a city of 1.4 million people, I sat next to the woman who would give birth to our daughter one year in the future.
This past Sunday, we talked about who is commonly referred to as “doubting Thomas” and his need for evidence that Jesus was, well, Jesus.
Our human brains are wired that way. We need evidence.
Things like mystery and transcendence and wonder are fluffy words that bring with them a connotation that there is a loss of reality. We prefer things like coincidence to explain away how something so profoundly mysterious could happen in our modern world.
And yet they do.
How do you explain this story? I can’t. How do you explain when someone goes out of their way to do something profoundly kind and selfless for another person? Or when you think you know the path ahead and it turns out so much more beautiful than you could have imagined? I can’t.
But nowadays I’m comfortable with the mystery. I want to enter into it, I want to search for the ways that things are working to bring about good, even in the worst circumstances. And when I see it, I want to stand in awe and reverence that it happened, and let that be enough.
I invite you, this week to look for what is mysterious, or wondrous, or magical around you. And when you find it—capture it, treasure it, and say thank you.
Love, Jess
Upcoming Events:
Wednesday, April 19th, 7:00-8:30pm Youth Family Dinner at the church
Sunday, April 23rd, 4:30pm Chapel Worship & Liturgy
Sunday, April 30th, 4:30pm Outdoor Worship
Friday, April 28th, 6:30-8:30pm Young Adult Group (contact chelsea@sunsetridgechurch.org for more info)
Saturday, May 13th, 11:00am Charis Park Groundbreaking Ceremony!
Inhale:
When I feel lost or uncertain
Exhale:
Help me to find wonder and peace in the mystery
