Goodness Weekly 5.22.23

“Living means learning to hold the astonishingly beautiful and unbearably hard things in the same palm.”
– Sulseika Jaouad

What’s Good:

Sunset Ridge Celebrates 74 Years

This Sunday our church community celebrated its 74th anniversary. The church was planted here in the neighborhood in 1949, and for a time in the former Red Cross building, which sat on the same piece of land that is now being transformed into a neighborhood park.

We are so excited for all of the ways, traditional and innovative, that we have an opportunity to continue this community

A Prayer from Jess

This Sunday Jess shared a favorite prayer from Wilfred Arlan Peterson. We hope it blesses you this week.

Slow me down, Lord
Ease the pounding of my heart by the quieting of my mind.
Steady my hurried pace.
Give me, amidst the day’s confusion
the calmness of the everlasting hills.

Break the tension of my nerves and muscles
with the soothing music of singing streams
that live in my memory.

Help me to know the magical, restoring power of sleep.
Teach me the art
of taking minute vacations…
slowing down to look at a flower,
to chat with a friend,
to read a few lines from a good book.

Remind me
of the fable of the hare and the tortoise;
that the race is not always to the swift;
that there is more to life than measurin gits speed.

Let me look up at the branches of the towering oak
and know that… it grew slowly… and well.

Inspire me
to send my own roots down deep…
into the soil of life’s endearing values…

That I may grow toward the stars of my greater destiny.

Slow me down, Lord.

— Wilfred Arlan Peterson

Our space is meant to be a place of peace, rest, calm, and listening to the world around us. We invite you to spend time here whenever you need. Come as you are and nothing more. You are so loved and welcome here.

A Message from Taylor

The month of May is when everything changed for me, five years ago. It’s the month that brings a complicated day, Mother’s Day, and also May 20th, the stillbirthday of my firstborn, Ellis.

I can’t help but feel it coming—my body knows the subtle cues. Springtime flowers are in full bloom, Texas storms bring heavy rains and claps of thunder, and late sunsets signal summertime.

And sometimes, rainbows appear.

All of this reminds my body, heart, and mind that this was when it happened. On a spring Sunday afternoon in May 2018 when I was eight months pregnant and a severe thunderstorm pummeled the ground outside as the doctor told me, “I’m sorry, I can’t find a heartbeat.” I gave birth to our stillborn baby boy a few hours later via c-section, surrounded by loved ones, including Jess, who had a stillborn baby girl, Ava, over a decade earlier on May 31st. Jess baptized Ellis that night in the hospital.

While driving home from the hospital earlier that day, my sister-in-law saw a rainbow over the road. She managed to snap a photo and shared it with me several days later when we were home.

That rainbow felt like a sign. I wasn’t quite sure what it meant at the time, but I felt a warm sense of peace that somehow it was Ellis’ spirit telling me he was okay. That even though death happens in this world, there is absolute beauty, too. That ultimately somehow I would be okay.

After Ellis’ death I couldn’t comprehend life going back to normal—everything felt impossible without him. I didn’t want to eat, or get dressed, or go anywhere, or do anything. And yet somehow, day by day, my grief got a little easier to bear.

My aunt would text me each evening and ask me to share three good things that happened that day. At first I was annoyed by it—how could there be anything good right now?! But I appeased her by finding the smallest bits of good I could scrape up from my day. After a couple weeks of this practice the good bits started to grow more abundant. Soon I was actively looking for them and getting excited to find them. These little bits of good turned into little feelings of joy.

I also started seeing more rainbows. My husband and I spread Ellis’ ashes at Enchanted Rock a month after he was stillborn and that same day in Fredericksburg we were amazed to watch a double rainbow form over the sky above us. This filled me with a sparkling, energetic joy that lasted for hours. I began sharing the story of these rainbows on social media and soon other people were also looking for rainbows and sending them to me. This joy I was experiencing spread to others when they would spot a rainbow and think of Ellis and this little bit of hope that even after death, there is still joy. And perhaps the grief can help us to see these little bits of goodness and joy, these glimmers as Jess calls them, that are all around us at all times.

Now five years later, I’ve received nearly 1,000 rainbows from people all over the world.

A couple weeks ago on a particularly difficult day when a dear friend in our community lost her brother, I was walking out of Home Depot and saw the familiar glow of the sky in contrast to a passing dark storm cloud. Sure enough there was a little bit of a rainbow in the bottom corner of the sky. I stood and watched as it began to grow, eventually unfolding into a full double rainbow and I felt myself well up with the sparkling joy.

Rainbows don’t make the pain go away, but they remind me that somehow hope and beauty and gratitude and goodness are all intermixed in the grief and questioning and longing and heartache.

My grief does not look the same as it did five years ago. When I think of my firstborn my heart can still ache but it’s no longer broken. These little bits of goodness acted like glue that, over time, helped mend my heart back together.

I invite you this week to look for these small bits of goodness in your own daily life. Try writing three down at the end of your day and for bonus points you can share them with others. Watch how, like a muscle, this goodness attunement will grow stronger and you’ll see more and more around you. Perhaps it will even turn into joy for you and those you share it with.

-Taylor Bates

find more of Taylor’s story at www.rainbowbabypodcast.com