Goodness Weekly 7.10.23

Jul 10

“Be joyful though you’ve considered all the facts.”
–Wendell Berry

What’s Good:

Our Coworking Space is open!
Are you an independent creative, social entrepreneur, or small start-up team with a mission? Come join like-minded people and help us co-create our new co-working community. Onsite childcare will also be available as an additional service for co-working members. Additionally Co-working members get 10% off at the One Another Coffee trailer on campus.

We’ve gone through a massive reimagining of the Sunset Ridge Church campus and community, with the help of partners such as Impact Guild’s Good Acres team and will also be opening a new neighborhood park, Charis Park, across the street in Fall 2023.

Click the button below to email us if you are interested in learning more about co-working with us and coming on campus for a tour of our space.

Coworking Tour

A Message from Jess

I was in a period of extreme darkness and depression when I called my best friend Laura to ask for help.

Her response was immediate and clear: find the light.

As a person who has struggled throughout life with depression, this light-seeking practice has stayed with me and been a lifeline in hard times. Sometimes they’re hard because of circumstances, and others it comes on unexpectedly and I find myself pulled back into the darkness.

There’s a song that I love by Glen Hansard called Bird of Sorrow. Nathan & I saw Glen play with Eddie Vedder and the Earthlings last year, and I ugly cried during Bird of Sorrow (much to Nathan’s embarrassment).

The song says:

You been kneelin' in the dark for far too long

You've been waitin' for that spark, but it hasn't come

Well I'm callin' to you, please, get off the floor

A good heart will find you again

I’m not leaving.

I’m not leaving you here.

At that moment I couldn’t help but think of the people who have stood beside me, most especially my husband Nathan, and have been light to me when I’ve been on the floor in the darkness.

As I was preparing the sermon this week on “The Parable of the Lamp” where Jesus speaks about salt and light, it reminded me of the importance of shining our light to those around us. In my experience, sometimes we are the ones desperately seeking the light from the darkness and other times we are in a place of flourishing with the ability to be a catalyst and spark the light in people around us.

We have to learn to distinguish between those times and be able to discern when we are truly in a place of struggle or whether we are being apathetic and swept up by what’s happening around us.

There is so much in the world that is hard, that goes without saying, but as poet Wendell Berry said—“be joyful though you’ve considered all the facts.” No matter what you believe, creating more goodness and kindness, and more love and more light in the world is important and what we need to do for our shared humanity.

When you shine your light, it sparks mine, and then your neighbor’s, and it radiates out into the next person and the next. I want to ask you to consider, really seriously consider, what are the things that are keeping you from shining your light right now? And how can you let them go?

What is the light you can spread in your tiny part of the world? Because there is someone who needs to see it.

Thank you for all of the ways that you have shared your light with me.

Love, Jess

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