Goodness Weekly 9.18.23
“How can we embrace rest and play if we’ve tied our self-worth to what we produce?“
-Brene Brown
What’s Good:
Happy 21st Wedding Anniversary to Jess and Nathan Lowry.
We are grateful for the love, vulnerability, and leadership you share with our community.
This Week
Tuesday, Sept 19th, 6:30pm Taco Tuesday at One Another Coffee featuring Mission Bell and Primero Tacos
Wednesday, Sept 20th, 6:30pm Sunset Worship
Saturday, Sept 23rd, 10am La Luz Art Exhibition Opening Reception (RSVP LINK)
Sunday, Sept 24th, 4:30pm Chapel Worship
Upcoming…
Starting Oct 1st
We are thrilled to share a new opportunity for gathering created specifically for parents of children and teens. Beginning October 1st we will gather together to work through Kayla Craig’s new book Every Season Sacred.
Sunday evenings from 6-7pm, dinner and childcare provided.
Blending thoughtful musings and practical resources, author Kayla Craig meets parents in their actual lives, offering:
honest and hopeful reflections for every season of the parenting journey;
encouragement to parent with intention and imagination, presence and purpose; and
open-ended discussion prompts and prayers to explore and practice as a family.
Contact jess@sunset-ridge.org for more information or to express interest!
A Message from Jess
Is it weird to say that my car is teaching me lessons lately?
We recently decided to trade one of our big gas-guzzlers for an Electric Vehicle.
I was getting ready to leave the house and my husband Nathan said, “You can’t take the EV, it doesn't have enough battery.”
We’re still waiting on the new charger to be installed at our house so we are using our existing house outlet, which takes a long time. As I’ve shared with you before, I struggle with patience. I especially struggle with things not doing what they’re supposed to when I need them to.
And now, my car needs to recharge (as we think about rest, I’m sure you can get the metaphor here).
When I push the gas pedal in the new car I use battery life–I can see it draining right before my eyes. The harder I push the faster I lose it. When I let off the gas it actually regenerates energy.
I can see the gauge go into green as the car regenerates itself, it doesn’t simply go into neutral like I would have assumed.
When we consider resting our minds, I think we come from a false assumption that there is a net zero here. That a mental rest will just take us back to baseline. This is true initially, as it will take time to recover from the constant mental pace.
But what is just on the other side of that is regenerative.
We were talking on Sunday about mental rest and I shared that in my rest practices I’ve learned that when I rest I am far more effective.
When we rest on a consistent basis we are refilling our batteries. We are creating a bank of health to pull from. We are moving out of recovering from our lives to recovering our lives.
This week I invite you to focus on mental rest.
This means focusing on things that clear your head such as:
Physical activity
Gardening
Playing
Creating
Making art and music
Spending time in nature
This means avoiding things that are mentally taxing during a set rest period such as problem solving, strategizing, etc.
I can’t wait to hear what you learn.
Love, Jess
Inhale:
When anxiety and fear and overwhelm surround me
Exhale:
Help me to find small moments of rest for my weary mind
