Goodness Weekly 03.04.24
“It takes a lot for you to find your confidence, but you shouldn’t let someone else be the person to find it for you.”
–Justine Skye
What’s Good
This week, we had the privilege to attend the Neighborhood Economics conference that was hosted this year in our own city of San Antonio, which brought together impact investors, entrepreneurs, philanthropists, people of faith, and local leaders. We learned about and discussed the efforts locally and nationwide that aim to repair local economies, create equitable opportunities, and build communities where everyone can prosper. We feel grateful and inspired to be connected with this larger network of people doing similar work as us in their own neighborhoods around the country.
A Message from Linda
Linda Charlton, Founder & Director, Sprouts School
At the zoo, one of my favorite animals is the male gibbon. He moves through the treetops with such fluidity and grace and I love to watch him. The way that he moves is called brachiation and I find it beautiful and fascinating. He swings from branch to branch using just his arms. He is completely confident in his movements, he doesn’t hesitate, he’s not concerned he will fall, even when he is 20 feet off the ground. I can’t keep my eyes off of him.
My relationship with my body has never been like that. I do not move through my world with grace and confidence in my body. I run into things all the time–the sides of the doorways, things I don’t see on the ground, edges of furniture, the feet of other people. I’m terrible at kicking a ball or throwing a ball or catching a ball. I accidentally walk through puddles. I cannot tell you how many times another teacher will just be getting to school and they’ll ask me, “How are you so dirty already???”
When I was like 10 or 12 or 14, I wanted to be graceful and confident in my body. I wanted to be beautiful. I genuinely think that even at that age there was some piece of me that knew that I was not nor would I ever be graceful or confident in my body. And if I had honestly looked at all the other middle school aged girls around me, I think that I would have noticed that very few of them were graceful or confident in their bodies either. But instead I looked at TV or magazines or posters of adult women. I thought the women that we should all strive to be were Charlie’s Angels or Wonder Woman or maybe Barbie. I wanted to be beautiful and graceful and confident the way that it seemed like they were.
I am not those women, though. I am me. I am weirdly, physically strong but unaware of where the boundaries of my body are. I am chunky, even fat. I have feet that are so wide that I have to buy men’s shoes so they’ll fit. I’ve had glasses since I was three. I sunburn easily and often, no matter how much sunscreen I apply. I’ve got freckles. I’ve got lots of laugh lines (but I’m kinda proud of those). I have spent decades of my life wishing my body were different, being embarrassed about what my body looks like, feeling guilty that my body wasn’t graceful and beautiful and confident in the way that the bodies of TV stars are. But when I think about it, there are parts of my body that I do find to be beautiful. When I put up my bare feet and they are resting they curve into a lovely point. My hair is the color of honey in the sunlight. My hands are big and strong and capable. The curve from my hip into my leg speaks of the love that is bearing children. I hardly ever get sick.
Now I know the gibbons. They are graceful and beautiful and confident. Not in the way that Hollywood stars are graceful and beautiful and confident, though. They do not fit into the beautiful box that Hollywood has built. But the gibbons have taught me that I had been using the most narrow possible definition of graceful and beautiful and confident. I want the kids to see the beauty in the gibbons' hands and feet that are oddly shaped to the human eye and their furry faces and their long arms and their awkward gait. Because I want the kids to know that they have the power to decide what is graceful, what is beautiful, what is confident. And that what is graceful, what is beautiful, what is confident looks different on different people and different animals.
I have seen beauty and grace and confidence in every child I have ever met. I want to work hard to nurture that. I don’t want any child to give the power to decide graceful, beautiful, and confident to Hollywood or social media or anyone else. It’s their decision. It’s their power.
Graceful, beautiful, confident.
It can be a Hollywood star.
But it can also be a gibbon.
And it is certainly within all of us.
This Week
Saturday, March 9th Second Saturday
9 am Yoga
10:15 am Storytime & Craft on the lawn
Sunday, March 10th
4:30pm Chapel Worship
Coming Up…
Sunday, March 17th Sunset Worship on the lawn (weather permitting)
Interested in more of what’s happening at Sunset Ridge Church? Please consider subscribing to Views from the Ridge.
Inhale:
Who I am
Exhale:
is enough.
Subscribe to Sunset Ridge Collective on YouTube. We will be hosting our umbrella of work all in one place and would love to see you there.
