Goodness Weekly 08.05.2024
“I’ll ride the wave where it takes me.”
-Eddie Vedder “Release”
What’s Good
For the past year a group of parents in our community have been gathering together twice a month around the book Every Season Sacred by Kayla Craig. This Sunday Kayla joined our group via Zoom and it was such a gift to have her time and presence as she shared some of her experiences around intentional parenting and family practices. We look forward to the next group beginning this Fall!
It’s Time…Maybe
Jess Lowry, Executive Director, Sunset Ridge Collective
We’re days away from Charis Park opening.
It is supposed to be this week, and hopefully it will be. And if not, that will be okay too.
You see, this place has been years in the making, and while it’s been in process we have learned much through the journey.
As the ground was turned up and reformed we too have undergone transformation.
If you know me, you’ll likely know I’ve sometimes held the false belief that mostly any challenge can be overcome through sheer determination and unwavering will. No surprise that throughout my life’s journey I have been in circumstance after circumstance where determination and will could not control the outcome but rather the act of release, of letting go, was the best answer.
Converting the underutilized parking lot into a neighborhood park was a dream 12 years ago, then it was a possible community garden ten years ago, then it was something that just lingered in the background waiting to be unearthed. Each time we held a neighborhood block party or Fall Festival in the parking lot a little more hope surfaced of what might someday be.
Sunset Ridge Church Fall Festival 2016 (Jess & Luca Lightsaber Battle)
In 2019 when Sunset Ridge Church’s Vision Team prayed around the facility and the campus, the park was one of the clearest images that came to mind of the majority of the team members. In 2021 when our small Collective team entered the Good Acres’ Make Good Fellowship it was to see if we really could bring this dream to reality.
We dreamed of a place where neighbors could meet and feel a little less lonely. A place where the peace of nature could be found under the shade of an old oak tree. A place where Sunset Ridge Church of Christ could open her hands to say to the neighborhood–you are welcomed and loved exactly as you are, you belong here and here belongs to you, too.
When you carry around a dream for so long and it is time to see it realized it can make you impatient. And I have been impatient. Many of us have. The park was supposed to be done last Labor Day, and that was incredibly late when we expected its completion the spring of 2022, and for others even the spring before was too long to wait.
But you see, the journey has been about so much more than the opening of the park. It’s been about the neighbors that we’ve met along the way, it’s about the patience we’ve learned as the timing ebbs and flows. There is a rule in psychology called the 5x5 rule–if it won’t matter in five years, don't spend more than five minutes stressing about it. I like adding will it matter in five days, five weeks, five months? Some things in life can’t be pushed, they can’t be rushed, and no amount of determination will make them go faster.
So this week, as you go about your day, notice what is getting your stress going. If it’s outside of your control, release it. If it won’t matter in five years, don’t spend more than five minutes stressing about it.
This life is a long beautiful journey and somehow a blip in the grand scheme of things…
I can’t wait to see you at Charis Park–maybe this weekend
Love, Jess
This Week
Tuesday, August 6th Last Summer Storytime on the Lawn
Wednesdays, Mission Compost Pick Up
Saturday, August 10th Second Saturday
8am-1pm One Another Coffee
9am, Donation Based Yoga
10:15 Storytime and Activity
Coming Up
Lunchtime Yoga Flow with NYX Wellness, Mon-Fri at 12pm, upstairs in Room 200
Sign up for your class here.
For weekly hours of One Another Coffee, Scott’s Pizza, and NYX Yoga, please feel free to check our calendar and follow us on Instagram for any updates.
Inhale:
I hold this temporary situation that causes stress
Exhale:
I open my hands and release control
