Goodness Weekly 02.26.24
“I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.”–Joyce Kilmer
What’s Good
Construction on Charis Park is coming along! Our team has nearly completed the grading of the land and are planning for a delivery of topsoil donated by our community partner, Mission Compost (formerly Compost Queens). The hardscape elements of the park are nearing completion and electrical installation will begin very soon, including the light poles. The City of San Antonio has purchased 30+ new trees as a donation for the park, which will be delivered in the next several weeks and planting is slated to happen early April. Keep an eye out for our Grand Opening date–to be announced soon!
A Message from Taylor
Taylor Bates, Deputy Director of Sunset Ridge Collective
Recently I had the unique pleasure of taking a field trip to visit a tree farm and nursery south of San Antonio. The task was to pick out a tree for Charis Park given in honor of a beloved woman named Janet who dedicated decades of her life to the Sunset Ridge community. This visit also happened to be on Valentine’s Day, which somehow felt more significant, a day of expressing love for one another.
I met our Charis Park construction team at the nursery and meandered through giant palm trees, Live Oaks, and hundreds of various native species of trees, all propped up above ground on their roots and soil, which were wrapped in cloth and fence wire. We were looking for a particular Red Oak tree to replace a similar tree that unfortunately had to be removed from the site of Charis Park due to its poor condition.
We approached a gorgeously shaped Red Oak, barren of its leaves due to the winter season, with a wide canopy that would provide instant shade to the park once planted and its leaves reemerge. I knew this was Janet’s special tree.
I asked Lucio, the owner of the nursery, to tell us more about the tree and he said it had been planted in 1999 on a plot of land just down the road from where we stood. The tree was 25 years old. He described how they care for their trees—they generously water and tend to them when they are seedlings, and then gradually taper off, letting them establish on their own and adjust to the natural environmental rhythms of rain, drought, and changing seasons. He said that from his experience he’s seen trees from their nursery are much more likely to survive and thrive after being transplanted to their new home if they’ve not been coddled or overprotected.
We all joked about how this is actually a great lesson in parenting children. And ultimately an analogy for how we all grow to become healthy adults.
When I think about the moments in my life that have most shaped me, it’s been the moments of struggle—sometimes a good kind of struggle and other times very unwelcome. There was the struggle I experienced trudging up a mountaintop with altitude sickness on my first big backpacking adventure as a teenager. And then, years later, the much more profound and prolonged suffering of losing my first baby and the incredible grief that followed. Somehow the struggle of our lives can both completely uproot us, and also eventually make our spirits more resilient.
This tree will be planted in the next couple weeks in Charis Park and will hopefully settle its roots and continue to grow there for decades to come—providing shade, being a silent listener to conversations among friends, enjoying the laughter of children, purifying the surrounding air, and adding beauty to what was formerly an asphalt-laden parking lot. And this tree will be a reminder for me of Janet and the beauty of a life well-lived, struggle and all.
This Week
Sunday, March 3rd
4:30pm Supper Church
6pm Parent Book Club–Every Season Sacred by Kayla Craig (childcare provided)
6pm Youth Group
Coming Up…
Saturday, March 9th Second Saturday
Interested in more of what’s happening at Sunset Ridge Church? Please consider subscribing to Views from the Ridge.
Inhale:
May I gain strength
Exhale:
as my roots take time to grow deep.
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