Setting Aside

We bought my wife, Kim, a water bottle she’s wanted for a while as a celebration of her earning her LCSW. It is purple, her favorite color. She loves how it fits in her hands and cup holders. The lid keeps all the water in when she inevitably spills it. It was exactly the water bottle she wanted.

And we forgot it at the stadium after the game on Friday. 😥

We’ll come back to that, though.

Photo by quokkabottles on Unsplash

Disclaimer: This isn’t Kim’s favorite water bottle…just a purple placeholder. Sorry if that’s a letdown.

Update

There are so many good things happening, and I am incredibly grateful for that. I can tell, though, that keeping up with it all grows increasingly difficult for me. Taking care of my family, being available for friends, and tending to my well-being are all important.

I’m becoming convinced I should take a break from posting for a few weeks, so I can come back stronger and refreshed for you all.

My thought is to take the next few weeks to rest, reflect, and refocus. It will give me time to think about what you all have helped me grow here at Sowing Hope and what I want it to grow into. Even more important for me, it will give me time to hyper-focus on personal relationships heading into the holiday season.

I look forward to coming back fresh in December with renewed energy and insight.

Good News

Investment

President Biden announced another round of investment in rural America, this time with over $5 billion in funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act (link).

A Song on Mission

This story comes from Brad Schmitt’s newsletter The Good News from The Tennesseean. Since it is a newsletter for paid subscribers, I’m not sure how to cite it. As a result, here is a link to read the recent newsletter (link), and here is a link to sign up for the newsletter if you get a Tennesseean subscription (link).

Ever volunteer at the Nashville Rescue Mission? You can figure out how by clicking here. I've been down there a time or two, especially on/around Thanksgiving, to help serve meals to the folks staying there.

Nashville musician Christen Ball and her husband, Michael, took that a step further Monday night. The couple played alternative and Americana music for about 300 residents at the men's chapel session. In fact, Christen and Michael have been performing at the misison for nearly two years.

They've also performed on several mission trips in years past in Haiti and India.

Housing Front

Federal funds now encourage state and local officials to consider converting vacant office space to housing (link). I am so excited to see this development since I’ve said for a while this would be an effective method for making housing more attainable for more people. 😁🏡

Photo by Daria Nepriakhina 🇺🇦 on Unsplash

Community Trust

I went back to the stadium where we left Kim’s water bottle, hoping nobody saw it. As I climbed the stairs, the emptiness of the seats concerned me and I thought maybe someone had taken it. No water bottle. I look to my left across the red and silver seating as I take in the rest of the stadium.

A purple water bottle, moved to the centermost step, far from its original position.

But easier to find when I came looking.

Someone who did not know who I was and knew they would never get credit for their help went out of their way to make sure I could find that lost water bottle.

Reader Seeds 🌱

I’m excited to continue our tradition of readers sharing suggestions and feedback by commenting on posts, replying to these emails, and emailing me at Seeds@SowingHope.how. Here’s another installment in me highlighting some of the thoughts and questions you all have.

In response to my answer last week, I was asked what I meant when I mentioned many negative narratives being hollow, shallow, and incomplete at best (link to last week’s post).

The example I’ll give is when some adults claim our young people are lazy, entitled, or disengaged.

The young people I work with daily work incredibly hard, take pride in earning what they get and actively serve in making our communities stronger. I see this in national data, too. Many of our young people have only known a world with increased natural disasters and active shooter drills.

In response, they choose to be the most kind, most responsible, and most service-minded people they can be.

When people try to tell me otherwise, I ask them to consider how their teachers would describe their high school classmates.

For this reason, I’ve been wanting to interview young people from the community to report on the great things they’ve been doing. I already have a few 18 to 25-year-olds who have expressed interest, at least one of which is a reader (👋). Hit the like button if that would be a post you’d be excited for when I come back to posting in a few weeks.

A Water Bottle

My question for this week: when was a time someone did something just to be kind in your life? Bonus points if you do not know who.

Have a great week, all!