WELCOME FROM HAYWOOD STREET:
UPDATES:
As it is for all of you, COVID-19 is challenging us in many ways. The public health guidance runs counter to just about everything we stand for at Haywood Street. Our entire ministry is built around sitting close, sharing a meal, touching the very people society calls untouchable. And, like all of you, we’ve found ways to adapt. More…
We are happy to share a new Honor Gift card featuring the image of Miss Mary from our fresco. This card can be customized to include a ‘Happy Mother’s Day!’ message or any other message you’d like to send to someone special in your life. A copy of the beautiful, short fresco book will be included for gifts above a certain threshold. The fresco book is also available for purchase directly from our merchandise page. MORE
| Click here for an updated list of community meals being offered in the downtown area. |
It’s happening! Next Wednesday, May 6 at 1:30 EST, you can tune into our first live-streamed sermon. Pastor Brian will be walking us through Psalm 23 and asking us to respond to the following question: Why is the 23rd Psalm the text we turn to most in times of trouble?
To access the livestream, you’ll need to visit the Haywood Street Youtube channel. To comment and see other’s comments in real time, you will need to be logged into Youtube. Once the livestream is over, the video will be available to watch at anytime. We hope you all will tune in at 1:30 and try this new, online approach to creating a meaningful worship experience.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
1. Needle exchange services are now being offered during all Haywood Street meal times (Wednesdays and Saturdays from 10:30-12:00 and Sundays 8:30-10:00).
2. A reminder that we are NOT accepting clothing donations at this time.
3. Call for newsletter reflections! One way we can stay connected during this time is by sharing stories of Holy Chaos and the Haywood Street we love so much. Please feel invited to submit your reflection by email to Brook (brook@haywoodstreet.org).
4. Remember to follow Haywood Street on Facebook and Instagram for photos, videos & information shared throughout the week. Additionally, April is providing beautiful content and storytelling through our Haywood Street Fresco accounts here and here.
THIS WEEK’S WAYS TO HELP:
1. Make a meal for Friends staying in Respite. Click here to sign up!
2. We recently received a generous donation of hand sanitizer, however, it is currently packaged in large bottles. We are looking for donations of travel size bottles so that we may divide this supply and distribute small bottles of sanitizer to our Friends.
3. We are still collecting face masks, both factory and homemade.
4. If you would like to donate a couple yards of mulch for Haywood Street landscaping, please email Bryan.
* Donations can be mailed to 297 Haywood Street or dropped off on Tuesdays from 9am-noon. Drive around back to the double doors and knock. Staff will be inside, preparing Wednesday’s meal, and will be able to accept your donation with minimal contact.
A HAYWOOD STREET REFLECTION BY: DAVE
The Other Side of Lazarus – A Celebration of Spiritual Enlightenment (Part One)
Nine years ago, feels like I should say “Once Upon a Time”, 9 years ago, is that not how fairy tales usually begin? It was 9 years ago that I started my journey here at The Haywood Street Congregation. In most cases fairy tales are just that, fairy tales, and as adults we sadly learn that they are mostly imagined, and not real, or are they? I have a strong case they may just contradict the reality of dreaming. You see I did begin my journey around Easter that first year and I begin it inside my own closed tomb. I was not healthy, I was 348 pounds, short of breath, stressed out about being stressed out, sick and tired of being sick and tired, well you’ve heard all the cool sayings but in my case is was a very serious reality. I was locked away in a tomb of my own making. One bad choice after another, one bad relationship after another had slowly dug my tomb and then tossed the dirt right in over me. To me there was no escape, all the normal Luciferian feelings were present, hopelessness, self-pity, remorse, guilt and shame. To me there was no escape. And then, well the fairy tale begins:
It was on a Tuesday morning; it was sunny and an incredibly beautiful day. As the morning began, I had plans to do the leg work for a trip to Gainesville, Florida to begin a new job and new adventures in a place and with a company that I was all too familiar with, but the excitement just was not there. A new and confusing spirit was in the hotel room with me that morning and it seemed to have complete charge of what was happening. Suddenly I wanted to live, the air around me felt different and even had a different smell. I was in a confused state of mind to say the least, I just wanted to run away, but there was no where to run away too. I was 52 years old, there were very few options, so I decided, without any reason or rhyme to take a walk in the woods. Not a casual stroll or a day hike, just walk out into the woods and stay there. Maybe some part of me was giving up, I gave myself a week to ten days to succumb to exposure. Don’t get me wrong, the woods have always been a safe haven for me, growing up when things got too much to handle, I would go out into the woods, deep into Cowart’s Creek and sleep for a while, sometimes days. I had spent countless hours in the wilds of Montana sleeping in the woods with Grizzly Bears and Mountain Lions, I did not fear the woods, and the U.S. Military gave me all the training I needed to survive. In the current state, though, I was not in any shape to handle such an adventure, or so I thought. You see, unbeknownst to me I was not alone that day, but I had no way of knowing. So, everything in the room that fateful morning, except the clothes I had somehow picked out to wear, went into the hotel dumpster, I settled with the hotel, and I went down to tunnel road and sat on a bus stop bench. It was from this bus stop bench that things begin to change, by noon I was alive again, I was working on a plan that I was writing down on a pad I had placed in my pocket, I was imagining all the great things that were going to happen in my life now that I was completely free of all the weights and measures that were had been weighting me down and I was feeling some degree of happiness for the first time in 30 years. To be continued…….
