Noonday Notes, Issue 42
Bright Sadness
Noonday Notes
Issue No. 42 (any hitchhiker fans?…)
April 10th, 2026
I’ve been thinking about community lately. How we long for it. Not just the surface-level, but the subterranean as Pastor Brit likes to say. The kind where you see your people everyday, where you belong. Not isolated. You’re known and included as one of God’s weirdos.
This longing is part of our divine design. We are created for community, for shared meals, space travel, spontaneous meet ups, rabbit hole conversations, snail mail correspondence, in person, real life stuff. I caught glimpses of it in college and the pandemic; I’m feeling it again. Some wonderful mix of Golden Girls and the Sandlot.
Last week was woven with community. I want every week to be like that Holy Week. But by Sunday afternoon I was alone again with my bright sadness. I was full and I was aching. I was “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.” The garden is like this. Nothing is forever. Life, death, life again. Fullness and emptiness, always intertwined. We get redemption because of death.
The whole story starts in a garden. And then, at the end (or what looks like the end) it’s a garden again. Mary comes looking for Jesus, “supposing him to be the gardener”. The garden is a way to remember who we are. Image bearers. Growers. Stewards. Community is like a garden. We must tend it, water it, and pour into it. Show up, create space, go subterranean. Together.
If you’re feeling disconnected, missing this kind of belonging, you’re not alone. Our longing is real, deep, and mysterious. And it points to one place, along one path. And on that path we go back to each other. Back to the table. Back to the garden. We are here together, working the soil, checking the tomb, and letting all of these feels take us deeper into love.
Let this be an invitation, join me. Reach out, let’s pull some weeds together, drink some coffee, laugh, and ask big questions. Let’s do life together, in the garden.