Eunoia means…
Beautiful Thinking
"She cannot get her mind off of the violence done to her. They used "names" that made her feel so ugly. She had such a hard time thinking of what was beautiful."
“I remember my mom’s paintings. They would sit on an easel in the family room. The light was better there. The smell of the paint, the turpentine and linseed oil… I miss it. I miss her. There was beauty in the red of cherries. The way the light fell, and the way her brush painted it… A beautiful part of my life.”
“He dreamt of heaven. He wrote about it. I read all of his books (or at least as many as I could find). I entered in. I did not want to leave. And in some ways, I never have.”
Beautiful Thinking wants to find a way to recover what is stolen, to find what is lost and to fix what is broken. Beautiful Thinking is a mentality, a heart and a choice about life that wants to make things, people and our world better. Sometimes Beautiful Thinking wants to give up; sit down and cry, get away and hide. But it doesn't.
And for the ugly, dark, damaging things out there and inside here where the heart and mind live, Beautiful Thinking sees, thinks and eventually expresses things differently. Beautiful Thinking says to itself and to those around wanting and willing to hear:
"Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse."
- The Message Bible
We here at Eunoia, we want to do this.
Whether in private or in community, we want what and how we think (and even why) to be genuinely filled with a sense of generosity, goodness and grace. We want what we say to move through difficult places into what we call redemptive living. To redeem means to "buy back". We want to help each other to figure out how to "buy back" the things we have lost:
— Our sense of safety, confidence and belonging.
— Our strained and broken relationships.
— Clarity amid the confusion of who we are & where we are going.
— Our lost time.
But if we find "who we really are" or "where we’re going" is not altogether "beautiful"... We want to figure that out too.
We want to find "the better place", "the kinder place", "the beautiful place."
Now we know that if you’re reading this, you may not be a believer in Jesus…
You may be a believer in other things.
That's okay with us : )
We are all on a journey of one sort or another. And we honestly and genuinely hold you in high regard whatever you believe.
But we who are Eunoia's caretakers—we do genuinely believe in Jesus. And we hold dear the truth that He is the one who came to fix us in all of our deepest yearnings and brokenness:
— The things we think, do, dream and feel.
— The ways we have failed and the ways we want to make things right.
For ourselves, for others, and for our world—we see that Jesus is the rescuer, the finder and the fixer—He is the "deep to the heart and wide to the world.” Redeemer of all things. And He not only "buys us back", He makes us new just like He will make new all of creation.
"Behold I am making all things new."
— Jesus
What we believe is that Jesus is the heart of all that truly is "beautiful;" and we want and need him to teach us what that is and what that isn't. And so, you might say, that for us as Eunoia's caretakers, we see that Beauty is at the very nature of who He is. Now, if you don't agree with us, that's really okay. Let's just work together at coming up with what is "true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly."
"In the image of God, He made them, male and female He created them."
— Moses
I hope you've discovered that what we want to be at Eunoia is a growing garden for beautiful thinking.
We can't do it alone. And to be honest, it will take a lifetime to tend.
Come grow with us.