August 9, 2023

Aug. 9, 2023

“I know of nothing else but miracles.”
– Walt Whitman

Dear Ones,

Today I am wondering where you find “miracles” in your life. You can email me and tell me, if you like! But it’s not an assignment. And it doesn’t particularly matter to me how you/I/we define the word; I personally do not mean “outside the realm of, or unexplainable by, science”.

I know not everything in my life seems miraculous, but … (what follows is a new thought, so it could be I’m quite wrong from some angle) I wonder if everything that we experience as distressing isn’t in some way rooted in miracle. Most of the miracles I notice are small, sometimes ordinary, but always wonderful and usually delightful. 

The miracles showing up right now, as I’m planning for our next few weeks together: 

1 - The miracle of water, which underlies the miracle of life itself. Be sure to join us for our Sunday service on August 27, which will include a UU favorite–the celebration of Water communion (you are invited to bring water from somewhere important to you), which besides celebrating the life-giving miracle of water, also celebrates another current miracle on my mind =>

2 - Community! Like ours at Greater Nashville UU! Also on August 27, we are going to celebrate some new members. Every single one of us is a miracle on our own,  but together we create so many new miracles that simply wouldn’t be if we were not together. (If you are relatively new to GNUUC but ready to sign our membership book, please talk to me on Sunday or email me–soon, if you’d like to be included in the celebration on Aug. 27.)

3 - I’ve also been thinking about the miracle of life and birth and our capacity to care for one another within a framework of love that looks like justice. I participated recently in a state-wide summit for reproductive justice, and I am keenly aware that our Unitarian Universalist movement has a distinctive voice to contribute to both conversations and actions desperately needed right now. Which is why the following recent miracle in my life was extra-delightful =>

4 - Through the miracle of volunteerism, we were able to quickly fill an unexpected gap in our Summer Song schedule with a talk by Susan M. who promises to share with us her latest thoughts about abortion. I hope you’ll join us this Sunday (August 13) for her medically-informed reflections on this politically contentious but absolutely vital subject.

Yours in the web of miracles, 

Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org