October 2, 2024

“Sometimes you hear a voice through the door calling you... 
This turning toward what you deeply love saves you.”
–-Rumi

Dear Ones, 

Wow, it’s October! (If I had a favorite month, it might be this one.) Even though it doesn’t feel much like fall today, I always look forward to the coming of cooler weather and longer evenings. (I know evenings have the same number of hours year-round, but I prefer having some dark time to settle into before I must go to sleep or face the consequences the next morning!) 

We’ve had a busy late-summer-early-fall these last two months, haven’t we? I feel like the start of this church year was yet again a new time, with new patterns and programming to figure out. Sometimes I long for some recurring patterns of church life to settle comfortably into (like the lengthening darkness of fall & winter nights), but I think there is so much change in our world at all levels from personal to global that some of my expectations (and perhaps yours, too) of repetition and familiarity may need to be released. 

A nice time to be reminded by a very old, cherished voice (that of 13th-century Persian poet/mystic/theologian Rumi) that love turns us toward new doorways that lead somewhere worth going. 

Yours in listening with and for love, 
Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org