“There is no chance we will fall apart.
There is no chance.
There are no parts”
– June Jordan

Beloveds,

Sometimes, I think we allow ourselves to be swept along in a certain arrogance that we ourselves create connection and hold the world together by sheer force of our own wills and efforts. Oftentimes, I am certain that there are less than benevolent societal forces that want us to be sucked up in various projects and perfectionist patterns, so that we stay distracted from our own power and freedom–and from our connection. (I strongly suspect someone makes money whenever this is happening.)

Sure, it takes a lot of attention and work to nurture community: egg salad sandwiches to prepare, dishes to wash, trash to be taken out, electric and water and heating bills to pay and equipment to maintain and get inspected. And building and enjoying community is absolutely worth the effort: Ross Gay (in my current favorite book, Inciting Joy) suggests that laughing together (which surely happens most easily on a full stomach!) reminds us of the breath (and by extension the ending of breath that is death) that we share not just with each other, but with all living things. 

Here’s the thing I’m thinking today: Yes, we do need (and want!) to work hard to nurture community, to keep our congregation healthy and vibrant and contributing generously to the increase of love and justice in the wider webs in which we are held. And no, the very basic connections that sustain us are not easily destroyed or lost; they do not depend on our unceasing attention and effort. Indeed, at their most basic they are like–no, they are the exchange of gasses in which living things and galaxies are born and live and die. We are connected–in our living, our breathing, our laughing, and our dying. (The universe is so generous with us!) Although Ross Gay suggests that we sometimes individually “fall apart”, in that falling apart, we inevitably fall into each other and the experiences we share and the fact of our human connections to each other and to the rest of existence. 

There is no chance we will fall apart.

Yours in love and faith (and parentheticals), 

Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

“Hope is holding in creative tension all that is, with everything that could and should be, and each day taking some action to narrow the distance between the two.”
– Parker J. Palmer

Friends,

Welcome to our month of Generosity! (As you probably know, we participate in Soul Matters, a program run by and for UU congregations, which suggests a theme and provides resources on that theme for each month of the year.) 

Today, I’m wondering whether and how we might be generous with our hope. Some of this is “inside work”, very personal and inwardly focused: How can I hold and act on the tension between who I am and who I could be, as well as my personal perceptions of the world around me and what it is and what I wish it were or think it really should be? But I think really generous hope requires community: How do WE assess what really is and cherish it, while also being alert to opportunities to move ourselves and others in direction of more love, more freedom, more justice? 

No answers today, just questions. How about you?

Yours in hope and generosity, 
Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

“Leaves don’t drop; they just let go and
make a space for seeds to grow.”
– Carrie Newcomer

(listen here)

Dear ones,

Though it’s a bit on the warm side this week, it also is visibly clear that fall is upon us. I’m seeing more leaves on my back deck and more color alongside the streets and across the hills as I drive between work and home. Outside my office, enough leaves have fallen from the highest branches that I’m starting to be able to see more of the sky over our hill. Soon, I’ll be enjoying an almost unimpeded view of the circling hawks (of whom, in the summertime, I can only see shadows cast upon the bank of leaves outside my window).

Carrie Newcomer’s gentle song (quoted from & linked above) has me wondering what in my life (or perhaps in our shared life as a congregation) is ready to let go (or for me/us to let go of) and what new seeds are waiting to grow, given enough space and sunlight and perhaps insulation and fertilization, courtesy of a blanket of fallen leaves. I don’t know yet, but I hope watching the hawks will give me a little space to think about it!

I hope you’ll find space in this season of release to sit with your own thoughts and discover some intimation of the growth to come.

Yours in release and the patient expectation of new growth,
Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

“There really is nothing more
interesting about us than that we die.
I really think that.”
– Ross Gay, Inciting Joy

Beloveds,

I was recently surprised to find the above tucked into the middle of poet Ross Gay’s book of essays exploring joy. It struck me as one of those statements I encounter from time to time that are simultaneously surprising and immediately recognizable as true, in the sense of breaking open some bit of truth that was previously (by me) unexplored. (I really like reading–and highly recommend–Gay’s essays because they contain a rather high proportion of such sentences.)

Gay suggests that death is one of the most significant things we human beings share with each other and with all living things. The knowledge that we die, along with the shared experience of grief, writes Gay, provides some of the most potent experiences of  connection, which are also sources of joy and delight. 

I sometimes wonder if you get tired of hearing me talk about connection, but I am unlikely to stop anytime soon. In the midst of everything (by which I mean community and global warming and politics and fear and joy and beautiful weather and war and capitalism and hope and corruption and generosity and love), connection is just about the only thing I am sure of. It seems to be what I believe in, rather like others believe in God. 

I also wonder what you believe in, what you find most interesting about being human…drop me a line, if you’d like! 

Yours in faith and in joy, 

Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

“Humans make things up like patriarchy and Barbie 
just to deal with how uncomfortable it [being human] is.”
– Ruth Handler in Barbie

Beloveds,

I promise I’ll stop quoting from the Barbie movie soon, but this little gem from the end of the movie is just too good. In my house, we often remind each other that “it’s hard to be human.” For us, it’s an expression of compassion and also encouragement to patience and courage and equanimity (in Buddhism, a state of mental balance and even-mindedness), all of which can be remarkably difficult in the face of the many, many ways we humans try to get around discomfort, let alone our survival-driven responses to the traumas that come inevitably with living. I suppose it amounts to one way of practicing love, by resisting (even just for a few seconds) the urges toward critique and judgment that so easily arise in the face of a world in which so much is so obviously not as it should be, in favor of remembering and responding as best we can in every instance to the simultaneously particular and universal needs and longings at the core of every life. 

It is hard to be human, and sometimes we make up all manner of things in response to discomfort and hardship. But sometimes, we also choose to pause and remember that we are all connected and all in need, not just of recognition of our worth and dignity, but of tenderness and care.

Yours in all that is hard and all that connects us, 

Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

October 4, 2023

“Hey, do you guys ever think about death?”
– Barbie

Dear Ones,

It’s October! My favorite month of the year, the time when we are released from the heat of summer (surely any time now) and start leaning towards the string of holidays to come, beginning with Halloween and ending with maybe Valentine’s Day or the Super Bowl, depending on your priorities. In European traditions, the festivals of late October–Halloween, which has Christian roots, and Samhain, the older pagan cross-quarter celebrations in between the fall equinox and the winter solstice–have ancient roots. They celebrate the connections between the living and the dead and mark a time when the “veil between the worlds” of the living & the dead is said to be thinner than usual. I’m sure these old traditions were considered when Soul Matters decided to highlight the theme of Heritage this month. It’s also a good time of year to be aware of the finite scope of our own lives and those of everyone and everything around us, and to remember our connections to both the ancestors and our descendants. 

In the movie “Barbie” the question quoted above ends up reshaping the whole world of BarbieLand. It’s a question we have the opportunity to consider every year around this time, and we might benefit from entering more deeply into this season than just decorating our spaces (which is not to discount the importance of decorations!). I know that awareness and experience of life and death touches and shapes our individual lives, and I suspect Barbie’s question has the power to change our world, as well, if we can think together with courage and love. 

Yours in living, dying, and all that connects them, 

Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

September 27, 2023

“We covenant together to make a welcoming community.”
– Us! (GNUUC Covenant)

Beloveds,

I want to give you a heads-up about Sunday’s service. The Worship Team has been talking about experimenting with our Sunday morning format to allow for more conversation among us. In addition, the Board has decided it would like input about an opportunity which has presented itself for sharing our space and earning some extra income. (It is, of course, a bit complicated, so the Board wants to hear from you!) We will have a slightly shortened version of the usual service, followed by a brief period of time devoted to conversation (no voting involved) before we move as usual to our potluck lunch. If we like this format, we may plan to use it again, so I hope you will come to help us experiment and to hear about an exciting possibility for our campus in the first half of 2024. 

Yours in love and welcome, 

Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

September 13, 2023

“This mornin’ a miracle happened
The risin’ of the world’s closest star”
– Willi Carlisle, “Your Heart’s a Big Tent”

Beloveds,

During some Zoom meeting I attended sometime last spring, one of our UU siblings played for us Willi Carlisle’s “Your Heart’s a Big Tent”, which sounded to me exactly like a sort of Universalist hymn (if not exactly something out of 19th century New England).  You can listen here (If you enjoy banjo & harmonica, you’re welcome. Even more fun with the crowd at this year’s Newport Folk Festival joining in!)

Willi’s lyrics and his exuberance reminded me immediately of our congregational mission statement, opening with the assertion that our core belief is the transforming power of love. He sings

I need a theory of all love
Like the heart’s a big tent
Gotta let everybody in
Doesn’t matter who they are 
If they do right or where they’ve been
Everybody gets in

And every fall, we–through our governing Board–spin a new vision of how our ministry together will serve our mission to create sanctuary and champion justice in the coming year. (You can see our mission statement anytime you need some inspiration, right at the top of our webpage: nashvilleuu.org.) This Sunday, the Board will present our shared vision of ministry for 2023-24. 

Go ahead and listen to Willi while you’re waiting…

Yours in the big tent, 
Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

“As people who want to live a good, full, unrestricted, adventurous, 
real kind of life, there is concrete instruction we can follow: See what is.”
– Pema Chodron

Beloveds,

I like the way GNUUC begins the church year: looking back and forward, reminding ourselves of our covenant and mission, and discovering a new vision of our shared ministry for the months ahead. Perhaps because I’ve only begun years here amidst the COVID pandemic, our visioning work has necessarily involved a good deal of observing and thinking carefully to understand what is in the current moment.

Last Saturday, your Board gathered for several hours to “see what is” and to think about how to live our mission right now. We will be sharing the vision that emerged during our time together during our Sunday Service on September 20. I hope you’ll plan to be there and be inspired to join our efforts this year to build a “good, full, unrestricted, adventurous, real” life together. 

This Sunday, we will be celebrating new members and also our annual Water Communion, which is symbolic of an inescapable, concrete fact of what is: the truth that we are deeply connected–to each other and to the world in which we exist and the beings with whom we co-exist. You are invited to bring a small quantity of water representing someplace special to you (or use the water we will have on hand–all water is connected, after all) and help us celebrate.

Yours in what is, 

Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org