“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 

Beloveds, 

I am spending much of this week thinking about the Climate Justice Revival in which GNUUC, along with many (hundreds!) of our sibling UU congregations across the continent, is participating. I hope you’ll be able to join us for some part or parts of this weekend, and if not, we’ll be thinking and reviving throughout this church year and beyond. (read more below) Here’s how you can get in on the fun and learning this weekend:

-As usual, we will gather in person and on Zoom for our Sunday morning service. This week’s service will take advantage of rich resources gathered, created, and distributed by the UUA to participating Revival congregations to help us celebrate our commitments to create climate justice and to build a world in which all can thrive. 

-On Saturday, (9/28) we will gather from 10 am until 2 pm to build connections, imagine new possibilities, and enjoy each other’s company and support as we listen to each other, learn a few things, and consider next steps. 

Registration is required for Saturday’s Revival Workshop, and lunch will be provided. (The workshop is geared to adults and older youth.) 

Registration deadline: FRI, 9/27, at noon; email gnuuc@gnuuc.org to register. 

Yours in imagining and creating, 
Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org 

"... everybody’s trying to figure it out."
~ Poi Dog Pondering, “Everybody’s Trying”

Friends,

This time of year during a general election year always feels (to me) especially full of so, so many types of figuring things out. So many pundits, pollsters, forecasters, reporters, supporters, and observers and planners and … and … and. So much calling for my attention, not always in ways that serve me in discerning how best to act on my values. 

If you need it, I offer you permission–or better yet, encouragement to permit yourself–to let go of any sense of needing to figure out or follow every.little.thing. 

Please be thoughtful, but know that thinking well about a few things will take you (and all of us, as a society) further in the direction of living our values than following every conversation and worrisome detail. It’s good to be informed, but it’s even better to live from your center, for which you’ll need to pause to rest and be quiet enough to hear yourself.

Yours in the grace of centering, 
Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

P.S. Please do figure out your voting plan for the US general election! (This is how we practice democracy.) Now is a good time to make sure you’re registered to vote, as well as to consider when and how you’ll cast your vote. Extra credit: check to see if your friends/coworkers/neighbors need help or encouragement.

"When you put your hand in a flowing stream,
you touch the last that has gone before and the first of what is still to come."
~ Leonardo da Vinci

Beloveds–

This Sunday, we will celebrate Water Communion, which since the 1980s has become a tradition in many UU congregations in which congregants bring water from home or from a place they have visited or from a place that has special meaning to them, and we pour our separate waters into a shared container. Water and the various rituals we humans create with it are highly symbolic. This year, our service will invite you to think about water as it flows and about our lives and shared experiences flowing between what has gone before and what will come.

If you can, please bring a small container of water to church. It might be from a place that is meaningful to you (or from the kitchen tap, to which it has flowed from somewhere). You might choose to have it represent an idea or an experience which holds meaning for you. During the service, we will have time to pour our separate waters into one bowl and watch to see what story flows out of our gathered waters.

Yours in in the grace of flowing like water,
Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

“Love is never leaving” 
(Trevor Hall “You Can’t Rush Your Healing”)

Friends–

There’s this song that the algorithms at Spotify offer up to me now & then. It includes this line that catches my notice: “Love is never leaving.” It’s lovely in the melodic context of this particular song, but it’s always made me wince, or wonder if I should be wincing. You know, as in the way of  “Love means never having to say you’re sorry”, suggesting that if you’re a loving person you’ll never leave. Um, yuck and NO WAY–in so many ways and for some very good reasons.

This morning, it occurred to me that maybe I’ve been hearing it all wrong. Perhaps it’s not meant as a moral admonishment, a suggestion about how to be a better person, but as a statement of ontological truth (ontological = fancy philosophical language for describing what simply is), as in LOVE is never leaving, never going to leave, not going anywhere, always fundamental to who we are and how we live, woven into how everything exists and changes and grows. In the language of our new Unitarian Universalist self-description (created in the revision of Article 2 of our UU Association bylaws): “Love is at the center.” 

What a different sentence I heard today, and what a good way to start my morning! 

I hope you are hearing or reading or singing along with words that nourish and nurture and accept you as you are and root you in the love that (as is one of my core beliefs) flows in and around and through us always and always and always. 

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

“Zen pretty much comes down to three things–
everything changes; everything is connected; pay attention.” 
–Jane Hirshfield

Beloveds–

I seem to be in full-on startup mode these days: August is flying by with auction events, worship services, first meetings of the church year, and plans, plans, plans for all sorts of things. I don’t know if wonders will ever cease (Denise G. will answer that for us this Sunday, I hope!), but the making of new plans is pretty much a constant in church life. Perhaps Certainly also in life, generally.

You may have heard that we are experimenting with some new things in governance and programming this church year. Alternating on 4th Sunday of most months, we will add to our time together either a Shared Ministries meeting that includes all of us (between service and lunch, hybrid as long as the service is also) or an invitation to participate in a Listening Circle after lunch (starting around 1:15pm, in person only). 

This Sunday, we will be meeting as the Shared Ministries Council in between the service and lunch. In times past (mostly before I was hired) this council consisted of the chairs of each of the ministry committees/teams in the congregation. During the pandemic, attendance dwindled sharply, and formal meetings were discontinued, with most decisions about programming and ministries being made either informally or in their respective teams (Worship, Children’s Religious Education, Social Justice, for example). These ways of making and implementing decisions have been becoming increasingly more difficult and less satisfying for all involved, so we are going to see what happens if Shared Ministries decisions (How shall we go about embodying our mission and pursuing our vision of ministry this year?) become decisions made by all of us together. 

I know I’ve been saying this for years now, but we are in a liminal time–a time in between the old way of doing things and a new way…in between pre-pandemic and the full-blown understanding of what “post-pandemic” means…in between the last presidential election and the next…in between the first 30 years of GNUUC and the next 30. 

If you feel like preparing reflectively for the meeting, you might refer to Hirshfield’s summary of Zen wisdom: How can we as a faith community address the reality that everything changes, celebrate and nourish the ways in which everything is connected, and pay better attention to all of it and everyone? 

I’m bringing a list of ideas to our Shared Ministries meeting. I hope you bring some, too!

Yours in change, connection, and our best attempts to pay attention,
Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

“To get the full value of joy you must
have someone to divide it with.”
–Mark Twain

Dear Ones–

I found so much joy in last Sunday’s service, remembering and celebrating our congregation’s history, singing and playing together with the choir from First UU, and partaking of a positively sumptuous “potluck” lunch afterwards.

Right this moment: more joy–I am listening to Roger Wiesmeyer practicing for his concert here on Sunday afternoon. (The concert was part of our annual fundraising auction, but if you didn’t snag a ticket last spring, you can pay at the door–details below.) He is also clearly enjoying our piano, for which his parents helped us pay, back in the day–more joy in watching and listening to his joy. It’s going to be a fun concert, and Roger is looking forward to talking with us about the music, too! (For me, good conversation always = yet more joy!)

I hope you’ll choose to spend a good part of Sunday with us. Our Sunday morning service will feature Mark Mohundro, the leader of TN UU’s United–our nascent statewide legislative action network and member of the Tennessee Valley UU Congregation in Knoxville. (More connection = more joy!) As always, potluck lunch to follow. (Feed me = joy)

Yours in the joy of connection, action, and music,
Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold,
it would be a merrier world.” 
–J.R.R. Tolkien

Friends–

In my mind, the line above from Tolkien is an appreciative reference to hobbits, but I think it also describes much of GNUUC’s past and present (and, we hope, future). Our celebration of the 30th Anniversary of the congregation’s founding continues this Sunday, with a visit from the music director (Rev. Wesley King) and choir from our sibling congregation, First UU Nashville, and stories from our members about GNUUC’s people and programming over the years. Our corner of the world will be merrier for your presence, so I hope you’re planning to be with us!

Yours in food and cheer and song,
Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org