Notes from Rev. Denise

“We are so good at imagining dystopia…[but]…What does flourishing look like? 
How do we practice it?”     ~Laurel Schneider

“Our hands imbibe like roots, so I place them on what is beautiful in this world.” 

~Francis of Assissi

Beloveds–

Imagining dystopia isn’t something we need to work hard at, as human beings alive at this particular moment, but I think it might serve us well to think about flourishing, to consider how to practice it actively, to spread it around, to look for evidence of its existence and possibility. 

Surely beauty is part of flourishing, and I love the above words from the late medieval saint, best known as a preacher of the simple life and the patron of animals, who (I am realizing now) is often portrayed with hands reaching out to touch. I always assumed he was reaching out in compassion, care, nurturing (which I’m sure is true), but before encountering that quotation, it didn’t occur to me that he was also caring for his own soul by touching the beauty around him. 

Which leads me to wonder: What beauty have my hands encountered and imbibed? Here’s an entirely incomplete list from the last 24 hours: a thick, ancient (100 years, maybe older) vine crawling through the greenery on the hillside beside our sanctuary, a good friend in a hug, the hair of my children, the belly of the small dog who accompanies one of them to our house, the novel I finished this morning about the power of growth and community-building (The Girls Who Grew Big, by Leila Mottley), the mug, painted in Poland and gifted to me by my mother, out of which I drank this morning’s tea while reading. I could go on, but I’d rather think of you leaving this paragraph to go touch and imbibe the beauty of the world around you. 

The world is full of beauty. Please partake: I have a hunch our flourishing depends on it.

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

“We are so good at imagining dystopia…[but]…What does flourishing look like? 
How do we practice it?”     ~Laurel Schneider

“Our hands imbibe like roots, so I place them on what is beautiful in this world.” 

~Francis of Assissi

Beloveds–

Imagining dystopia isn’t something we need to work hard at, as human beings alive at this particular moment, but I think it might serve us well to think about flourishing, to consider how to practice it actively, to spread it around, to look for evidence of its existence and possibility. 

Surely beauty is part of flourishing, and I love the above words from the late medieval saint, best known as a preacher of the simple life and the patron of animals, who (I am realizing now) is often portrayed with hands reaching out to touch. I always assumed he was reaching out in compassion, care, nurturing (which I’m sure is true), but before encountering that quotation, it didn’t occur to me that he was also caring for his own soul by touching the beauty around him. 

Which leads me to wonder: What beauty have my hands encountered and imbibed? Here’s an entirely incomplete list from the last 24 hours: a thick, ancient (100 years, maybe older) vine crawling through the greenery on the hillside beside our sanctuary, a good friend in a hug, the hair of my children, the belly of the small dog who accompanies one of them to our house, the novel I finished this morning about the power of growth and community-building (The Girls Who Grew Big, by Leila Mottley), the mug, painted in Poland and gifted to me by my mother, out of which I drank this morning’s tea while reading. I could go on, but I’d rather think of you leaving this paragraph to go touch and imbibe the beauty of the world around you. 

The world is full of beauty. Please partake: I have a hunch our flourishing depends on it.

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

“Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise.” –Alice Walker
“Sanctuary is where we dream in safety.” – Leela Sinha

Dear Ones–

How has your summer been? I am “back” from time away from work, and although I travelled only a small bit (and that unexpectedly), it has been good to have time just for myself and family. Now I’m ready to see what this church year brings us and excited to live into our responses to each other and the world around us. How rich in surprise can we be? What dreams can we grow in the shelter of each other? 

Let’s find out!

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

“Ministry is always shared because liberation is always collective.”
~Rev. Robin Tanner

Beloveds,

I spent last week mostly online, participating first in Ministry Days with my colleagues (other members of the UU Ministers Association) and then in the General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), along with GNUUC delegates (Kristin Reveal and Caren Spencer-Smith). Your delegates and I met new people, considered the needs of our association and congregation, and voted on several issues of immediate concern, as well as the normal elections for UUA officers. I hope to report back to you a bit further in August. 

This week, I am preparing for our exploration on Sunday of the final piece of our GNUUC covenant, in which we promise “to support each other in thought, word, and deed, as we work to build a better world.” 

Our support for each other is truly shared ministry–both in the work of simply caring for each other and in the way it nourishes our efforts to build love and liberation in the world. We know we are not truly free until all of us are free (right?) and as the world around makes us ever more aware that we are not all free, the (sometimes) hard work we do in offering care and support to each other in our small corner of the world is a shared ministry that truly matters in the beautifully wide collective liberation for which we long.

Yours in sharing the challenges of ministry and the joy of liberation,

Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

P.S. This is my last eblast note for the 2024-25 church year! As is my custom, I shall be on vacation for the month of July (and I will miss you and look forward to seeing you again in August). If you’ve been wanting to talk with me, now is a great time to reach out and set a time to meet! And if you experience an urgent pastoral need while I am away, please call or email the church office (gnuuc@gnuuc.org; 615-673-7699) with a brief message with whatever information you are comfortable sharing, and our administrator, Kris, will connect you with a minister.

Dear Ones,

Just a quick note today, because I am participating in both Ministry Days and General Assembly this week. I am grateful that you are a congregation that supports me in maintaining connections with our Unitarian Universalist Association and in tapping the rich resources of learning, support, and community available in that association. Especially in these times, it is crucial for all of us that we strengthen the bonds between us. 

Yours in solidarity and hope amid all that is,
Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

P.S. Don’t forget: This Sunday we will meet early to watch the livestream of the worship service from General Assembly, beginning at 10 am.

“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way.
On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”
~Arundhati Roy

Friends,

We are, always, in between worlds, moving between what has been, what is, and what is on the way. We do this more or less gracefully, more or less willingly, and with all sorts of feelings about what is and about what is changing. I like the idea of pausing to listen for the breath of new possibilities as we struggle through the now.

At the moment, much of my attention is on Music Sunday: I’m still practicing my parts and looking forward to enjoying choral music during our joint gathering with the congregation of First UU Nashville. I am never so aware of breathing as when I sing. Wouldn’t it be something if breathing and singing together is part of the work of birthing another world–the world of which we dream: a world of belonging and transformations we have yet to imagine into being?

Yours in breathing and hoping,

Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

P.S. Plans for this Sunday have changed since last week: Due to AC problems in their sanctuary, our friends from First UU Nashville will gather with us for Music Sunday at GNUUC! The service starts at 10 am.

Beloveds,

Do you ever feel prickly and bloomy all at the same time?

Sometimes, poetry (like this, shared at a recent meeting) helps: 

For When People Ask 
by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

I want a word that means  
okay and not okay,
a word that means
devastated and stunned with joy.  
I want the word that says
I feel it all, all at once.
The heart is not like a songbird  
singing only one note at a time,
more like a Tuvan throat singer
able to sing both a drone
and simultaneously
two or three harmonics high above it—
a sound, the Tuvans say,  
that gives the impression
of wind swirling among rocks.
The heart understands the swirl,
how the churning of opposite feelings
weaves through us like an insistent breeze,
leads us wordlessly deeper into ourselves,  
blesses us with paradox
so we might walk more openly
into this world so rife with devastation,
this world so ripe with joy.

Yours in okay, not okay, and the swirling of our hearts,

Rev. Denise

RevDenise@gnuuc.org

P.S. That’s the cactus growing beside our parking lot, at the bottom of the hill, yesterday. (There are a few more buds. I wonder what will happen by Sunday…)

“We’ll never build a better world if we’re all
too afraid to knock on our neighbors’ doors.”
~Devon Price (on Medium)

Dear Ones,

In place of my usual column this week, I would like to share this call to (really enjoyable) action from our friends at TIRRC–Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition. 

For Kurdish and Turkish cuisine, my latest favorite is TashTea (in Antioch), but that might be because I love the option of sitting on cushions at a low table..Or just head to Nolensville Road and stop anywhere…Or remember the options in Bellevue. Dining out is a treat; it’s also one way to build a stronger community and a better world.

Yours in resistance and community,

Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

“Love is your trade, your mission, your job.
Why do you busy yourself with so many other tasks?
—Rumi

Beloveds,

As we gradually approach the end of our church year (officially, it ends on June 30), congregational leaders are busy with budgets and elections for our 2025-26 year. This is a month of looking back and making plans. Our annual congregational meeting will be on Sunday, May 18, immediately following the worship service. I hope you will join us! 

In the meantime, I’m reflecting on this year: what we have planned to do, how we have aspired to do it, and how it has actually gone and is continuing right now. Because our vision of ministry this year was centered around building community and because our UU values have been recently rearticulated as being centered on love, the above newly translated bit of Rumi jumped out at me recently. It’s prompted me to consider how I balance my personal trade/mission/job of love with all the tasks that keep me busy. And I’m beginning to consider how we as a congregation attend to the same balance. 

It’s tricky, no? Center love, but don’t forget the important meeting! Ignoring the tasks entirely does not create more love and community in the world, even if the tasks can sometimes distract us from the mission.

Looking over the last several months, I find many examples of us acting together to be welcoming and caring with each other and with our wider communities, to build community and celebrate the giftedness of every person, as we were charged to do in our 2024-25 Vision of Ministry. I hope you’ll join us this Sunday for my (now almost traditional) “annual report” to the congregation, in which we will review this year's vision of ministry and consider how it has served us, and how well we have pursued it.

Yours in living our mission amidst all the tasks, 

Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.”
~Flannery O’Connor

AND

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

Beloveds,

I’ve been living a challenging season. 
Perhaps you have, too.
AND
I am supported by all that connects us and me and all that is.
It will be okay: this I know.

Yours in connection and faith, 
Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org 

P.S. I am away from church this week (and perhaps next week) on medical leave while I care for a family member. If you find yourself with an immediate need for pastoral care while I am out, please email gnuuc@gnuuc.org, with a note that you need pastoral care, and Kris (our administrator) will put you in touch with one of our affiliated ministers. 

“Standing up to the abuse of power is inherently difficult.
It can also be inspiring.”
~NYTimes Editorial Board

Friends,

Last weekend (Sunday, April 6) the editorial board of the New York Times published an essay entitled “A Playbook for Standing Up to President Trump”. Since I would usually refrain from naming politicians in my ministerial work, I suggest you consider it an essay about resisting those in power who refuse to act justly and follow rules. I found it to contain wisdom, among which is a three-step “playbook” which I would summarize as follows: 

In the face of the bullies (such as those who use their power without regard to serving those they are sworn to serve), we must cultivate: 

-Recognition that capitulation is doomed (since bullies offer no promises for future behavior),

-Insistence on due process (or a belief in the work and trustworthiness of the courts)  [This is hard for some of us!], and

-Solidarity (with those who are harmed), especially if we ourselves have not (yet) been targeted.

The news each day brings fresh examples of situations in which we have the opportunity to cultivate these attitudes and pursue related strategies. I am participating in the Rise for Freedom trainings currently being offered on Thursday evenings. See below for information about how to join–either virtually, or in our very own sanctuary!

Yours in persistence and solidarity, 

Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org 

P.S. I will be away from church next week (and perhaps the following week) on medical leave while I care for a family member. If you find yourself with an immediate need for pastoral care while I am out, please email gnuuc@gnuuc.org, with a note that you need pastoral care, and Kris (our administrator) will put you in touch with one of our affiliated ministers.

“Traditions are the inventions of people who mean to
routinely put love and comfort and meaning into
their lives and the lives of those they love.”
~Elizabeth Berg

Dear Ones,

These next three months, April, May, and June, also known as the 4th quarter of our congregational and UUA fiscal/church year, are full of traditions! Some of them, like our recent (and very successful) fundraising auction, we tend to think of as fun community-building events and look forward to every spring. Others, like the stewardship pledge drive and our annual GNUUC business meeting to vote for officers of the congregation and approve our budget for the coming year starting in July, we tend to think of as necessities (because they are) and perhaps to dismiss as boring or tedious–which I’d like to challenge you to reframe!

Thinking about our money–where it comes from and how we deploy it–and about how we organize our time and talents and skills to sustain congregational life are, obviously, ongoing tasks all year long. But every spring, we ask that everyone join in the projects of making annual pledges of financial support and practicing our core commitment to democracy by attending our meeting. These two crucial practices safeguard the continuity of our resources and are, in a sense, some of our most important congregational traditions. Individually as members, and together as a congregation, these are ways we routinely put love and comfort and meaning into our own lives and work to extend our welcome and care into the wider community, as our mission and vision of ministry direct. 

Our pledge drive will be ongoing over the next two weeks, and our annual meeting will be held immediately following our Sunday service on May 18. I look forward to your participation in our rituals of planning and renewal!

Yours in springtime renewal, 

Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org