Jul 1, 2026

“I teach my sighs to lengthen into songs,
Yet, like a tree endure the shift of things.” 
~Theodore Roethke (The Renewal)

Dear Ones,

It’s July, a month I have usually reserved for vacation from my work as a minister. Most years, I find it very helpful to have some time away, but this year is a little different. Because we as a congregation have some exciting things coming up early in the fall (the UU the Vote Solidarity Summit in Memphis, Sept. 18-20, and my installation as settled minister at GNUUC on Sept. 26), I am going to continue working on these special projects through July, but on a limited basis. I will be trying to give myself space to allow a few sighs to lengthen into songs and to enjoy time with my family. 

What this means for you: you may not see me on Sundays or at meetings, and I will not be checking email regularly or responding to most church-related Slack messages, phonecalls, or texts. However, if you find yourself in urgent need of pastoral care, please be in touch with the church office (see below).

This summer, may our sighs lengthen into songs of surprising beauty and perhaps joy, and may we all find a sense of graceful endurance among the shift of things. 

Yours, with sighs and songs and (as always) the trees,
Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

P.S. During the month of July, if you find yourself in urgent need of pastoral care, please email gnuuc@gnuuc.org or leave a message on the phone at church requesting pastoral care. Be sure to state that you are asking for pastoral care and leave your name and contact information.

P.P.S. If you are (like many of us) feeling some feelings about certain so-called justice decisions that came down yesterday, I commend to you today’s blog post from the Rev. Kimberly Debus: Unalienable Rights. She has challenging and hopeful words just for us Unitarian Universalists.

what is my gender to a night sky?
my pronouns to an ocean who opens for me? 
~Isa Borgeson,  

Beloveds,

The lines above are the last two of Borgeson’s poem entitled “[last summer I folded my dresses into storage]”. Please do not read them as dismissing or minimizing the importance of gender and pronouns or the deeply human work of self-discovery and self-naming. (You can read the whole poem here, along with a note about it from the author.) What I read in this invocation of sky and sea is an assurance that we–however we identify ourselves–are above all part of a whole that is generously wide and welcoming. I hope we each feel a bit of that now and then; I think both we and the world depend on that.

Yours in all the pride and all the pronouns,
Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

P.S. This evening TUUCAN* is sponsoring what looks like a good warmup for Sunday’s Pride Service: 
The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee is heading up a "comment campaign to oppose the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) rule that would strip safety protections from federally funded shelters for transgender, nonbinary, two-spirit, and intersex people. The main action page can be found at www.UUSC.org/Pride-In-Action. TUUCAN is hosting an action hour on June 24th (tonight!) at 8 pm on Zoom. The action hour is a space for people to come together and find out about the comment process and then send in their response. (You can follow the UUSC link above to submit a comment on your own.) 

Here is the registration link for the TUUCAN action hour. Please share!
*TN UU Community Action Network, of which GNUUC is a founding member

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: 
it is the courage to continue that counts.” 
~Winston Churchill

Friends,

In honor of General Assembly (the annual Unitarian Universalist exercise in self-government, group discernment, and fellowship that is going on this week), I thought about offering you Churchill's famous (albeit somewhat snarky) comment about democracy being imperfect but better than everything else that’s been tried. 

Instead: his reminder that success and failure are impermanent and that courage in the task of keeping on with the work in front of us is a more important focus seems a good answer to much of this week’s discouraging news as well as a good companion in my work this week, of joining with ministerial colleagues and UUs from far and wide, to conduct the business of our association (the UUA). 

Heading back to Zoom now, but looking forward to seeing you on Sunday,

Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

P.S. Reminder: Instead of our usual Sunday service, we will be joining the service being live-streamed on Sunday morning from the General Assembly of our Unitarian Universalist Association. You also have the option to arrive before the service for a sing-along on Zoom! Please join us in our sanctuary or on Zoom; see below for the times. See below for the time: these events are earlier than our usual Sunday meeting time!

“We can save our insects, our birds, and nature itself. 
But we have to change the way we landscape to do it.” 
~Doug Tallamy 

Beloveds,

A few of us (administrator Kris T., Building & Grounds chair Lisa G., and member Gina A., and me) spent time yesterday afternoon with Tennessee Certified Naturalist candidate Brenda Huff. We discussed the possibility of Brenda completing certification requirements by donating time and expertise to our congregation. Then we toured our memorial garden with Brenda, who has some wonderful ideas for tending and improving our sacred space, making it more sustainable and welcoming. All agreed that this could be a mutually beneficial arrangement.

In the course of our conversations, Brenda introduced me to the idea of certified bird sanctuaries, as encouraged by The Habitat Connection, a local organization whose “goal is to empower Middle Tennesseans to regenerate native habitat on their properties in order to improve ecosystem health and connectivity for birds and other life forms, including us.” The quotation above is from their website. As I read it, I had a moment of synchronicity: remembering our service on Sunday, which introduced our monthly theme of Flourishing Together, while entering into partnership with someone who is glad of an opportunity to provide us with skilled services and advice and imagining how many creatures (humans old & young, birds and insects, and plants) will benefit from Brenda’s work and our continuing stewardship of the garden and hillside. I look forward to the fruits of this collaboration!

Yours in the pursuit and joy of flourishing for all,
Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

Tomorrow belongs to those of us who conceive of it as belonging to everyone, 
who lend the best of ourselves to it, and with joy.
~Audre Lorde

Dear Ones,

Here in Middle Tennessee, it’s one of those charming early-summer days that makes hope and joy easier: the sky is clear blue, the temperature started out pleasantly cool, leaves are swaying in a gentle breeze. It’s not hard this morning to imagine (with joy, even) that all of this belongs to all of us. It’s not hard, watching the plants and squirrels and birds, chatting with neighbors, friends, and strangers encountered on errands, to extend belonging and best wishes for well-being to everything around me. 

What’s harder, in anxious and fearful times, is remembering to use such moments of peace and just-rightness to anchor ourselves in choosing to flourish together while casting an ever-expanding circle of togetherness. This is the project to which our UU values commit us; it is the project that might bring us into a tomorrow of which we still dare to dream.

Yours in the grace of the easy moments and the joy of mutual flourishing,

Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

Find the thing that stirs your heart and make room for it. 
Life is about the development of self to the point of unbridled joy.
~Joan Chittister

Friends,

Joan Chittister is a Catholic theologian who has spent her life (now entering a tenth decade!) as a Benedictine nun and abbess. I tell you this because I am quite certain that her idea of self-development toward joy does not emerge from a commitment to individuality, but is deeply rooted in a communal understanding of human personhood and growth and commitment to mutual service and flourishing. 

Chittister’s words move me to curiosity in several directions: 

-What makes my/your/our heart/s stir and reach for joy?
-How do we make room in our lives for what moves us? Is this a strenuous project, or more of an opening & allowing shift in attitude?
-Do we pay enough attention to our hearts? Enough of the right kind of attention? Can curiosity help?
-What would it look like to prioritize “unbridled joy” as the pinnacle of human development? (Oh my!)

No answers right now; just lots of questions–but they are questions that make me happy even in their framing…

Yours in curiosity and joy,
Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

May 20, 2026

“Have compassion for everyone you meet.
You do not know what wars are going on 
down there where the spirit meets the bone.”
~Miller Williams

Dear Ones,

I returned late yesterday from a trip that included both mourning and celebration, along with generous doses of both stress and comfort in togetherness. I am one of four siblings who have been thrown into all of this together and have had ample opportunity over the last few weeks to practice curiosity and compassion regarding the unknown struggles we and those around us are experiencing. Returning today to our monthly theme of awakening curiosity, I am struck by the possibility that gentle curiosity about others–the openness of it as a starting point, without expectations of having that curiosity satisfied–can orient us toward offering compassion in our daily encounters. 

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

May 13, 2026

“What could we achieve if we allowed everyone to reorient 
from escaping desperation to pursuing happiness?”
~Jared K. Anderson

Beloveds,

I hope you enjoyed a splendid Flower Communion last weekend; I am sorry to have missed it, but thinking of all the shared beauty in our sanctuary is causing a smile to spread across my face as I write.

In this month of curiosity, I wonder if we have the capacity to imagine what it would be like to truly honor the pursuit of happiness as an important part of being alive–not just for all humans (as much of a stretch as that would be) but for all the creatures of our earth. We pretty obviously acknowledge that animals feel something like the happiness we do, but I think we also intuit the same about plants (you know what I mean if I say a plant looks “sad”, right?), and I personally sometimes have similar intuitions about things like rocks or stars or mountains, and I suspect many, if not most, of us do, too. 

And if we accept that we have such imaginative capacity, I am further curious about what it would look, feel, taste like to escape the capitalist project that drives so many humans into the never-ending fear of need and imperfection that separates us from happiness and from the people and world around us. 

I wonder: if we prioritized a broadly universal happiness, what might we achieve?

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

P.S. As mentioned in last week’s email, I am away from work through May 19. If during this time you experience a pastoral emergency, please contact the church office by phone or email (615-673-7699; gnuuc@gnuuc.org). Please state in your message that you need pastoral care, and our administrator, Kris Thresher, will connect you with a local minister-in-training who has agreed to be available.

“There is nothing but blunt forgiveness.”
~Kate Baer, “Dream Death”

Beloveds,

The season of tumbling turmoil I wrote about a couple weeks ago is ongoing in my life, and I will be taking some time off work to attend to big family milestones. I will be unavailable from Saturday, May 9, through Tuesday, May 19. See notes in the postscript below about how to access care in the event of a pastoral emergency.  

Meanwhile, here’s the rest of the lovely poem “Dream Death” from Kate Baer’s book How About Now?:

I walk into the great blue.
There is nothing but blunt forgiveness.
But what of hell?
What of fury?
What of good intention?

The great eye blinks.
The great mouth yawns.
As I swallow this,
So peace swallows me.

I’ve been thinking lately of my propensity to assure others (and myself, too) in times of distress that “It will be okay.” I’m realizing that phrase no longer feels true to me or to many around me. One of my adult children has taken to saying instead, “It will be.” Sometimes things are not okay, but maybe, as Baer’s poem suggests, there is still a great, blue space where we encounter forgiveness and peace.

Yours in peace and love despite it all,
Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

P.S. As noted above, I will be away from work May 9-19. If during that time you experience a pastoral emergency, please contact the church office by phone or email (615-673-7699; gnuuc@gnuuc.org). Please state in your message that you need pastoral care, and our administrator, Kris Thresher, will connect you with a local minister-in-training who has agreed to be available.