Mar. 29, 2023

“It’s hard to be human.”
–David W. Lewis

Dear Ones,

We have a mantra of sorts in my household, articulated many years ago by my partner, David, and repeated many times. (Mostly by me. I seem to have a knack for gathering wise words from others and repeating them over & over–go figure.) “It’s hard to be human” turns out to be useful in so many situations when our thoughts and feelings seem inadequate to the task of making sense of human behavior and experience. For me, it suggests that whatever we’re facing isn’t so much senseless as it is difficult and arising out of the different complexities of different lives. It also suggests that extending grace and understanding and compassion as far as we can (without violence to ourselves) may be a good default response to cultivate.

It’s been a hard week to be human in Nashville. In the aftermath of Monday’s shooting, we are feeling many things, wondering what happened and why, worrying about safety, and casting about for ways to respond to tragedy that honor those most deeply affected and align with our deepest values.

Please be gentle with yourself in the coming days and know that I am here and available should you need a shoulder to lean on. 

Please be gentle with those around you and remember that some of them may be processing unthinkable grief or riding waves of fear. 

Finally, whatever your experience of this tragedy, please consider how our sorrow and care for each other and all our Nashville neighbors might be transformed into action, working for sane and sensible gun safety laws and recommitting to building a world in which every person is welcomed, included, and supported. 

Yours in sorrow and love, 

Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

 Mar 8, 2023

“Between rocking the boat and sitting down, between stirring things up and peaceably going along, we find ourselves here, in community.”

–Manish K. Mishra-Marzetti

Friends,

Lots of planning going on these days: We are looking forward to springtime activities like eating outside, enjoying the memorial garden, our fundraising auction, the congregation’s annual meeting, and the stewardship drive that will make it possible for our Finance Team to propose a budget for members to approve at that meeting. 

Last Sunday, we talked about vulnerability during the service and sharing money and time after lunch. Lots of you are looking for ways to create justice and nurture love in our congregation and in our world!

Because concern around gender and sexuality issues came up several times, I wanted to suggest two possibilities for supporting work in the wider world that aligns well with UU/GNUUC values: 

1. The Tennessee Equality Project works tirelessly for the equality of LGBTQ people in Tennessee. Sign up for their email list at https://www.tnep.org/ (or connect on social media) to be in the loop to donate, learn, write/call our legislators, or join other Tennesseans in meeting with legislators. I find it very satisfying to read about what’s going on and immediately click through to let state legislators know what I think!

2. On Tuesday, March 21, Planned Parenthood is asking people of faith to participate in their Advocacy Day in Nashville, and UUs in Eastern Tennessee are planning to participate and have reached out to our congregation, hoping we will join them. Save the date; I’ll have more details to share later!

Yours in love and hope for justice, 

Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

P.S. As I write, there are six hawks circling over the hill outside our windows! 

 Mar 1, 2023

“Amen. Blessed be.”
–Me
(concluding walking/swinging meditation yesterday)

Dear ones,

When new green things are growing and the sky is (really!) that color, nothing else needs to be said. 

Yours in peace and love for our campus,

Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

 Feb 15, 2023

“May our love bless everyone.”

–Pool of Love, Alexa Sunshine Rose

Dear Ones,

I’ve been seeing the first signs of spring (birds getting busy, yellow things flowering), and I want to encourage you this week to think about your emergence from the hibernation of winter, too. I just happen to have a few suggestions:

A few GNUUC leaders and I hope you will join us for one of several listening circles being offered on the next two Sunday afternoons (at GNUUC, in person) and one afternoon and one evening next week/weekend on Zoom. These will be a chance to share with each other why GNUUC is important in our lives and to dream a little bit about possible futures for our congregation. We had an amazing time planning and practicing this circle experience and look forward to sharing it with you. 

Nashville Organized for Action and Hope (NOAH) is undertaking its every-few-years Listening Campaign (about which I consistently hear rave reviews from participants) to discern and select its action issues for the next few years. See the announcement below if you are interested in being a listener here at GNUUC, please say “yes” if a listener asks to talk with you, and save the date of April 30 to attend the NOAH Issues Convention to help represent GNUUC as we (the member organizations of NOAH) set our priorities for the upcoming years.

Finally, the General Assembly (GA) of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), which takes place every June, is happening in Pittsburgh, PA this year. Maybe you’d like to attend in person or remotely? Please find more information below and consider if you’d like to represent our congregation as a delegate or just to meet other UUs and learn more about the exercise of democracy (and oh, so many other things!) in our larger movement. It’s going to be a busy GA, with a presidential election and lots of voting, including an amendment to the UUA Bylaws. 

None of us can do all of the good stuff there is to do. If you’d like help figuring out how to focus your springtime energies, I love a good discernment conversation–email me!

Yours in love and so many possibilities,

Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

 Feb 15, 2023

“May our love bless everyone.”

–Pool of Love, Alexa Sunshine Rose

Dear Ones,

I’ve been seeing the first signs of spring (birds getting busy, yellow things flowering), and I want to encourage you this week to think about your emergence from the hibernation of winter, too. I just happen to have a few suggestions:

A few GNUUC leaders and I hope you will join us for one of several listening circles being offered on the next two Sunday afternoons (at GNUUC, in person) and one afternoon and one evening next week/weekend on Zoom. These will be a chance to share with each other why GNUUC is important in our lives and to dream a little bit about possible futures for our congregation. We had an amazing time planning and practicing this circle experience and look forward to sharing it with you. 

Nashville Organized for Action and Hope (NOAH) is undertaking its every-few-years Listening Campaign (about which I consistently hear rave reviews from participants) to discern and select its action issues for the next few years. See the announcement below if you are interested in being a listener here at GNUUC, please say “yes” if a listener asks to talk with you, and save the date of April 30 to attend the NOAH Issues Convention to help represent GNUUC as we (the member organizations of NOAH) set our priorities for the upcoming years.

Finally, the General Assembly (GA) of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), which takes place every June, is happening in Pittsburgh, PA this year. Maybe you’d like to attend in person or remotely? Please find more information below and consider if you’d like to represent our congregation as a delegate or just to meet other UUs and learn more about the exercise of democracy (and oh, so many other things!) in our larger movement. It’s going to be a busy GA, with a presidential election and lots of voting, including an amendment to the UUA Bylaws. 

None of us can do all of the good stuff there is to do. If you’d like help figuring out how to focus your springtime energies, I love a good discernment conversation–email me!

Yours in love and so many possibilities,

Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

“Spring is coming…”
–Carrie Newcomer

Friends,

Imbolc Blessings to you all! 

Tonight & tomorrow, in the European-derived pagan traditions (and quite likely others I don’t know) the beginning of the end of winter is marked with the Festival of Imbolc. Make a cup of your favorite hot beverage and do an online search–it’s a rich tradition that arguably should be retrieved. It’s a time to think about fertility–early spring planting, fresh food to come, October babies!–and healing and blacksmithing and crafts. Brigid is a multi-talented patron; google her, too, while you’re at it.

Here’s one of my favorite end-of-winter/waiting for spring songs, from Carrie Newcomer: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLg1pCeiZUk

Yours in all that is not yet, and not soon, but surely coming,
Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

January 25, 2023

Beloveds,

During last Sunday’s service I had a poem for which we didn’t have time, so I am sharing it here, as promised. Parallel to my sermon’s message that dark and light are both important parts of life, each holding gifts and opportunities for us, this poem speaks (to me, anyway) of the intermingled realities of relationship and loss, which together render us “empty and full at once”.

HOLES
by Lillian Morrison

Strangest of gaps
their goneness-
mother, father, loved friends

the black holes
of the astronomer
are not more mysterious

this kind of hole
will not be filled
with candle flames
or even a thousand thoughts

the hole is inside us
it brims over
is empty and full at once.

Yours in the dark and the light, in love and in loss,

Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

Dec 28, 2022

“Nothing can be more useful … than a determination not to be hurried.”
–Henry David Thoreau 

Dear Ones,

Happy 4th Day of Christmas!

Even more than in a “normal” year (what is that anyway? I’m having trouble remembering…), I’m feeling a need to embrace the season of the winter holidays this year. 

Celebrating a single moment like a solstice, or a day like the appointed anniversary of a birth can be profound and glorious and uplifting, but it also oversimplifies the reality that our lives are complicated and rich with emotional states that don’t consistently align with planetary and celestial movements or with our desires, any more than our planet’s meteorological phenomenon align with our plans for celebration. 

It seems wise to me to stretch out important celebrations that call for joy and merriment–like having eight days of Hanukkah or seven days of Kwanzaa or twelve days of Christmas in the Western European tradition. (In case the marketers have confused you, the Twelve Days of Christmas start on Dec. 25 and run through Jan. 6, the feast of the Epiphany, when the kings/magi/wise guys found Jesus). Larger containers leave space for all sorts of things besides feeling deliriously happy or even moderately merry: reflection, grief, quiet contentment, disappointment, work (always in the background of any good celebration), rest, boredom, restlessness, excitement, and … oh, what else? 

What are you experiencing this week between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve? Whatever it is, it is absolutely and most assuredly part of being human and, as such, welcome and worthy of notice and holding well–with gentleness, appreciation, and wonder. 

Yours in merrymaking and rest and all the feels,

Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

P.S. If you haven’t yet seen this year’s Holiday Message from the UUA, featuring UUA President Rev. Dr. Susan Frederick-Gray, I recommend it!

“Make a vow when solstice comes, to find the light in everyone.”

–Mary Chapin Carpenter

Beloveds,

It is the winter solstice–Yule in the old, old (older than Christianity) calendars of European peoples–the shortest day/longest night of the year. This year, that long night coincides with the fourth night of Hanukkah, so there are lots of reasons to light candles! Here’s one of my favorite modern solstice songs: Mary Chapin Carpenter’s “The Longest Night of the Year”.  (Or try this just-Mary-Chapin-and-her-guitar version, from December 2020.)

I hope you have a chance to enjoy the sunlight today, and luxuriate in the long darkness that will follow. Maybe light a candle, but definitely notice the “light” and the “dark.” We need them both. 

Important Note: I hope to see you at our Christmas Eve service at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday. As you may have heard, we have interesting weather heading our way, bringing very cold temperatures that will stick around for a few days. Please stay safe and warm, and plan to check our website (nashvilleuu.org) on Saturday after 10:30 a.m. to confirm whether the service will be (as we hope) a hybrid service (in the sanctuary and on Zoom) or on Zoom only. 

Our Christmas Eve service will start at 3:30, but we will be enjoying holiday music together starting around 3:10, so please arrive/log in early, if you can.

Yours in light and dark and winter storms,

Rev. Denise
RevDenise@gnuuc.org

P.S. I do hope you are planning to join us on Christmas Eve at 3:30 p.m. (in the sanctuary or on Zoom) for a celebration of light, with music and readings and candles for all!