Catholic priest and mystic Henri Nouwen wrote “The spiritual life is that constant movement between the poles of loneliness and solitude, hostility and hospitality, illusion and prayer.” What does he mean by that? How can we live our lives with a sense of spirit or wonder and awe at the center?
Speaker; Rev.Terry Davis
Rev Terry is the part-time minister of UU Fellowship of Hendersonville.
She found Unitarian Universalism and her spiritual home at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta, where she was a 20-year member. In her ministry, she has served as the neo-natal intensive care unit chaplain at Emory University Midtown Hospital in Atlanta; as the pastoral care minister at Eliot Chapel, a 600-member Unitarian Universalist congregation in St. Louis, Missouri; and as the solo minister at Northwest Unitarian Universalist Congregation, a 250-member faith community in suburban Atlanta.
Terry and her spouse Gail Hyde moved to Asheville in 2019 after Gail’s retirement as CIO of Habitat for Humanity International. During the early years of the pandemic, Terry completed an intensive two-year spiritual director certification program with the Haden Institute, an international and ecumenical program grounded in Jungian psycho-spiritual teachings.
She has a private spiritual direction and short-term counseling practice in Asheville. And, for fun and as food for her soul, on Saturdays, Rev. Davis serves as a “Craggy Rover” (volunteer park ranger) on a 5,892-foot peak high above the Blue Ridge Parkway for the National Park Service.
UUFH Choir; Virginia Erwin, Interim Choir Director; Shirley Gruenhut, Piano Accompanist
Virginia Erwin retired with her husband, Michael, to beautiful Hendersonville in 2018. She is the mother of two and the grandmother of two.
Before retiring, Virginia taught voice and music history for over thirty years. Her original voice training, at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, prepared her for opening a private voice studio. Later, with advanced degrees in Education from Syracuse University, and in conducting from the University of Virginia, she taught Music Appreciation and Classical Voice on the faculty of Piedmont Virginia Community College.
As a member of NATS and ACDA, she also directed several church choirs in Maryland and in Virginia. Before moving to the mountains, she accepted the position of Music Director of the Blue Ridge Chorale in Culpeper Virginia, where she remained for seven years, until her move to the NC mountains. . While in Virginia, she wrote and produced several educational musical plays for Charlottesville students.
Since retiring, Virginia enjoys most of all the opportunity for choral and solo singing. She also gardens, walks her two huge dogs, and works at playing golf, which she thinks is much harder than singing.
Shirley Gruenhut is an avid chamber music player and New York native who now calls Hendersonville home. A graduate of Brooklyn College, she was the first time recipient of the prestigious Charles Ives Award for excellence in musical performance. She studied graduate level piano accompaniment at the Manhattan School of Music. She assisted at the Metropolitan Opera House studios and has performed regularly in New York, as well as Europe and Israel. Shirley is a member of ACMA-Association of Classical Musicians and Artists, Sing For Hope, and ACMP-Association of Chamber Music Players. She is also a professional member of AAPF, the Asheville Area Piano Forum. She was founder of several chamber music ensembles
