An Adventure in Music City: To Trinity, and beyond....

Trinity Presbyterian Church

I cannot believe I have gone this long into my placement without talking about Trinity Presbyterian Church. While living in Nashville, each YAV is placed with a local church and in my case that is Trinity Presbyterian Church, along with my housemate, Ashley. Trinity is a small congregation, but one that is alive with love for everyone, hope for the future, and joy in the present. Trinity Presbyterian is one of three More Light churches in Nashville, which means they support full inclusion and participation of the LGBT community. It's an inspiring movement, everyone should check it out. Ashley and I were also each given a host family while at Trinity. The sanctuary is beautiful, it provides a much different atmosphere than the one I am used to at State College Presbyterian. Trinity's sanctuary has a sort of ethereal feel to it; simple stained glass windows in light blue, yellow and red, a large stained glass cross at the front of the church that allows the natural light in, simply, light colored wood, and high vaulted ceilings. I really do love it.

From the very beginning, and even before that the congregation at Trinity has shown the most remarkable compassion and welcome into their church family. After we returned from orientation in New York, one of our "hosts" at the church, Judy, stopped by the house with an envelope full of letters and messages expressing everyone's excitement about meeting us at church! Well, Ashley and I absolutely loved that and knew good things were in store this coming year. And we were right!

Our first Sunday, we were enthusiastically introduced during the service by Pastor Heidi. Afterwards there were refreshments and of course everyone wanted to introduce himself or herself, which was excellent but it was hard to keep track of names. I am still working on learning everyone's name, but either way everyone is beyond wonderful to us each week! It was probably our third week when we were commissioned into our year of service in Nashville, with Trinity at our side. Our commissioning included Ashley, myself, my host family (Rachel and son Diego), Ashley's host family (Pam and Fran), Heidi, Judy (another host), and Janet (our spiritual/vocational director, if she had been there.) We were surrounded by people who already loved us and whole heartily had accepted us despite knowing us for only a few weeks. Defying all odds, I agreed to be the liturgist one Sunday. I was hesitant because of my past experiences (and humiliation) but it went really well, I can only hope the curse is broken.

Our wee cabin at NaCoMe

Discussing tactics for the
horseshoe tournament.

Our first activity with Trinity was family camp at Camp NaCoMe. Ashley and I went for Friday night and stayed through the afternoon on Saturday. It was a good chance to meet many of the people at Trinity and get to know them a bit more. Ashley and I especially appreciated the drive through the country which reminded us both of what we are used to at home. We had good food (delicious cinnamon rolls!), and good fellowship with the people who will be our family for
the next year.

Within a few more weeks, we had lunch with the entire Trinity staff, which is probably about 7 people, and the 3 loyal bulletin folders (women who come in each Friday to fold all the bulletins for Sunday, how wonderful!) Out of that lunch, we gained some wonderful relationships, and multiple outings planned. Ashley and I spent a Friday with Lillius (apparently a distant relative of the one and only Minnie Pearl!) She took us out to lunch at The Harding House, the restaurant at the historic Belle Meade Plantation. Then we moved on to Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art; unfortunately, it was one of the coldest days in October so we didn't do too much walked around outside, but the inside exhibit about the American West was pretty interesting. Lillius continues to apologize to this day about how much she talked, but she was absolutely wonderful and she gave us a social and historical tour of Nashville. We also drove around town looking at some of the magnificent houses (which is something that I loooove to do.) We drove down the "Boulevard" (said in the a delicate Southern drawl for the full effect), which is apparently THE place to live in Nashville, only to best of the best have to honor of living on that road. It was interesting, and the houses were huge!

Ashley, Lillius, and me at Cheekwood

The Hermitage

Two weekends ago, the administrative assistant at Trinity, Linda, took us to The Hermitage, Andrew Jackson's old estate. Linda grew up on the lot next to The Hermitage and used to play in the gardens, and yard of the estate as a child so she had a sentimental attachment to this historical landmark. Ashley and I met her there to begin our marathon day at the Hermitage. We got our tickets, retrieved our audio equipment for the audio tour, headed up to the mansion, hopped on our horse and cart tour, then took a tour through the mansion, then back to the museum for the orientation video (we did things a little backwards), then a quick look through the museum and we.were.starving!!! It was a really interesting day, though. My favorite part was our narrated horse and cart tour; the man who was our guide really brought the realities of life on the estate to life. We learned were the different slave quarters were (fieldworkers, industrial workers, housemaids, cooks, etc.) and saw the fields, the well, the carriage house, and many other things. They say that as far as owning slaves went, Andrew Jackson treated his relatively well. He believed that the slaves deserved a part of their work so they were allowed to grow their own gardens, take home some of the harvest, and he tried to keep families together. Hopefully this is true, but it is mostly speculation. We ended the day passing by Tulip Grove, another Jackson home, and the old Hermitage Presbyterian Church, and then it was finally off to get some lunch!

A few weeks ago, Ashley and I were contacted by Heidi to see if we had any interest in being Sunday School teachers, what?! There was a need to split up the current Youth Sunday School (6-12 grade) because the maturity levels were so extremely different and it was causing some complications during Sunday mornings. After a little hesitation (on my part, not Ashley's), we agreed to be the Younger Youth Sunday School teachers. This includes 6th and 7th grade, and at Trinity that covers at most 6 kids, but only 4 girls ever seem to show up. We are having a lot of fun with them, they sure have a lot of personality, and a lot to say!

Our latest Trinity experience was Thanksgiving! First of all, the Sunday before Thanksgiving we had pre-Thanksgiving luncheon, which was delicious! Then, Heidi, her husband, and their son had us over for Thanksgiving on Thursday. It didn't make a lot of sense for me to try and make it home for only about 3 days so I stayed in Nashville, and I was definitely missing being at home for the holiday. But, I couldn't have asked for a better place to be if I couldn't be with family! The four of us that remained went to Heidi's house and ate some delicious food, played Jim's numerous instruments, and just hung out. It was really lovely! And, it was Ashley's very first Thanksgiving (she is from Northern Ireland so they don't really celebrate Thanksgiving, as you might suspect!)