Nativity Newsletter

Margaret Love Denman

by Sally Lott McLellan

If you want a conversational journey that hops from topic to topic, country to country, fact to fiction, reminisces to reality – Margaret Love Denman is your girl. I told her talking with her is like joyfully jumping from stone to stone in a quickly moving stream – balance is needed but the adventure makes it worthwhile!

Margaret Love moved to Water Valley in 2023 after selling her mother’s house in Oxford. A native of Oxford, she was a Gathright of the long-standing Gathright-Reed Drug Store on the Square. She grew up Presbyterian but found the Episcopal church through a college friend at Ole Miss, where she studied English, History and French. After finishing graduate school at Ole Miss and more graduate studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she wrote her first novel, A Scrambling After Circumstance. During her teaching career she was at the University of New Hampshire for twenty years, twelve of which were as creative writing director. One of her books, Daily, Before Your Eyes, is a work of fiction based on a single woman on death row in Mississippi that took seven years to write, and if you read even a few pages you’ll understand why. There’s a good bit of legal-ese and also the culture of Parchman (where women were once housed), but most profoundly is the detail that describes the people and the settings and the feelings of sadness and angst and regret and forgiveness.

She came to Nativity in search of a community of people who have a strong sense of what others need. Community is the flame that keeps Margaret Love burning. She’s looked for community all her life, she said, but not many of us would have traveled to such lengths and heights and distances to secure that commitment. When “community” first became a guiding point in her life it was through Cursillo, a lay-led apostolic movement that began in Spain and functions across Catholic, Episcopal, and Methodist traditions (a short course in Christian living). Her first experience with Cursillo was 50 years ago and she’s had a committed and active role in it since then, serving as staff or doing “whatever needs to be done.” After finding Cursillo it was but a step (some would say a huge leap) to becoming a member of a community on the small island of Cumbray, Scotland, where she and her family lived for three years, living with and working with other people with Matthew 25 at the heart of their mission to be stewards of what God has provided. During that time she lived in a household of 18 (eight of whom were children) and only one bathroom --“That will teach you patience, for sure,” she said. She loved it so much she didn’t want to come home --and she knows her children still bear the fruit of having lived there, as they all believe that social justice is something that everyone should work toward. “They are all authentic, questioners, seekers.” she proudly says, and noted that it’s the same with Nativity with its open and loving community where its people have a sense of what others need.

“I’m sorry we don’t have a priest at Nativity, but look how well we’ve done because people show up. And it’s so encouraging to see that we are growing, even without a priest.” says Margaret Love.  “A church is not the priest, it is the people.”

She points our that heritage doesn’t have to be family, but it can be, and often is, the community that we find. Citing Psalm 16:5, You, O Lord, are the portion of my inheritance and my cup; You maintain my lot. The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places. Yes, I have a good inheritance.” We are family at Nativity, and that beautiful inheritance is being passed on.

Sunday, May 24th - Pentecost & Baptism

Those Who Serve

Celebrant: The Reverend Ann Whitaker

Music: Brenda/Katherine

LEM: Michael

Altar Guild: Vivian

Lectors: Sean and Tommy

Offertory: Benjamin and Herschel

MC POD: Patricia

Lessons

• Acts 2:1-21

• or Numbers 11:24-30

• 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13

• or Acts 2:1-21

• John 20:19-23

• or John 7:37-39

• Psalm 104:25-35, 37

The Flowers on the Altar Sunday are given to the Glory of God in thanksgiving for the life of Clyde Robinson who gave up his birthday flowers in February for Lent.

Collect for Nativity

Father of all wisdom and love,

In whose wisdom we trust and in whose love we dwell.

We come asking you to guide us as we search for a new shepherd for this flock, a new teacher for those who seek, and for a steadfast companion who will walk with us along the way.

All this we ask in the name of our creator, redeemer and sustainer, one God, whose mercy endures forever. Amen

Announcements

• Nativity Women's Book Group meets one last time Saturday from 9-10:30 Salt & Light. Book: The Correspondent by Virginia Evans. Available on Kindle, Audible, and print. This has been a great book which has led to some very good thought-provoking conversation.

• Our next book is The Gift of Years - Growing Older Gracefully by Joan Chittister. We will start June 27th due to the event listed under announcements. We will meet Saturdays at 9:00am in the front room of the Salt & Light. PLEASE JOIN US.

Announcements from the Sr. Warden - Mary Beth Pulsifer

1. Anyone interested in working with us on the We Open Our Doors initiative, let me know. This initiative aims to foster deeper understanding, genuine fellowship, and a shared sense of belonging among the Christian faith communities by inviting participating churches to open their doors for a two hour community open house on selected dates. This idea came out of our recent Outreach workshop as a way to increase our capacity for community outreach through collaboration with other churches. 

2. Save the Date - June 6, 1 - 2:30 for our workshop on Immigrant Communities. Here is a description of the Mission of IAJE, one of our facilitators:

"Through grassroots organizing, transformative leadership development, and popular education, IAJE ignites and amplifies the power of Mississippi's immigrant communities, creating a vibrant progressive political home where dreams take flight, voices rise, and families unite to forge a future of justice, dignity, and collective liberation." learn more about IAJE and their programs by visiting www.iaje.us.

3. Two vacancies will be forthcoming on the Mission Committee next year. If you want to know more about it, please talk with Mary Beth.