Donna Zimmerman presents
“The Messages We Give Ourselves: The Clock on the Shelf”
Elizabeth DeCoux, Worship Leader
Gary Smart, Pianist
Timothy Edwards, Violin, Guest Musician
Have you ever faced a problem that you thought was beyond you that you immediately wanted to give up or hand it off to someone else? When life gets hard, our brains naturally default to familiar assumptions. We jump to negative conclusions about our own limitations. This Sunday, we will explore how running on mental autopilot disconnects us from our Unitarian Universalist values. By confronting the old scripts, we tell ourselves that we can trade our fears for “holy curiosity” and discover that the light we’re looking for might be much closer than we think.
Please bring loose change or extra cash for our monthly “Pennies from Heaven” collection. In celebration of our BBUUC Accessibility Team, the benefactor of our July through September collections will be Hope Haven
, a Jacksonville nonprofit serving children and young adults with special needs. Hope Haven provides assessments, intervention, education, and advocacy – empowering individuals and their families to thrive.
About Our Speaker
Donna Zimmerman is a native Floridian whose family moved here when she was 14. After going back to school “later in life’, she earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from UNF. Donna lived in Dallas for a time and found her spiritual home at First UU Church of Dallas. She she built a meaningful career that spanned both social services and HR. Notably, as Executive Director at Lutheran Social Services of Northeast Florida, she launched the region’s first professional HIV/AIDS service program that is still in operation.
Now retired, Donna channels her heart for service into our own community, serving on the Worship Committee and as a lay Chaplain on the Pastoral Care Team. She and her partner of 28 years, Cyndi Daman, love spending time with their big, beautiful family of two daughters, six grandkids, and two great-grands!
About our Guest Musician
Timothy Edwards studied violin in Detroit public schools and at Interlochen Arts Academy before earning a Bachelor of Music from the Eastman School of Music and a Master of Music from the University of Michigan. He has held section, principal, and concertmaster roles with the Des Moines Metro Opera, Flint Symphony, and Toledo Symphony, with substitute appearances for the Detroit and Jacksonville symphonies. A dedicated educator, he has guided gifted young violinists and served as an adjunct professor at Florida State College at Jacksonville. He currently performs as a soloist and chamber collaborator for four Jacksonville churches and is concertmaster of the Civic Orchestra of Jacksonville, which offers free concerts to the community.