Pam Hawkins, Associate Pastor

I was two months old when I first arrived in this village, now known as Hillsboro Village. From the office at Belmont United Methodist Church where I now sit to write this reflection, I can see the edges of Vanderbilt Medical School where my father, a newly graduated biochemist at the time, began his lifelong career in teaching and research. As a person encouraged to explore, travel, imagine, venture into, and discover the world from an early age, it never crossed my mind that I would return to the same neighborhood where my early life took root.

And yet, here I am, an associate pastor in a faith community that has been in the landscape of my life for longer than I remember. While the people of Belmont have been loving God and neighbor from the corner of 21st and Acklen Avenues for these many years, I have been going about my life in many nearby ways and seasons. As a little girl, I spent hours down the block at Jones Pet Store (now Fido’s) trying to pick out just the right pet turtle or goldfish. As a youth, I learned to drive from Green Hills to Hillsboro High School to the Belcourt Theatre where my friends and I spent a lot of Friday nights. As a college and graduate student, I rented my first apartments and navigated backstreets so that I could study at Vanderbilt and Peabody and work my first jobs at the Bill Wilkerson Speech and Hearing Clinic and the Kennedy Center.

But now, by God’s continuing call and shape of my life, I am not driving past Belmont UMC anymore but am finding a home here. That is a fact that—as I look outside these windows onto the Village outside—surprises and delights me. How God carves out room for us throughout our lives to come and go, stay or leave, remember and create new memories is pure gift, and I am grateful. I pray that others who are now walking, driving, or riding by and through our community will be open to wherever God’s Spirit leads them, and that we, at Belmont, will continue to offer a place of grace, hope, and compassion on any given day of their lives.