Welcome

Between Saving and Savoring

“I wake in the morning torn between the desire to save the world or to savor it.” I love this modified EB White quote! I feel like that’s the tension that I live in these days. And if you’re here too, I’m guessing you know what I’m talking about.

So a little about me - Hi! I’m Dawn. I’m a Unitarian Universalist minister, former roller derby skater (derby name Liv Fearless), and current urban inline skater. I’m just about wrapping up an interim ministry gig in Indianapolis and getting ready to launch this audacious plan I’ve been working on for a while: a part-time hybrid ministry model that combines intensive on-site work with remote support, all based out of a 2022 Toyota Sienna I call Mystique that I’m converting into a camper to live out of as I travel around the continent (and maybe beyond!).

You might know me from a few places. There was a piece about the roller derby minister that went viral back in 2011 - that was me. Or maybe you saw the thing on Reddit about the minister in Louisville who corralled protesters into the church during the Breonna Taylor uprisings so the cops couldn’t get to them. Also me. Or maybe you came across my “Astrobiology as Contemporary Theology” essay, which somehow ended up in a textbook on theology and science!

What I’m trying to say is that I have a lot of different things I care about, and I like to write about all of them. Spirituality and systems theory. What I learned from roller derby about falling (and getting back up). I expect pretty soon I’ll be writing about vanlife and about ministry outside traditional models. I’ll also probably write about being a perimenopausal GenX woman because..damn. Basically, I’m exploring how to build a life (literally and metaphorically) that’s grounded but also free and I’m going to write about it the whole way.

This Substack is where I’ll put the stuff that doesn’t quite fit anywhere else - reflections from the road, travel writing, essays, updates on what I’m building. I’m also working on a book: Hard Hits & Other Life Lessons from Roller Derby. It’s…kinda unique I think. It’s part memoir, part spiritual reflection, part practical guide, and sometime later this year it’ll come out in print, audio, ebook, and with an accompanying workbook. And I will probably include some excerpts from it here, too.

So if you’re trying to figure out how to save the world and savor it at the same time, how to stay rooted while staying in motion, or maybe you’re just curious about how this audacious plan of mine is going to work out - welcome. Subscribe, and we’ll figure it out together.

See you on the road,

Dawn