The well-known and well-liked Dennis Carney is a fixture in the Unity Café team, setting up to serve the Sunday morning coffee klatch that gathers for food and fellowship before or after the weekly service. His popularity, however, transcends his kitchen mission. Dennis is one of those people, perhaps rarer than not, who shows a sincere interest in other people. Tolerance and humor are his natural virtues.
Born in Columbus, Ohio, Dennis stayed in the Buckeye State until, he says, someone told him he was allowed to leave. That facetious permission came in the form of a job opportunity in Florida. He had worked for an electronics firm for 30 years and looked forward to working and retiring in the Sunshine State, but the Oldsmar firm that hired him also released him after five months, a recession layoff. Not living here long enough to establish a network, Dennis says that in 2001 he got into a real funk, but, beating depression, he was hired as a furniture salesman at Rooms to Go outlet and, would, eventually, retire. He is now a part time security guard and realtor.
Although he loves this southern paradise, it is Ohio, where he will be on his July 19th birthday, that still has a hold on him, because that is the home of three younger brothers and his one daughter, the mother of his five grandchildren.
Probing the question of “what is the truest thing about yourself?” Dennis thinks it may be the immeasurable gift of love. If he had ever thought he knew love, he says, after his daughter was born, that emotional page turned dramatically, and later, at the birth of his first grandchild, “when your baby has a baby, it just goes to a third power!”
Some 10 years ago, neighbors told Dennis about UCC, but he then moved back to Ohio, returning to Florida in 2013. He had attended a few churches as a kid and done a lot of spiritual searching, but, hearing racial talk and narrow views, had a hard time understanding how God loves us. That biased box just didn’t fit in with Jesus’ teaching.
Here, where everyone is welcoming, and he has made many friends and appreciates the openness of the Unity tradition, he has learned that there are diverse paths to spiritual enlightenment.
The grandson of a Blue Grass musician, Dennis likes the music at Unity and particularly enjoys old rock and roll, the Stones, the Beatles, Neil Young, and Elvis Presley. When his idols died, he always felt a sense of personal loss because “they said things so well, as if speaking to you, especially John Lennon.” A golfer, he also plays guitar and writes poetry, expressing serious feelings, which he calls “a good cathartic thing,” only to later re-read “all that silliness.” That is Dennis.