A Heart of Love, Peace and Compassion by Rev. Teresa Stuefloten, M.Div., 8/30/2026

Good morning! This is Rev. Teresa. This morning I am speaking about having a heart of love, peace and compassion. Country music icon, Dolly Parton, passed from the physical realm this past week, Tuesday, August 25th, 2026 at age 80, after a brief battle with cancer. Dolly exemplified what it means to have a heart of love, peace and compassion. She had a deep faith in God and she understood our oneness. And because of this, Dolly was widely loved by just about everyone. Someone in my neighborhood group posted a photo from the 1970s of Dolly and Mickey Jagger hugging. They represent two entirely different music genres, but you could see in the photo that there was genuine mutual adoration.

My exercise teacher played all Dolly songs for the entire hour of our class on Wednesday. At the end of the class he played “I Will Always Love You.” I don’t think there was a dry eye in the room.

Dolly Rebecca Parton Dean grew up very poor in Locust Ridge, Tennessee, in the Appalachian mountains. She was born in a one room cabin, the 4th of 12 children. Dolly never forgot the community she came from.

Dolly’s “Coat of Many Colors” song was based on the true story of a winter coat her Mama, Avie Lee, sewed for her from a bag of colorful rags given to her when Dolly was a child. Dolly’s mother told her the story from the Bible about Joseph and his coat of many colors. Dolly proudly wore the coat to school and other children laughed at her and made fun of her for wearing rags. Dolly still felt rich because her mother sewed every stitch with love. One line in the song says, “One is only poor if they choose to be.” Dolly knew she was rich with love.

Dolly began singing in church when she was a young child. By 13 she was on local radio and television. She was a song writer as well as a singer and started out writing songs for others in Nashville. She was destined to be a star, and to have the means to help others with her love and compassion. Dolly was a big philanthropist.

In 1994 Dolly donated one of her songs to an album to raise money for AIDS. Though she had grown up in a fundamentalist church, Dolly was a proud supporter of the LGBTQ+ community. She advocated for gay marriage and defended transgender rights. Dolly believed we should not judge anyone and said everyone should be able to be who they are. UNAIDS said Dolly left “a lasting legacy of compassion and solidarity.”

In a 2017 interview with Larry King, Dolly said, “I keep saying: If you’re the fine Christian that you think you are, why are you judging people? That’s God’s job.”

Dolly made large donations to hospitals and pediatric infectious disease research in Tennessee. In 2020, during the COVID epidemic, Dolly donated one million dollars to Vanderbilt University Medical Center for vaccine research, which helped to develop the mRNA vaccine that lead to the Moderna vaccine. Dolly encouraged people to get the vaccine, singing to the tune of Jolene, “Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, please don’t hesitate!” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), called Dolly “an outstanding artist, a true advocate of kindness, and an ambassador for science and public health.”

“In 2007, Dolly stepped on stage for a benefit concert to fund a new hospital for Sevier County. The show alone raised $500,000. Dollywood and her Dixie Stampede dinner theater each pledged another $250,000 on top of that, pushing the total past $1 million. Three years later, in 2010, LeConte Medical Center opened its doors, complete with a birthing unit and a women's health center.” (life story)

Dolly’s own father, Robert Lee Parton, was a farmer who never learned to read or write. Dolly saw the effect this had on him, holding him back in her view, despite his intelligence and strength of character. Inspired by her father, in 1995 Dolly founded the Imagination Library in his honor, which sends books monthly to enrolled children from birth to age 5 in the US, Canada, Australia, the UK and Ireland. Over 300 million books have been sent to children free of charge.

In 2020 Dolly wrote on her website, “When I got this idea to do the Imagination Library, I wanted to get Daddy involved in it. I wanted him to help me with that so he could take the pride in that and so he did. He got to live long enough to hear the kids call me the Book Lady.” Before he passed in 2000, Dolly’s father told her it was probably the most important thing she had ever done.

Dolly’s philanthropy is inspiring others. Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood are planning to celebrate an annual “Dolly Day” on September 25 at their Nashville bar. Yearwood said, “Whatever the cash register says at the end of the day is going to Dolly's passion. This is 100 percent about Dolly and her love for children's literacy." All proceeds from “Dolly Day” at the Honky-Tonk will be donated to Dolly’s children's literacy charity, Imagination Library.

Dolly was married for 58 years to Carl Dean, who passed March 3, 2025, a year and a half ago. Dolly was unable to have children, so she said all children were her children. She did all she could to help children become successful adults.

“In April of 1988, Dolly Parton walked into a room full of seventh and eighth graders in Sevier County, Tennessee, and asked them to pick a buddy. Not a friend. A partner. Someone whose success would now be tied to their own.

She told them to sign a contract together, promising to help each other stay in school. If both of them graduated, she'd hand each one $500 herself. If one dropped out, neither got paid.

At the time, more than a third of students in the county — 35 percent — never finished high school. It was quietly wrecking the local economy, one dropout at a time.

The first graduating class of buddies walked the stage in the spring of 1992. Dolly was there with the checks. So was the former governor of Tennessee.

A second class graduated the next spring, checks in hand again. Within a few years, the dropout rate had collapsed from 35 percent to 6 percent.

One year after she launched the program, in 1989, Dolly added another offer: a $500 scholarship for any Sevier County student who wanted to attend nearby Hiwassee College. No essay contest. No hoops. Just an open hand.”

In “February 2022. Dolly announced that Dollywood's parent company would cover full tuition, fees, and books for more than a hundred degree and certificate programs — for any employee who wanted it. Full-time, part-time, seasonal. Didn't matter. Eligible from day one on the job.”

(life story)

“… November 28, 2016, wildfires tore through the Great Smoky Mountains and swallowed whole neighborhoods in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, leaving over a thousand families without a home.

Dolly didn't wait for a plan to form. Within 48 hours, her foundation had launched the My People Fund: $1,000 a month, for six months, to every family whose primary home was gone. Nearly 900 families qualified…

By May of 2017, so much money had poured in from donors that the final checks weren't $1,000. They were $5,000. Families walked in expecting one number and walked out with five times that.

And she wasn't finished even then. She quietly committed another $3 million to the Mountain Tough Recovery Team — the group that handles the unglamorous, years-long work that starts after the news cameras leave and the donations dry up.

And when Hurricane Helene ripped through the Appalachian region in the fall of 2024, Dolly didn't sit this one out either. She wrote a personal $1 million check to the Mountain Ways Foundation. Her companies matched it dollar for dollar, bringing the total to $2 million for flood-ravaged communities across her home region.” (life story)

Dolly’s team said, “Our beloved Dolly Parton spent her life and career bringing joy, laughter, hope and integrity into everything she touched. Her unmatched generosity reached the lives of countless people whom she would never meet, yet she was always there to offer a helping hand. Dolly’s unconditional love for all people was the guiding force for her lasting impact.”

Dolly’s nephew, Brian Seaver, in a statement for the family, said “Aunt Dolly has lived in the Light and is in the arms of Jesus…” He said, “Dolly also opened doors for generations of singers and songwriters, musicians and dreamers from every walk of life and across every continent. By her example we believed that anything was possible. She never saw a door she couldn’t open, and the doors she opened made and changed history… Dolly was a farmer, just like her Daddy. He farmed the soil, she farmed songs and happiness.”

It just seems that the tributes to Dolly online are endless. Her deep love, peace and compassion for others goes out in a ripple to humanity. Her love is returned to her over and over. She truly lived her Christian faith, following the example of Christ Jesus in loving one another, no matter who they are and what walk of life they come from. 1 John 4:19 says, “We love because he first loved us.” Dolly truly lived her faith in God in love for all beings.

Nona Brooks, one of the founders of Divine Science, said in her book, “In the Light of Healing,” “The best definition of love I have ever heard is - ‘Love is sharing your life with others.’ This is God-love. God loves and shares his Life with us. Let us love truly; that is, let us share our life, our faith, our love, our power, our joy with others in the wisest and best ways without limitation.” This is what Dolly truly did in her life.

This is what Christ Jesus did in his earthly life. He was among the people, one with them, and he shared his Life with them. He showed them how to think, how to live, and how to love. Jesus had deep love and compassion for others. He was with the people, touching them, healing them, feeding them, laughing with them and crying with them. He interacted lovingly with outcasts that other people ignored or shunned. He touched people with leprosy. He ate with tax collectors and other outcasts who were considered “sinners” by those who thought they were righteous. And he called out those who thought they were better than.

In Jesus time tax collectors were reviled by the Jewish people because they often cheated people on their taxes. They were hired by Rome and were considered traitors. They could not enter the Jewish temples, and were considered in the same category as murderers, thieves and prostitutes. Zaccai, also called Zacchaeus in many Bible translations, was a wealthy tax collector and chief of the tax collectors. Zaccai was a short man and he wanted to see who Jesus was, but the crowd was large. So he climbed a fig tree. When Christ Jesus saw Zaccai in the tree, he did not turn away from him. Jesus looked up in the tree and told Zaccai to come down because he was going to go to his house. He did not ask Zaccai if he had cheated people. Jesus just offered love, kindness, compassion and friendship. The crowd criticized, saying Jesus was going to stay in the house of a sinner. Zaccai spontaneously said to Jesus “Behold, my Lord, half of my wealth I will give to the poor; and I will pay fourfold to every man from whom I have extorted.” Jesus responded, “Today life has come into this house, because he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of man came to seek and save that which was lost.” (Luke 19:1-10) Jesus gave love to a man that the Jews ostracized.

Christ Jesus asked for water at Jacob’s well from a Samaritan woman, something that would not have been done by Jews because they looked down on Samaritans. Jesus offered her living water. The Samaritan woman went and told other Samaritans about Jesus. So the Samaritans came and begged Jesus to stay with them and he stayed two days. Jesus stayed with people the Jews would not interact with and many of the Samaritans believed in him. Jesus offered love to those rejected by his Jewish community. (John 5:6-41) Jesus rejected no one.

Jesus washed the feet of his disciples, a job usually done by the lowest servant in the house. He took off his robe and tied a cloth around his waist, filled a basin with water, stooped and washed their feet. He did this to show the disciples that they are to serve others as he had served them and others. Jesus said to them, “You call me Teacher and Lord; and what you say is well, for I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, how much more should you wash one another’s feet? For I have given you this as an example, so that just as I have done to you, you should also do.” (John 13:4-15)

My late husband, Rev. Mark, lived like this. He was always checking in on people, asking how they were doing, and offering his companionship, assistance, love and prayer.

We can all be an embodiment of the Christ love in the way in which we live in the world. We can feed others, as Jesus did, giving to organizations that feed people, or volunteering at a food bank or a church that provides food to those in need. Some of the churches in my area have a rotating food distribution at dinner time. Each church has a day of the week that they distribute food and volunteers make the food. 1 John 4:16 says, “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.”

We can be supportive of people who are often scorned by others, such as the LBGTQ+ community, interacting with them lovingly and giving to organizations that support their rights. All people are worthy of love, kindness and caring. We can see the Christ in each person, honoring their divinity. Romans 12:10 says,

“Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.”

We can be loving to those who have made mistakes in life that have landed them in prison. We have all made mistakes in our life. When we see with the eyes of compassion, we do not need to judge. 1 John 4:12 says, "No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” See the Divinity that is truly present in all beings. We are all Divine expressions. No one is outside of God’s love.

We can speak out about injustice, such as the rounding up of immigrants and the brutality to people of color. We can be the voice for people who lack power. Proverbs 31:8 says, “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute.”

And, importantly, we can be more understanding of others in our daily life. Rather than reacting defensively to something unkind that is said to us, we can take a step back and compose ourselves. We can see with the eyes of love and compassion that perhaps something has happened to the person who is lashing out verbally. We may not know what pain that person is carrying. Perhaps they lost their job, or their spouse or partner left them. Perhaps someone they love has died. Perhaps they have been diagnosed with an illness or disease. Perhaps they are struggling with mental illness. Or perhaps they are just having a bad day. Rather than reacting negatively, we can take a breath and choose to act lovingly, with compassion that brings peace to relationships. Ephesians 4:2-3 says, “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bonds of peace.”   

Forgiving others is another way to show love, peace and compassion. Forgiveness frees both the other person and ourselves.        

What if we each started every morning with the advice in Psalm 143:8, turning to God upon awakening with these words? “Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life.” How would this affect our entire day? How much more loving, peaceful and compassionate would we be if we started each day with this connection with God?

1 John 4:8 says, “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” It is essential that we love unconditionally.

Christ Jesus told his disciples, “This is my commandment: That you love one another just as I have loved you.” John 15:12 This is the commandment of the Master Jesus, that we love without exception.

1 Corinthians, Chapter 13 is often read at weddings, but it applies to all of life, in every walk and every situation. This is the version from the Aramaic translation of Lamsa.

  “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love in my heart, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling symbol.

   And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge; and though I have faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love in my heart, I am nothing.

   And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love in my heart, I gain nothing.

   Love is long-suffering and kind; love does not envy; love does not make a vain display of itself; and does not boast.

   Does not behave itself unseemly, seeks not its own, is not easily provoked, thinks no evil;

   Rejoices not over iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;

   Bears all things, believes all things, endures all things.

   Love never fails; but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

   For we know in part and we prophesy in part.

   But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is imperfect shall come to an end.

   When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

   For now we see through a mirror, darkly; but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know even as I am known.

   And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

And so it is!