Minister's Message: Planning Ahead for Easter

Planning Ahead for Easter (or A Case for Coming to Church on Holy Week)

We are still a few weeks away from Easter, but I know how quickly schedules fill up in the spring. I wanted to share our plans for Holy Week with enough notice for you to mark your calendars and decide how you’d like to honor this sacred time in the liturgical year. I also wanted to share what this week means to me and encourage you to think about attending services and inviting friends or family to join you. 

We long to be an Easter people—people who believe that the forces of life will always overcome the forces of death, people who believe a humble message of love is powerful enough to defy the violence of empire. We are the faithful descendants of Unitarian minister Theodore Parker who declared,”I do not pretend to understand the moral universe. The arc is a long one…from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.” And yet, it is often hard to believe that is the case when we bear witness to so much hatred, violence, and injustice in our own times—as we watch schoolgirls in Iran killed by US bombs or fight to protect our own neighbors from inhumane immigration policies. It is demoralizing, and perhaps even dishonest, to hold onto such a faith without making room for struggle and lament; without wrestling with and atoning for our own complicity with violence and injustice; without making space to name and grieve the painful realities of our current moment. We know from experience that resurrection does not come easily or cheaply. We don’t get Easter until we confront the truth of Good Friday.

Holy Week provides us a chance to sit with the whole story and to move through each motion with attention, reverence, and open hearts. We begin with the defiant, anti-imperial “counter-protest” of Palm Sunday’s procession into Jerusalem. The story then invites us into a more intimate, tender, embodied expression of care and community with the shared meal and foot washing of Maundy Thursday. We see our own fragile, imperfect humanity reflected in the disciples' inability to stay awake and be present to their friend’s suffering, in Judas’s betrayal, and in Peter’s denial. On Good Friday, we sit with the painful reality of state-sanctioned violence. We remember theologian Dorothee Soelle’s assertion that,“The cross is no theological invention, but the world’s answer given a thousand times over to attempts at liberation.”We understand why those who have faced violence at the hands of the state identify with Jesus’s story, like black American theologian James Cone who compared the cross to the lynching tree. On Holy Saturday, we wait. We sit in the quiet, mournful, hopeful space between suffering and rejoicing where we spend so much of our lives.

And then, Easter arrives. We affirm our stubborn belief that “joy cometh in the morning.” We sing “Hallelujah!”, celebrate the triumph of life over death, and declare that a new way is not only possible, but already here. We say, “The Kingdom of Heaven is already present among us” and then we recommit to living our lives in a way that won’t make liars out of all of us. 

It is a beautiful and powerful story, but one that needs to be told in its completeness. I hope you’ll join us in remembering it—all of it—together. 

In faith,
Rev. Danielle

Minister's Message: Here for Times Like These

Last Sunday, I was absolutely delighted to share the pulpit with Jonathan Streff to honor the anniversary of Leslie’s Retreat. And this Sunday I will be equally delighted to turn the pulpit over to Marlene Warner and some of our sixth graders to mark the beginning of women’s history month. I can’t think of a better way to launch our Stewardship campaign than with two collaborative services that so perfectly capture our past, present, and future, and celebrate the many ways our community members contribute to the life of this historic congregation. 

Leslie’s Retreat Sunday reminded us that our church has a long, fascinating past that shapes and informs our present. We know what it’s like to be witness to pivotal moments in our nation’s history and we have experience discerning how we respond to moments that demand clarity of conscience. The service reminded me of our shared responsibility to be good stewards of that history and to carry that legacy into the future. We are at another pivotal moment in our nation’s history and we desperately need spaces of belonging, respite, spiritual nourishment, discernment, prophetic voice, and faithful resistance. Working with Jonathan also reminded me of the full meaning of church "stewardship," which is about so much more than just money. What a blessing to have someone willing to share this history in such a meaningful and engaging way. We have such deep wisdom, talents, and passion present in this congregation and such a generosity of spirit for sharing those gifts. 

This coming Sunday, we will officially kick off the stewardship campaign following a multi-generational lead service. Some of the participants in this service are the same youth who installed the gum-ball machine at church as their contribution to our fundraising efforts—the same group of kids who told me so confidently on my first Sunday here, “You should know we do a lot for this church!” They remind me that stewardship of this congregation isn’t limited by income or age. I love that our congregation embraces that idea with an enthusiasm that is pretty rare, in my experience. Our children and youth know that they are both recipients of the gifts others share and stewards of this congregation in their own right. They also remind me our faith has such a bright, energetic, creative future. 

I actually get choked up thinking about the story these two services tell about who First Church has been, who we are, and who we can become. I hope you feel proud when you reflect on this community’s rich history and bright future. You should. And I hope you’ll make that pride, love, and hope concrete by engaging in this year’s stewardship campaign. 

The stewardship team has set a visionary financial goal that will put us on a healthy financial trajectory, fund a sustainable staffing structure, support programming for justice and spiritual growth, and help maintain our historic building so we can welcome folks in for years to come. Over the month of March, we will be asking you to take time to think about what the church means to you and how you can contribute financially to its future. But we will also take this time to reflect on stewardship in the fullest sense of the word. This stewardship season is an opportunity to come together and dream big about how our church can show up at this critical moment in history and discuss what unique gifts we have that we can share with one another and our community to make that vision possible. 

I hope you’ll join in these conversations beginning this Sunday, March 1st at the Stewardship luncheon in Wilson Hall following service and then at small group potlucks throughout the month. You’ll be able to sign up for those potlucks starting Sunday and I’m going to attend as many of them as possible so I can hear firsthand about your vision for the future of this community.

I am so grateful to the dedicated and enthusiastic stewardship team, Anna Brandenburg, Mike Giauque, Charlie Hildebrand, John Wathne, and John Wendelken. It is, always, a blessing and a privilege to be on this journey with you all. I’m looking forward to this month of creativity, community, and commitment with great joy and anticipation.

In faith,
Danielle

Minister's Message: Love Notes for Valentine’s Day

Happy Valentine’s Day weekend, First Church Community!

This seems like a good time to remember that “love” is not a feeling reserved only for romantic partners or a saccharine sentiment used to sell Hallmark cards and candy hearts. Love can be a radical and active force in the world—holding us in our most despairing moments, calling us back to our sacred centers when we feel lost, and driving the work of justice and liberation.

Love, in fact, is the central tenant of our faith. It is at the heart of our theology and the origin of our historical heresies. The new articulation of our Unitarian Universalist shared values, place “love” at the center of six interconnected values that encircle it (justice, equity, pluralism, interdependence, generosity, and transformation). The language reads,  “Love is the power that holds us together and is at the center of our shared values. We are accountable to one another for doing the work of living our shared values through the spiritual discipline of Love.” In a reflection on love as our central tenant, Rev. Dr. Sheri Prud’homme reminds us that is not just our present commitment but our theological inheritance, writing, “The great Universalist heresy—the one that so threatened evangelical and Calvinist groups in New England in the late 18th and early 19th century that they vehemently opposed it, denying Universalist preachers access to their pulpits and to positions of public power—was that the nature of God is Love.” Our ancestors believed in a love so powerful it was deemed heretical. That’s not exactly the stuff of hallmark cards!

We can know this intellectually. We can memorize the language of our values and parrot them back in conversation. But it is a different matter altogether to know the radical power of love in our hearts and in our bodies—to practice it and live it and organize our life around it. Love as a theological concept always feels squishy and undefined until we witness it in practice. 

Nevertheless, there are a number of thinkers who have helped me understand more deeply what love looks like. I share a few of them with you this Valentine’s Day and invite you to choose one or two of these quotes to spend some time with. Perhaps journal about one that moves or perplexes you. Repeat one yourself on a walk as a form of moving meditation. Or choose one to discuss this weekend with a person you hold dear. And if you have favorites that aren’t included here, please share them with me!

• “At the center of nonviolence stands the principle of love. When we rise to love on the agape level, we love men not because we like them, not because their attitudes and ways appeal to us, but we love them because God loves them. Here we rise to the position of loving the person who does the evil deed while hating the deed that the person does” - Martin Luther King Jr. 

• If love is really the active practice — Buddhist, Christian, or Islamic mysticism — it requires the notion of being a lover, of being in love with the universe… To commit to love is fundamentally to commit to a life beyond dualism. That’s why love is so sacred in a culture of domination, because it simply begins to erode your dualisms: dualisms of black and white, male and female, right and wrong.”- belle hooks

• "Justice is what love looks like in public" - Dr. Cornel West

• “What else do we all want, each one of us, except to love and be loved, in our families, in our work, in all our relationships. God is Love. Love casts out fear. Even the most ardent revolutionist, seeking to change the world, to overturn the tables of the money changers, is trying to make a world where it is easier for people to love, to stand in that relationship to each other.” - Dorothy Day

• “The beginning of this love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image.  If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them.” - Thomas Merton

• “Love is the motive, but justice is the instrument.”-Reinhold Niebuhr

• “We’ve made it private, contained it in family, when its audacity is in its potential to cross tribal lines. We’ve fetishized it as romance, when its true measure is a quality of sustained, practical care. We’ve lived it as a feeling, when it is a way of being.” - Krista Tippett

• “Is it strange to say love is a language / Few practice, but all, or near all speak?” - Tracy K. Smith

• “When we were sitting in, it was love in action. When we went on the freedom ride, it was love in action. The march from Selma to Montgomery was love in action. We do it not simply because it’s the right thing to do, but it’s love in action. That we love our country, we love a democratic society, and so we have to move our feet.” - John Lewis

In faith and love,
Rev. Danielle

Minister's Message: Honoring Black History Month is a Sacred Act

This month marks the 100th anniversary of Black History Month. In 1926, in a deeply segregated America, journalist and historian Carter G Woodson designated February as a month for celebrating, teaching and learning about the history of black Americans. He chose the month deliberately, to honor the birthdays of Frederic Douglas and Abraham Lincoln.

Finding ways to honor the month feels especially important this year, as our government continues efforts to erase and rewrite history, in particular the histories of marginalized populations. For example, National Parks have been ordered to remove dozens of signs and exhibits about the history of slavery and mistreatment of Native Americans in the US. The moves are more than simply symbolic. It becomes that much easier to dismantle civil rights legislation and protections when we’ve erased from our collective memories the reasons why we needed that legislation in the first place. 

So this year, I think we have a particular ethical and political obligation to help keep that history alive and present—and not merely as a way of “sticking it” to the Trump administration. Honoring the stories and histories of black Americans isn’t about scoring political points but about grounding our commitments to equity and justice in the real, lived experiences of our neighbors and ancestors. It’s a way of furthering our commitment to telling the truth and understanding that our future as a nation depends on our ability to be honest about our past. Many of the most effective movements for resistance and justice throughout history have understood the power of memory and storytelling. 

Honoring Black History Month can be an act of political resistance but for us, as Unitarian Universalists, it’s also an act of faith. I might even venture to say it is sacramental—meaning an outward sign of that which is sacred. One of our sacred values is a belief in the inherent worth and dignity of every person. One way we make that value real is by ensuring that people’s stories are told, their humanity is honored, and their lives are not erased. We also believe each person has a sacred right (and perhaps obligation) to engage in a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. One way we make that value real is by opening ourselves up to new encounters and sources of knowledge. Our understanding of the divine is enhanced, not threatened, by knowledge. Our faith calls us to learn and tell the truth. More recently, we have come to understand that our journey towards spiritual wholeness involves the work of dismantling systems of oppression, including racism. 

So this month, I invite you to make it part of your spiritual practice to learn and share more about the black history of our nation, our community, and our faith. Perhaps begin here, with some stories of the black leaders, writers and activists who have shaped Unitarian Universalism. I’d love to hear what you learn and how you’re remembering and celebrating black history this month. 

In faith,
Rev. Danielle 

© Rev. Danielle Garrett, 2026

Minister's Message: Taking our Faith Seriously

Before I followed the call to ministry, I was a very active lay leader, spending many of my evenings in the meeting rooms of All Souls in Washington DC. One day as I was leaving work to head to church, the young woman I supervised quipped, “Off to your unpaid side hustle?” She had a biting wit, but we shared a mutual respect for one another and for our commitments to our respective faith traditions. It was said in good humor. I’ve often recounted the story in a self-deprecating way, to poke fun at myself, but this week I’m reminded of it for different reasons. The joke only works because the behavior was unusual. We were not of a generation and social circle where people spent much time at church. Lately, I’ve been reminded of the ways we’re often discouraged from prioritizing our spiritual lives.

As I prepared for last week’s Thirsty Thursday Theology discussion on spiritual practices, I was struck by how often we (myself included) conflate self-care with spiritual deepening, collapsing the two into an efficient “two birds one stone” block of time. Some of the articles I found while digging around for resources talked about spiritual practices not as valuable in and of themselves, but as a means for improving health or increasing productivity. We call our morning workouts a spiritual practice and meditate to reduce anxiety, as though a well-regulated nervous system circumvents our very human need to ask why we’re here, where we’re going, and what is sacred.

This week I’m attending a conference of the UU Minister’s Association and am enrolled in a learning track focused on the minister’s role in supporting religious education, faith formation, and family engagement. We’ve been discussing the many demands on parents and kids in this day and age and the ways church often takes a back seat to sports, rehearsals, recitals and school projects. It becomes almost an act of care to be the one thing overwhelmed families are allowed to skip, but we all lose something in the process. We don’t benefit from the curious, joyful, wise presence of our children and youth, and our children and youth learn their spiritual lives aren’t worth prioritizing.

As liberal people of faith in an increasingly unchurched world, it can feel almost embarrassing to make caring for our spiritual lives non-negotiable. I once taught a “Building Your Own Theology” class for young adults and one student, who was attending church while stationed on a naval ship in the area, requested time off to attend the class citing religious obligation. The class was shocked! As good Unitarians, the thought of anything at church being a “religious obligation” felt nearly heretical, but we were all moved and even changed by the sense of commitment. It gave everyone their permission to also take their own faith lives that seriously.

And I think more than ever we need to give ourselves that permission. As I’ve written before, we are living in times that demand deep discernment, moral clarity, and courage. Sociologist Liz Bucar writes, “In a political moment when opposition politicians won’t even name the stakes, religious language might be the only language that’s radical enough. Not because it’s comfortable or comforting. But because these traditions have been thinking about costly commitment for millennia. They’ve got frameworks for what it means to trust something absolutely.” When I watch so many of my colleagues and people of faith in Minneapolis, Boston, Portland, ME and beyond kneeling in prayer, getting arrested, and raising their voices in opposition to ICE’s violent and oppressive tactics, I see people who are taking their faith seriously. That kind of risk-taking and prophetic witness only comes after taking time to deeply connect with the source of our most sacred values and listen for the call of the holy.

So friends, give yourself permission to take your religious and spiritual life seriously. When I say this, I’m not saying don’t have fun. I’m not asking for some kind of fanatical commitment to dogma. I’m not even asking you to feel guilty when you miss church. What I am telling you is that your soul is worthy of care and attention. The questions you bring to church are worthy of exploration. Experiences of wonder, awe, devotion, and community are necessary for our flourishing. Worship and faith formation aren’t extracurricular activities, but central to the human experience.

So let’s support each other in prioritizing spiritual care and religious community. Let’s resolve to be a community of people who take our faith seriously—who carve out time for attending to it and aren’t ashamed to let it take up real, substantive space in our lives.

In faith,
Rev. Danielle

© Rev. Danielle Garrett, 2026

Minister's Message: Moral Clarity and Courage

Finding Moral Clarity and Courage in the Face of State Sanctioned Violence

Dear ones, know that I am with you in your grief and your anger in these heavy days. The violent death of Renee Nicole Good at the hands of ICE officers in Minneapolis on Wednesday is a tragedy that leaves many of us at a loss for words. The administration’s false narrative painting Good as a “domestic terrorist” adds an additional Orwellian layer of fear. There is little I can say to assuage the pain so many of us are feeling as we process these events, but I can assure you that you are not alone as you rage and lament. Giving our feelings of grief and anger the time and space they deserve will help ensure our response to this injustice is borne out of a fierce and authentic love.

In my own rage and lament, I have found myself using the word “God” with a capital G more than anytime in recent memory. I have found myself uttering “My God,” praying simply, “God help us” and describing the events as “ungodly.” Most of you know that I ascribe to a theology that is expansive and playful, holding my understanding of God lightly. It is when I am most angry over injustice that I become reflexively theistic. The word is still imprecise, but in using it I see myself reaching for the power it carries in our society—the way it represents humans' feeble attempts to name that which is both utterly transcendent and palpably immanent. I use it when something feels so utterly misaligned with the goodness I believe rests at the heart of the universe, that it simply does not feel like enough to say, “this goes against my values.” 

I find myself reaching for the moral weight of the word to counter doubt, distraction, and gaslighting—to counter the administration’s attempts to convince me I don’t know the difference between good and evil when I see it. I want language that feels eternal, transcending shifting civic norms and reversible Supreme Court decisions. I want language with a moral weight that doesn’t require me to repeatedly watch and analyze a zoomed in, slow motion video of US agents shooting a human being at point blank range, before I decide whether or not that killing is immoral. 

So right now, I am reaching for “God” language. I might not forever. And I don’t expect you to. But I do want us to figure out how to sit with the full spiritual weight of what we’re witnessing. I want us to be able to find our way through the morass of pundits and commentators and facebook posts to reach the very ground of our being—the wellspring of our ethical commitments—and move forward from that place. 

Because this is a moment that demands moral clarity.

I say that in part, because I see the attempts to shift the moral goal posts and obscure the ethical issues at hand. I see the comments on the videos and news stories online saying, “This wouldn’t have happened if she complied with orders,” without any regard for the shock of fear and confusion when masked men are shouting conflicting orders with mere seconds to respond. These comments are also without any analysis of the virtues of those orders to begin with. They reject, on their face, any notion that we live in a society where non-compliance may be a moral imperative. To participate in this debate normalizes and condones ICE’s presence in the neighborhood to begin with. Rather than discussing the morality of ICE kidnapping our immigrant neighbors, we cede that ground to debate the morality of ICE killing those who are trying to prevent them from kidnapping our neighbors. When we start arguing about whether or not she “complied,” we have accepted the notion that the price for non-compliance with an unjust system is death. Legal or not, that’s simply not a moral system I can accept. 

In the days and weeks ahead, there will be opportunities for us to discuss as a community how our faith calls us to show up in this moment. I want to hear from you about how you want to get involved in the ongoing work to defend our immigrant neighbors, push back against fascist ideology, and fight for the values of love and justice we hold dear. But most of all, I want that work to come from a place of authentic spiritual grounding and deeply held ethical commitments. The stakes are too high for anything less.

So rage and lament. Feel your grief and acknowledge your fear. Mourn and honor the life of Renee Good. Do it all in the name of whatever it is you call sacred. And then offer gratitude for this community where, together, we can find the moral clarity and collective courage we need to ground us in this moment. 

I leave you with these words about order, disorder, and faithful noncompliance, written in 1968  by Daniel Berrigan on behalf of the nine people arrested for burning draft files in Catonsville, MD during the Vietnam War. They always bring me strength and courage in times such as these. You can read the full statement here.

“All of us who act against the law, turn to the poor of the world, to the Vietnamese, to the victims, to the soldiers who kill and die, for the wrong reasons, for no reason at all, because they were so ordered—by the authorities of that public order which is in effect a massive institutionalized disorder. We say: killing is disorder, life and gentleness and community and unselfishness is the only order we recognize. For the sake of that order, we risk our liberty, our good name.”

In solidarity and love,
Rev. Danielle 

© Rev. Danielle Garrett, 2026

Minister's Message: The Year of Good Questions

Happy New Year, friends! I’m writing this on the morning of January 1st, having already broken my new year's resolution to reduce my screen time. I have a decidedly mixed track record when it comes to resolutions. Some years I resist the pressure to make them at all. Some years (like this one, apparently) I make one, but don’t even last a day. Other years, I have more success. The one’s I’ve managed to stick with often involve showing appreciation for others rather than attempting to better myself—resolutions like writing more thank you notes or paying for the content I consume by subscribing to favorite newsletters and podcasts.

Resolutions feel especially fraught this year. In the face of injustice, fearmongering, and rising fascist sentiment, it feels important to make firm commitments, take a stand, and live our values with unwavering courage even when it’s difficult. There is so much we need to be resolute about. And yet, certitude and rigidity have not served us well in recent memory. Each year seems more unpredictable, with new challenges that require imagination and flexibility to confront. In the face of increasing authoritarianism, I want to stay curious, soft-hearted, open-minded, resilient, and bendable enough to bounce back. A hard-and-fast commitment to any single behavior feels risky and even short-sighted.

So how then, do we approach the new year?

I am reminded of author and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston’s famous assertion that “There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” If you, like me, are ambivalent towards resolutions right now, perhaps we embrace a “New Year’s Question(s)” instead. This year, let’s find a pointed, but loving question to carry us into 2026. Let’s choose a question we can ask ourselves when we’re feeling lost—not in hopes of finding a definitive answer but rather to gently guide our searching, wandering, and wondering. The question should be more compass than map.

Lutheran Minister and writer Nadia Bolz Weber offers one suggestion in her January 1 newsletter. Citing the mental health costs of spending so much time doom scrolling on social media and 24 hour news sites, she posits, “Perhaps this is the spiritual question for this new year: To what and to whom shall we give our attention?”

New York Times columnist Jancee Dunn talked to a number of psychologists and mental health experts to come up with seven questions to ask yourself as you reflect on the year past and prepare for the year ahead. They include:

• When did you feel the most joyful and carefree?

• What gave you energy — and what drained it?

• What seemed impossible — but you did it anyway?

• What habit, if you did it more consistently, would have a positive effect on your life?

• What did you try to control that was actually outside your control?

• Is there anyone you need to forgive in 2026?

As we continue our conversations around mission and vision as a church, it occurs to me that we could ask these questions in the context of our life together as a congregation. I imagine any of them would generate a fruitful and informative conversation!

But there are so many possibilities. Our UU values might prompt us to ask, “How am I keeping love at the center?” Howard Thurman wrote, "Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." In Wendell Berry's poem “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer’s Liberation Front,” he advises, “Ask yourself: Will this satisfy a woman satisfied to bear a child? Will this disturb the sleep of a woman near to giving birth?”

I do not know what 2026 will bring for our community and the world, so I can’t promise you I will have all the answers we’ll need. In fact, I can almost guarantee I won’t! But I can promise you that we can learn to ask good questions, and live into those questions together. Whole worlds have been created, revolutions sparked, and loves ignited with a good question. So, we could do worse.

Blessings for 2026. I hope it has moments of joy, growth, ease, and wonder, whatever else it holds. I look forward to spending it with all of you.

In faith and love,
Rev. Danielle

© Rev. Danielle Garrett, 2026

Minister's Message: RItuals, Rites of Passage, and Sacred Promises

This Sunday during service, before the eagerly anticipated annual Christmas pageant, Theo and I will have the great joy of leading a child dedication ceremony for two of the youngest members of our community. At Christmas time! In front of the manger set! 

This will be my first child dedication as an ordained minister and it’s a rite of passage I have been looking forward to. I first felt a call to ministry on August 27, 2017. The call was sudden and clear, seeming to come from somewhere deep inside and far beyond at the same time. It was during a Sunday service at All Souls in Washington DC, but it did not happen during a rousing sermon, a moving piece of choral music, or a moment of prayer. It came during a child dedication. It came to me in the midst of a ritual rooted in community, where we recognize our interdependence and promise to help care for one another. It came in the moments the congregation read these words of promise from our hymnal, written by Rev. Rob Eller-Isaacs: “May we be worthy guardians of this young life. May we build a community in which they will grow old surrounded by beauty, embraced by love, and cradled in the arms of peace.”

I get choked up every time I read those words. What a sacred responsibility! What a precious gift! I can not imagine more meaningful work than that. It’s a lifetime’s work. It’s life-giving, life-saving, life-sustaining work. If it’s the only work we commit ourselves to during our time on this earth, it is enough. It’s work I have witnessed you all doing with an uncommon kind of commitment and joy. Truly, I have not been in another church community where the young people were so welcome, respected, cherished, engaged, and loved. It is a beautiful thing to behold.

It feels especially urgent and hopeful to make these promises to our youngest members, but really, as a faith community, this is what we strive to do for one another every day, and for each and every person who walks through our doors, regardless of age. Because, in the words of Ram Dass, “We are all just walking each other home.” I could imagine it as a kind of quiet prayer we whisper each time we step through the threshold into our church building: “May we be worthy guardians of one another.”

For me, this is the power of rituals and rites-of-passage ceremonies in church. They call us back to our deepest values and to our sacred center in a way that a sermon or intellectual discussion usually can’t. Native American botanist, author, and educator Robin Wall Kimmerer writes, “Ceremony can bring the quiescent back to life; it can open your mind and heart to what you once knew but have forgotten.” When we make promises to our children, to our beloved, to our ancestors, to our new church members, or when we witness others make those promises, we are both recommitting ourselves to our life’s sacred purpose and reawakening our souls to an awareness of that purpose. There is a reason many of us cry at weddings and funerals, even of those we don’t know well. 

If there is a moment of transition, commitment, or dedication you would like to mark in your own life, know that this is a community that makes space for that. I hope you’ll reach out if you’re considering a child dedication, wedding, vow renewal, name change ceremony, etc. I hope you will all join us in the meeting house or on zoom Sunday to witness and participate in our child dedication ceremony. And I hope in making these promises to our young people, it will give you a chance to reflect on the promises we make to one another. May we be worthy guardians indeed.

In faith,
Rev. Danielle 

© Rev. Danielle Garrett, 2025

Minister's Message: Celebrating Hanukkah...

Celebrating Hanukkah and Honoring our Religious Diversity

This Sunday night is the first night of Hanukkah. Last year, the first night of Hanukkah fell on Christmas Eve and I celebrated with our interfaith extended family. We fried latkes and lit the Menorah and I practiced my Hebrew pronunciation with my 4 year old niece. Then we opened presents and checked the NORAD Santa tracker and I marveled at the joy and ease with which these children embraced both of their religious traditions. I wondered how they will make them their own as they grow and their own faith and spirituality changes and evolves. I was also serving in a congregation with Jewish UU minister, and through participating in Jewish rituals with her, I learned more about the ways our Unitarian Universalist faith is enhanced when we engage with the other identities and religious traditions we bring into the space.

This year I won’t be with my Jewish family members, teachers and friends on Hanukkah. And I confess to a certain amount of discomfort lighting a Menorah, which is meant to be lit after dark, on a sunny Sunday morning in church. Afterall, the contrast between the light and the darkness is the whole point of the tradition. Embracing the religious pluralism of Unitarian Universalism isn’t just about checking a certain number of boxes. It’s about honoring that there are many paths to the sacred, learning from them, and engaging with them honestly, respectfully and deeply—not just on a surface level. It’s also about realizing we can find meaning in a spiritual path and also recognize it isn’t ours to follow. So as a non-Jewish UU, I’ve been thinking about how I will mark the holiday this year.

I’ll take some time to reflect on the miracles I’ve experienced in my own life, to honor acts of resistance by those living under oppression, and to remember our shared calling to keep the flames of hope, love, and justice burning. I’ll send Hanukkah wishes to those I love. I’ll tell my nieces how much it meant to me to celebrate with them last year and check in on how our Hebrew pronunciation is progressing.

And I’ll continue to celebrate the blessings of our religiously plural tradition—the ways my own faith and spirituality are enhanced when I’m in community and conversation with beloveds from other traditions, including Judaism. I’m currently reading A Child is Born, a new advent study from Dr. Amy Jill Levine, my professor in Divinity School. Levine is a Jewish woman whose work places the New Testament stories, including the nativity story, in their Jewish context. The stories are made even richer, more meaningful, and more fun and interesting to study as a result. Her work is another example of how interfaith engagement continues to deepen my own religious life.

If you celebrate Hanukkah or will be spending time with family and friends who celebrate this December, I hope the festival of lights holds joys, blessings, and lessons for you this year. I leave you with this Hanukkah Prayer by Marla Baker.

In faith
Rev. Danielle

© Rev. Danielle Garrett, 2025

Minister's Message: 400 Years of History, 15 Minutes of Fame...

400 Years of History, 15 Minutes of Fame, and a Vision to Carry Us Into the Future

In case you missed it, CNN reporter Donie O’Sullivan visited Salem back in September. I spoke with him for his new CNN series “Devoted,” which explores how people are searching for meaning, ritual, and belonging, amidst America’s changing religious landscape. You can watch the episode here, but you’ll either need to subscribe or log-in with your cable provider. He was also recently on reporter Audie Cornish’s podcast to discuss religion in America today and briefly mentioned First Church. 

There is growing media interest in the role religion plays in our modern social and political life. While the number of those who identify as traditionally “religious” has decreased consistently in recent decades, it seems to have plateaued recently. And those declining numbers never told the full story of what was happening to begin with. Young men are flocking to orthodox and conservative religious communities in increasing numbers. Women and LGBTQ+ folks are seeking out more affirming spaces, including pagan traditions that honor our connection with the earth and the power within each of us. People are finding ritual and spiritual practice through yoga, mindfulness, and wellness culture. And there is increasing interest and concern over the role AI and technology will play in our spiritual life. Podcaster Jo Rogan even wondered if the second coming of Christ might be through Artificial Intelligence, another form of immaculate conception (an idea, it should go without saying, that I do not endorse). The point is, there is a major shift happening in our country’s religious life and people are starting to notice. 

It’s not an accident that this church has become part of this larger conversation. We represent almost 400 years of changing religious life in America! The crew from CNN was particularly interested in how we’ve evolved from being one of the churches involved in the witch trials to a community that welcomes both Christians and Pagans (and lots of others!) and is led by a LGBTQ+ identified woman. More than most religious communities in America, we offer a glimpse into what religion has been in our country’s history, what it looks like now, and what it could become. 

Which is to say, it is an exciting and important time to be a part of this community! And you all get to decide what role this community will continue to play in the unfolding story of religion and spirituality in America. How will we use our gifts, learn from and honor our history, and harness the unique spirit of this place to carry us into the future? What is the role not just of churches, and not just of UU churches, but of this particular church in the times in which we live? When I think about what sets this church apart from others I’ve been in, my mind goes to your welcoming spirit and knack for hospitality, your love of history and keen interest in the lessons it holds for us today, and your deep wellspring of creativity and appreciation for the role art, theatre, architecture, music, and even humour play in human flourishing. I can imagine so many ways we can harness these unique gifts in service of creating a more just and loving world. I’m sure you all have your own answers.

These questions are what we will begin answering through our mission and vision development. Building off of the work done by the transition team, we will come together this church year to craft and vote on mission and vision statements that will help steer our course for the future. And we need everyone’s involvement. Your first opportunity will be after service on Dec. 14th when Jerrie H. will lead us in a mission and vision workshop. There will also be an opportunity on zoom on December 30th and another in-person session after service on January 11th. I hope to see you at one of these important, inspiring, and imaginative conversations!

In faith,
Rev. Danielle

© Rev. Danielle Garrett, 2025