Minister's Message: Sign Up to Be a Tour Volunteer!

Recently, a local colleague stopped by church to pick up something from me and say a quick hello. Theo and I were chatting in my office when she got here with her toddler son in tow and we were happy to welcome them in and show them around. As a preacher’s kid, the three year old is no stranger to sanctuaries, but ours had a few things going for it that afternoon: 1. A facade that looks like, “a big castle,” 2. A fun RE director with no other kids around competing for her attention, and most importantly, 3. Stray, candy-filled Easter Eggs that remained leftover from our rained-out indoor egg hunt. Needless to say, First Church quickly became a favorite Salem landmark. 

I know that the storied history of this beloved congregation played no part in the toddler’s delight at being able to run around an empty sanctuary looking for candy. But I still left that day feeling full of warmth, joy, and pride after getting to show the place off a bit. It was special to welcome in people that I care about, share a little history with my friend and colleague, and get to experience the building as a central gathering place for our Salem community in a different way than I do on Sunday mornings. 

I don’t think I’ll ever tire of welcoming in new people, watching their faces as they take in the beauty of the stained glass, and inviting them to feel the powerful stories that live in the bones of this place. It always feels like a great gift to share our space with others.

That’s one reason why I’ve signed up for some First Church tour volunteer shifts this summer and fall. Of course I’m happy to support this important fundraising effort for the church, but I wouldn’t do it if money was the only motivating factor. It is truly great FUN and spiritually meaningful to meet new people, share our history with visitors, and learn from and laugh with the other First Church volunteers. Volunteering a few times last summer helped me feel a real sense of community and grounding in my new home here in Salem. If you’re looking for a way to feel a deeper sense of connection to this place, I can’t recommend it enough. 

All you really need to be qualified to volunteer is time and willingness (although an open-heart and sense of humor doesn’t hurt), but I know so many of you have even more gifts to offer; a welcoming presence, a love of history, a knack for hospitality, a deep well of knowledge about Salem and First Church, good conversational skills, curiosity about people you meet, fabulous costumes you don’t get to wear often enough, or undiscovered carnival barker skills. The tours are already wonderful, but think of how much more wonderful they could be if you brought all of those gifts to the table!

So are you convinced? Good! Then go sign up here!  Tours are weekends in August, September, and October. No experience or training is necessary. Contact Alicia Diozzi with questions. Thanks to everyone who has already signed up and the dedicated volunteers working hard to ensure we have another successful tour year.

In faith,
Rev. Danielle 

First Church Tours - Webpage (public-facing)

First Church Tours - Volunteer Sign-up Genius

Minister's Message: Happy May Day!

Happy May Day everyone!

This Sunday, we will gather together to mark Beltane, a holiday rooted in ancient Gaelic and Celtic traditions that celebrate renewal, abundance, and the coming of summer. It is one of the eight festivals on the Wheel of The Year, observed by modern Pagans who look to the earth’s seasons and cycles for meaning and ritual. Sunday will be a joyful celebration of community—full of music, flowers, reflections, poetry and dancing.

May 1st is also International Workers Day, another day rooted in the solidarity of community and the hope for an abundant life for all. It is a day that honors the efforts of the labor movement and celebrates workers around the world. May 1st was chosen to commemorate the beginning of the 1886 general strike for an eight-hour work day (which led to the pivotal Haymarket affair in Chicago).

We don’t talk about work in church very often. Many of us see Sunday as a day for rest, community, and contemplation where we can leave our work concerns behind at the office. In reality though, our understanding of labor is deeply tied to our religious values. The very existence of a day for rest is tied to both religious practices and the advocacy of the labor movement! Just as there are well-developed theologies of rest (as I explained last week), there are also theologies of labor. Our faith tradition calls us to engage with matters of economic justice and fair labor practices.

As Unitarian Universalists, we hold a set of shared values, including equity, generosity, and interdependence. The language associated with equity reads, “we declare that every person is inherently worthy and has the right to flourish with dignity, love, and compassion.” This calls us to work for economic policies where all labor is dignified and paid fairly, and where all people have a chance to flourish. We also proclaim respect for the interdependent web of all existence. This value calls us to name the ways that greed and love-of-profit lead to working conditions that harm both our fellow humans and the planet we inhabit. These are just a few of the reasons why the Unitarian Universalist Association is a partner of May Day Strong, a campaign of worker solidarity calling on our leaders to center the needs of the working class rather than the needs of the wealthiest few. 

And we are not alone. Many faith traditions have long been engaged in the struggle for economic justice and workers’ rights. In the Catholic Church, May 1st is the Feast Day of St. Joseph the Worker. It is also the anniversary of the founding of the Catholic Worker Movement, the newspaper and network of communities founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin in 1933 focused on care for the poor and the rights of workers. Dorothy Day wrote, "By fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, the poor, of the destitute... we can, to a certain extent, change the world."

Modern practitioners of engaged Buddhism interpret the Buddhist precept, “Do not steal,” to have broader connotations, related to economic systems and social conditions. Mushim Ikeda-Nash, of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship’s International Advisory Council, writes, “we may not be robbing banks, or breaking and entering other people’s homes, but are we supporting exploitation of workers through the clothing, shoes, and food we buy?” Thich Nhat Hanh interprets the precept this way, “Aware of the suffering caused by exploitation, social injustice, stealing, and oppression, I vow to cultivate loving kindness and learn ways to work for the well-being of people, animals, plants, and minerals.”

And Jewish traditions often tie their commitments to workers’ rights to the Exodus story. This narrative from the Hebrew Bible, recounting how God helped the Israelites escape slavery in Egypt, shows God rejecting systems that exploit labor and choosing to side with the poor and oppressed in their struggles for liberation.

So this May Day, in addition to joining us for our Beltane service, I invite you to live out your faith by finding one small way to promote workers rights and economic justice. Maybe it’s participating in a UU Side with Love action, learning more about the intersection between faith and labor, advocating for a more equitable policy at your workplace, or trying out a sabbath practice that reminds you our worth isn’t tied to our productivity. This weekend, may you find moments of community, solidarity, and abundance.

In faith,
Rev. Danielle

Minister's Message: Rest for our Souls

It’s hard to believe that we are approaching the end of the church year! As I begin planning for spring rituals and preparing reports ahead of our annual meeting, I find myself reflecting on how hard you all have been working. I arrived on the heels of three busy years of interim work and yet you did not hesitate to hit the ground running with me. The activities you have engaged in with thoughtfulness and commitment are numerous—from the new Right Relations team and Committee on Ministry, to a wildly successful stewardship drive, a lay-lead revival of our social justice activities and an engaged mission and vision process. Meanwhile, you kept important day-to-day church functions, like our beloved fellowship hour and pastoral care team, going strong. This is good and vital work you all have been doing. I am proud, grateful, and blessed.

I am also compelled to remind you that rest and play are holy! Yes, it takes work to keep church running, but I think we are also called to make church a place that values respite, creativity, delight and imagination. In fact, I think this is a unique and especially sacred calling for a church community. In a world that values productivity, urgency, and profit, we can provide a different kind of space—one that recognizes the inherent worth and dignity of each person beyond any utilitarian purpose. We can make space to marvel at the mystery and miracle of our existence and assert that meaning is found beyond what can be measured or accomplished.

And it’s not just me saying that! There are well-developed theologies that point us towards rest and play as divine callings. The practice of keeping the Sabbath is the most obvious. God rested and invites us to rest too. In his excellent book, Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to a Culture of Now, theologian Walter Bruggemann writes, “The Sabbath rest of God is the acknowledgment that God and God’s people in the world are not commodities to be dispatched for endless production.” Bruggeman ties Sabbath practices not only to love of God and care of self, but also to love of neighbor. He asserts that the Sabbath invites us to refrain from demanding labor from those around us and rather make space for deep and relational connection.

In the movie Bull Durham, Susan Sarandon’s character Annie Savoy famously says, “I believe in the church of baseball.” While we might not all treat our hobbies with this level of religious fervor, an appreciation for play is an idea with deep spiritual roots. Jewish and Christian thinkers point to God’s delight in the act of creation as evidence that time spent in play and creativity are divine. Christian theologians turn to the stories of Jesus’s friendships, playful storytelling, love of dinner parties, and willingness to turn water into wine to develop their theology of play. Hinduism has the concept of “Lila,” which asserts creation is an outcome of divine playfulness. Theologian Brian Edgar goes so far as to write that, “play is the essential and ultimate form of relationship with God.” Embracing fun, pleasure, and play is one way of honoring the divine spark within each of us and recognizing we are made in the image of a loving, resting, playful creator.

Rest and play are central to our identities as humans and children of God. They are our birthright and we do not need to do anything to earn them. But if we did, I promise that you have. So, I hope this spring, you will make time to engage in rest and play. I also hope that you will see First Church as a place where you are invited into these holy activities. Together we can make space for ease, quiet, laughter, imagination, creativity, connection, joy, and even a little mischief.

One of the scripture verses above our pulpit is from Matthew 11: 28-30 and reads “Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” May ours be a sanctuary, where all who are weary can find rest for their souls.

In faith,
Rev. Danielle

Sermon: "Wayfaring, or finding the way when there is no road" (Tiffany Magnolia)

Call to Worship:
“When I am with you, everything is prayer.
I prayed for change,
so I changed my mind…”
-Rumi

First Reading: Psalm 121

Second Reading:
“Arise, oh Cup-bearer, rise! and bring
To lips that are thirsting the bowl they praise,
For it seemed that love was an easy thing,
But my feet have fallen on difficult ways…”
-Hafiz

Sermon:
I have a confession to make: I live next to the ocean and I know absolutely nothing about boats. I know, shocking right? I mean those of us who have lived here for a while have seen our fair share of flooding alone that such an omission seems foolish, if not downright dangerous. Yet, I persist in my daily awe at the ocean every time I travel from place to place knowing that the fight isn’t fair, that the ocean would win every time.

This understanding I have about the limitations of my knowledge is a fairly new phenomenon, and it sits quite uncomfortably in my mind. You see for years, I spent much of my time and energy putting all my effort into if not outright mastery, at least competence in the skills I deemed necessary for survival. Need to remodel my 1850 house without much money? Learn carpentry, and while maybe not excel at it, become at least competent enough to compensate for a house that is neither level nor plumb. Grow up without functional parents? Read every book, listen to every podcast, and take every piece of advice about parenthood, so that at least if I mess up, I have references. This attitude is so championed by our culture that we even have a name for it: bootstraps mentality. It is so useful for those of us who have grown up with severe deficits, but it doesn’t allow for that most fundamental of human needs: mystery. It turns out one can’t just read a book about faith and then have it. Faith requires a different set of skills, ones that might surprise you.

Both of the poets/mystics we have read in our service, Hafez and Rumi, have taught me almost all there is to know about mystery. Being as I experience the divine through literature first and foremost, contemplating the way they capture the divine has opened my perspective far beyond the limitations taught by my Catholic education. Hafez was a Persian (modern day Iran) mystical poet of the 14th Century. Hafez wrote in a traditional form known as the ghazal, a poem that expresses love for the divine. This love, though is represented in such a way that the difference between what we would call romantic love and spiritual love is blurred beyond recognition. This is a uniquely Persian form, but it has spread throughout the Islamic world in such a way that Islamic poetry is often spiritual and passionate in equal measure. Rumi, on the other hand, was a 13th century mystic from present day Afghanistan, who eventually settled in Turkey. He is known almost entirely as a spiritual teacher, poetry being secondary. Rumi spent his early life following a script: marrying, taking up the position of authority in his city and ruling in local matters. But then he met Shams e-Tabrizi, and Rumi became a mystic and ascetic. From that meeting on, all of his writing is infused with profound love for all things created by God. From Sufi functionary to Sufi mystic in short order, Rumi became a disciple of all things. His writing speaks of the “oneness” that is God and faith. And for those of us who have been deeply steeped in the Christian traditions, these approaches to poetry and faith are at the very least eye opening.

At this point, you are probably wondering what on earth these two things have to do with one another, interested as you may be in Persian poetry and the bootstraps mentality. I promise you, they are connected. Just hang in there!

The title of this reflection today is wayfaring, literally to journey on foot. In our modern age, to journey on foot always has some sort of path already established. It could be a hiking path or a modern road, aided by google maps, but we need do little to cut a swath through Salem unaided. That is, there are many paths laid out for us, and we have the opportunity to choose them, but they are there nonetheless making themselves known. Spiritual journeys, though, are made of entirely different stuff altogether. They are not the roads and sidewalks of a modern city. Instead, they are the ocean, stretched out in front of us, filled with currents, eddies, sandbars, and signs that only some of us can read. Navigating this world has no Google maps, though there are tools that can assist like depth meters and GPS. Interestingly, enough, though, this bootstraps mentality can be put to an entirely different use in place like the ocean.

This is where the poetry I reference has been my guide. Hafez and Rumi have nothing to teach me about the ocean, but they are enormously helpful in wayfinding, using signs as guides. Wayfinding is the companion to wayfaring, and it is the word I hope you take with you today, lover as I am of metaphors that guide us. Rumi and Hafez celebrate the mystery of this existence in all its forms. One of my favorite verses of Rumi reads:

“I died to the mineral state and became a plant,

I died to the vegetal state and reached animality,

I died to the animal state and became a man,

Then what should I fear? I have never become less from dying.

At the next charge (forward) I will die to human nature,

So that I may lift up (my) head and wings (and soar) among the angels”

I find profound comfort that if I turn all my attention, all my “bootstraps mentality” towards wonder, towards mystery, I will find a way forward that will be the path of a lifetime. And here is where it all ties together. The tools at our disposal are almost never the ones we think we need. We haven’t been born into knowledge of the tides. The level and the square require practice and precision. Instead, we have been born into wonder and mystery. We trade these things at our peril, but we do so with such encouragement that it seems hardly a tragedy. To do more than survive, to thrive, we must find our way back to that first state, that journey with no end but endless delight along the way. We already have what we need to navigate through uncharted waters, we need only be reminded that others, too, are taken up in the project, and through that we find our comfort along the journey.

© Tiffany Magnolia, 2026

Minister's Message: We Who Look To the Stars

I’m not really a “space person.” I don’t own a telescope or have the Sky Guide app on my phone. I didn’t dream about being an Astronaut as a kid. Sure, I count The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell’s novel about a Jesuit-led mission to make contact with life on another planet, as one of my very favorite books, but that has more to do with the theological themes than the space travel plot. So I have been surprised to find myself so moved by the Artemis II mission. I cried watching the launch and have been crying a little every day since. I cried when mission Commander Reid Wiseman said, “We have a beautiful moonrise. We’re headed right at it,” and when the astronauts asked to name a newly discovered crater on the moon after the commander’s late wife, and when they reestablished communications with NASA after travelling behind the moon and asserted, “we will always choose earth.”

In a world where recent news of technological advancement has centered on Artificial Intelligence, it is profoundly moving to witness the very present humanity of this feat of science and engineering. These astronauts are not merely sending back data and synthesizing observations. They are bearing witness. They are communicating using the language of science yes, but also of religion and of poetry. They are sharing joy and grief. They are even having plumbing issues (can you think of anything more human)! They are connecting this mission to those who came before them, including female pioneers and civil rights leaders. And they are clear that they want their legacy to be not this mission itself, but the exploration that comes after.

It is all so deeply human while still being utterly extraordinary. That paradox reminds me of one of the most defining features of our humanity—the capacity to and for wonder. We are people of boundless curiosity who experience the great and mystical gift of awe. Twentieth century Rabbi and Jewish philosopher Abraham Joshua Heschel’s says that “Knowledge is fostered by curiosity; wisdom is fostered by awe…awe is the root of faith”

I am grateful for the ways in which we are increasing in knowledge, wisdom, and faith as a result of Artemis II’s journey. I wish them Godspeed on their return to earth.

In honor of our human capacity to and for wonder, here is a poem by Ada Limon.

In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa

In faith and with wonder,

Rev. Danielle

Minister's Message for Good Friday

In years past, I’ve leaned into the ways the Lenten and Easter season mirror seasonal cycles of death and rebirth. After all, Lent usually starts in the cold of winter and Easter comes when new flowers are beginning to bloom. Sometimes I’ve used Lent and Holy Week as a metaphorical framework for my own spiritual life. What do I need to let go of, what do I need to let die so that something new can be reborn or resurrected within me?

But this year, I’m not feeling especially metaphorical. We are living through a time when there is so much at stake and where there are so many very real, very nonmetaphorical threats to the people and ideals we hold dear. 

This Holy week, I’ve been leaning into everything that is unique and particular about this story. And it is a unique story—painful and beautiful and strange and perhaps not natural at all. Christian theologians refer to this as the “scandal of particularity,” meaning the preposterous idea that the infinite became specific—revealing itself in a particular person, in a particular place, in a particular time. You don’t have to believe that it actually happened, or that it’s the only “true” religious story (I don’t) to see the lessons in this religious idea. Richard Rohr writes, “You can’t really love universals. It’s hard to love concepts, forces, or ideas. Ideology is just the ego wrapping itself around such abstractions. Love—God incarnate—always begins with particulars.”

So on Good Friday, I’m taking a break from thinking about metaphorical death, and am thinking about particular deaths, about modern accounts of unjust crucifixion: Our Unitarian ancestor James Reeb killed in Selma Alabama for following Dr. KIng’s call, Renee Good and Alex Pretti killed by Ice officer, our trans siblings killed for living as their truest selves, or the deaths of our unhoused neighbors because of our failures to protect human dignity and feed, house and clothe the poor.

Jesus did not die of natural causes at an old age and peacefully return to the dust of the earth. Jesus suffered a violent death at the hands of the Empire. On Good Friday, Jesus was nailed to a cross and executed by the state because his revolutionary message of love was good news for the poor and captive but a threat to those in power. He was abandoned by his friends, felt abandoned by his God and left thirsty and suffering. Good Friday tells a story of betrayal and grief, state sanctioned violence, and complacency and complicity from those who could have protested against it,

Not inevitable. Not natural, but certainly, painfully, familiar. I’ve often quoted German Theologian Dorothee Soelle who says that, “The cross is no theological invention, but the world’s answer given a thousand times over to attempts at liberation.” And we have no shortage of examples of this in our own time and place in history,

We know though, that Good Friday was not the end of the story. We know that Easter comes eventually. But here’s the thing about Easter. Just like crucifixion is not an inevitable death or part of the natural cycle of life, the resurrection was not a natural or expected act of rebirth, like a perennial flower blooming again in the spring. The  resurrection was a shocking and scandalous act and a triumphantly defiant one. It was Jesus’s followers laughing in the face of imperial forces, saying that life is more powerful and abundant than the state’s tools of death. It was hopeful and powerful, but not inevitable. Proclaiming resurrection takes its own kind of work and courage. It requires a commitment to love and liberation that is so fierce it counteracts the fear and power of death. That, my friends, is not easy. Easter doesn’t let us off to the hook for doing the work to bring it about.  

But today is still Good Friday. While we can live with what Henry David Thoreau called, “an infinite expectation of the dawn,” we still have to spend some time in the dark. History has shown us that cross is the world’s answer a thousand times over to attempts at liberation. I believe we can dream a different answer for the future, but we can only do that when we truly understand the reality we face. So on Good Friday, we need to look at suffering and violence straight on and not turn away. We need to understand the pain and death that result from a culture of individualism, scarcity, fear, and greed. We need to understand our own role in perpetuating that culture and discern our calling to courageously work against it.

Only then, when we really confront this pain, when we truly see the violent reality of crucifixion and understand it as something we can and must work against, will we have the passion and unwavering commitment of Easter people—of people who embrace the revolutionary idea that love is more powerful than the empire’s tools of death. So let us bare witness and lament today, so that come Sunday, we can do the defiant joyful work of proclaiming resurrection.

In faith,
Rev. Danielle 

© Rev. Danielle Garrett, 2026