A funny thing happened on the way home from the Blue Hill Fair in 1980 or so: a lifetime of discovery for which I am grateful. I am a mom to two amazing young women, Keira and Emma, both of whom were born in China and who came home to their dad and me as infants; I am a fortunate sister and partner; I am a UCC pastor after years of teaching English and coaching in independent boarding schools. I am a woman who loves finding quiet corners of stillness here in Maine and am fortunate to have found equally beautiful places in travel around the world (thanks to a fellowship in my mid-twenties whose memories continue to feed me daily). This “travel bug” was probably born in me at the genetic level, with my mother having traveled overseas with her missionary father at age ten and having taught me the same “itchy feet” for discovering deep relationships with persons and cultures around the world.
Truly, it was in my mid-teens that I first met Blue Hill on a short jaunt from my family’s cottage in Camden one summer, and when I was called to ministry in my late thirties, I wondered if I might someday be called to serve the church here. Before then and still, I am a perpetual student of sorts. I loved my undergraduate education at Wellesley, where I earned my B.A. in English and religion (with my “extracurricular activity” being singing in a local blues band and learning to ride motorcycles). After a couple of years treading water in jobs that covered expenses, I looked for a position teaching English and discovered my first calling. I taught in independent schools in NY, CT, MA and India, while also earning my M.A. in English through Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School. Only after becoming a mom and reconnecting with the church did my academic interest in religion return with the niggling call I had felt in my youth. Beginning with one online course and eventually earning my MDiv from Andover Newton Theological School, I was ordained in 2007 and first served churches in Massachusetts. I continue to feel blessed by this whole-life experience of call.
As the daughter of a musician, I am fortunate to have been “made to” study piano as a kid, and since then have played trumpet, guitar and sung in a variety of musical groups and genres. Finding myself in Blue Hill, in a congregation that is moved by music in worship and play as much as I am, is a gift. I hope that anyone looking for a spiritual home that is welcoming, warm and faithful to a sense of individual journey and community spirit will come explore the Blue Hill Congregational Church, United Church of Christ. I know you will find a welcome as I have.