First Parish Malden

Marsha P. Johnson, Black trans LGBTQ rights activist, liked to say her middle initial stood for “Pay It No Mind,” her motto, for her refusal to fit herself in rigid gender categories. In honor of LGBTQ+ History Month and our themes of justice and solidarity, we’ll learn a little more about the life of this ancestor who was at the Stonewall Inn that fateful night in 1969 and became the mother of a movement.

In 2023, US surgeon general Vivek Murthy declared an “epidemic of loneliness,” a public health crisis impacting over half of US Americans. If there is a cure to this epidemic, might it lie in community and belonging?

In 1899, the newsboys of New York City went on strike, defending their rights and challenging the overreaching power of publishers Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. Through the lens of the movie musical and stage show Newsies, we’ll explore how they came together, pushed through adversity, and draw a wide net of solidarity in their strike.

We need each other – not just for friendship, care, and belonging, but for our material wellbeing. How do our values and our faith call us to show up for each other? How can we begin to see all people as our people?

September 11, 2026 marked the 25th anniversary terrorist attacks in New York City, First Parish in Malden member Arthur Bleinheim shares his toughts on this day. Arthur is joined by our staff for this service as we grapple with how to talk about this day and what it means for us 25 years later.

Pride is a Holy Day at First Parish in Malden. This year we’ll explore hidden history: how Queer people have always been a part of myths and how their stories often still aren’t told.

In 1949 Joseph Campbell identified what he called a “universal story structure” of the hero’s journey that involves a hero going on an adventure, facing a crisis, and coming home changed. We’ll explore this idea, how it’s infiltrated our ideas of who we are as individuals and in community, and how we can explore its ideas in our lives.

UU poet and abolitionist Julia Ward Howe held the first mother’s day as an anti-war protest as a reaction to the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian war. She believed that women held a responsibility to help shape the world we live in. In this moment when we are in the midst of a war, how can this message give us a renewed understanding of the holiday?

As we explore the hero’s journey this month and finish our pledge drive we turn to the future. Who are we called to be in this moment? What possibilities lie ahead? Where are we going?

The extraordinary in the ordinary. The thing that makes things more themselves. We’ll explore the spirituality of salt and how it connects us to the earth and the sacred.