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From Rev. Rob - Celebrating our 390th Birthday…and More!!
Dear First Parish,
I hope you’ll join us this Sunday for a special celebration of our congregation’s 390 th Anniversary! On February 1, 1636 our religious ancestors met for the first time to call our congregation into being. We’ll celebrate after service on Sunday with lunch and birthday cake!
My message this Sunday is called On Holy Ground. It’s inspired by our spiritual ancestor Henry David Thoreau, who challenged the prevailing religious views of his time (and our own) by insisting that, “Heaven is under our feet.” With these words, Thoreau encourages us in our religious search to “get our head out of the clouds,” as it were, and discover the sacred all around us. This Sunday we’ll explore what it looks like to build our spirituality not from thin air, but from the solid matter of our beautiful world. I hope you’ll join me, Sophia and the First Parish Choir for this special service.
Finally, building on last Sunday’s powerful witness to the inhumane events unfolding in Minnesota, we invite you after service to hear from First Parish members Susan Leslie and Bruce Pritchard, who recently returned from a weekend of faith-based protests in Minneapolis.Susan and Bruce will share what they witnessed and learned there, and how we can respond.
Friends, we live in a world that is too beautiful to praise with just one voice, and too broken to mend with just one pair of hands. That’s why we need one another, and communities like First Parish.
I look forward to us being together this Sunday in the midst of difficult times.
Dear First Parish,
I hope you’ll join us this Sunday for a special celebration of our congregation’s 390th Anniversary! On February 1, 1636 our religious ancestors met for the first time to call our congregation into being. We’ll celebrate after service on Sunday with lunch and birthday cake!
My message this Sunday is called On Holy Ground. It’s inspired by our spiritual ancestor Henry David Thoreau, who challenged the prevailing religious views of his time (and our own) byinsisting that, “Heaven is under our feet.” With these words, Thoreau encourages us in our religious search to “get our head out of the clouds,” as it were, and discover the sacred all around us. This Sunday we’ll explore what it looks like to build our spirituality not from thin air, but from the solid matter of our beautiful world. I hope you’ll join me, Sophia and the First Parish Choir for this special service.
Finally, building on last Sunday’s powerful witness to the inhumane events unfolding in Minnesota, we invite you after service to hear from First Parish members Susan Leslie and Bruce Pritchard, who recently returned from a weekend of faith-based protests in Minneapolis. Susan and Bruce will share what they witnessed and learned there, and how we can respond.
Friends, we live in a world that is too beautiful to praise with just one voice, and too broken to mend with just one pair of hands. That’s why we need oneanother, and communities like First Parish.
I look forward to us being together this Sunday in the midst of difficult times.
Eudaimonia Concert Rescheduled to Monday, February 9 at 7:00 pm
Eudaimonia presents
Thin Places and Narrow Passages:
Musical Pathways to the Unbound Spirit
Monday, February 9 at 7:00pm
This concert, including several favorite First Parish singers, features the bold expression of Eudaimonia Voices in an entirely vocal and choral concert that transports and transcends - to the mystical realm, to ecstasy, to a sweet safehaven. With Eudaimonia’s characteristic diversity of repertoire from the 16th century through the current day, this program centers around Benjamin Britten’s Hymn to St. Cecilia, while also encompassing otherworldly period works by Byrd, Blow, and Billings, and dipping into contemporary and Appalachian song. Eudaimonia’s Social Action Partnership for this event will highlight the freeing work of Lesley University’s program for Dance and Movement Therapy, which teaches the power of dance as a channel for trauma recovery and community repair.
Eudaimonia continues their connection with the social justice initiatives and music program of First Parish in Cambridge where Vivian and Eudaimonia are Artist-in-Residence.
Admission is Pay-What-You-Decide ($20 recommended), information at Eudiamonia-music.org.
Eudaimonia, a purposeful period band, under the direction of Artist in Residence, Vivian Montgomery, presents Thin Places and Narrow Passages: Musical Pathways to the Unbound Spirit on Monday, February 9, 2026 at 7:00 pm
This concert, including several favorite First Parish singers, features the bold expression of Eudaimonia Voices in an entirely vocal and choral concert that transports and transcends - to the mystical realm, to ecstasy, to a sweet safehaven. With Eudaimonia’s characteristic diversity of repertoire from the 16th century through the current day, this program centers around Benjamin Britten’s Hymn to St. Cecilia, while also encompassing otherworldly period works by Byrd, Blow, and Billings, and dipping into contemporary and Appalachian song. Eudaimonia’s Social Action Partnership for this event will highlight the freeing work of Lesley University’s program for Dance and Movement Therapy, which teaches the power of dance as a channel for trauma recovery and community repair.
Eudaimonia continues their connection with the social justice initiatives and music program of First Parish in Cambridge where Vivian and Eudaimonia are Artist-in-Residence.
Admission is Pay-What-You-Decide ($20 recommended), information at Eudiamonia-music.org.
ONLINE WORSHIP ONLY January 25
Worship on ZOOM Only at 10:30 am
The City of Cambridge has issued a Snow Emergency Parking Ban beginning at 10:00 am tomorrow, therefore, in-person worship at First Parish is cancelled. Instead we will gather at 10:30 am on Zoom (Meeting ID 155 025 783). Guest preacher, Phoebe Eckart-Lee will deliver a morning message and Assistant Minister, Sophia Doescher will assist with the rest of the service.
From Rev. Rob - Flourishing in the New Year
Dear First Parish,
Happy New Year! I hope you found opportunities over the holiday for rest and connection with loved ones, and that this message finds you and yours well.
Let’s face it, friends: 2024 was a long year… It feels good to turn the page on the old and welcome the new! In that spirit, I invite you to begin the New Year from a place of spiritual grounding by joining us for worship this Sunday.
My message this week is called From Surviving to Thriving. I’ll invite us to take to heart the central imperative of our religiously humanist tradition: that the goal of the spiritual life is human flourishing. How can we shift out of “survival mode” and embrace life fully in the New Year?
Sunday’s service will include beautiful music from the First Parish Choir, as well as a children’s story. After service, we’ll gather in the parlor for a warm lunch of soup and bread. I hope you’ll join us.
In the meantime, I leave you with a poem by Lucille Clifton that invites us to consider one of the important spiritual practices of this season of new beginnings: forgiveness.
i am running into a new year
By Lucille Clifton
i am running into a new year
and the old years blow back
like a wind
that i catch in my hair
like strong fingers like
all my old promises and
it will be hard to let go
of what i said to myself
about myself
when i was sixteen and
twenty-six and thirty-six
even thirty-six but
i am running into a new year
and i beg what i love and
i leave to forgive me