Monetary donations for Holiday Flowers are now being accepted! If you would like to contribute money to purchase poinsettias for the sanctuary, please mail a check or drop one in the offertory during Sunday service. Be sure to write "flowers" in the memo line. Order forms are due no later than Sunday, December 17.
Maggi Peirce's Memorial Service is Scheduled for Saturday, December 14, at 11:00 AM
Maggi Peirce, 93, of Fairhaven died on Wednesday, December 4, 2024. She was the wife for 60 years of Kenneth S. Peirce, Jr.
Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, younger daughter of the late William and May (Walker) Kerr, her Public Elementary Education and Business College ceased by the age of fourteen. From her first job as a wage clerk she rose to be Private Secretary to the IEF Engineer of Scottish & Newcastle Breweries in Edinburgh, Scotland.
During 1949-1951 she and her sister travelled and worked in Germany, Scandinavia, Finland and Holland. Being a life member of YHANI (Youth Hostel Association of Northern Ireland) they stayed in youth hostels and mixed with young people throughout Europe. She was always grateful for what she learned and how it widened her horizons for life. Washing bathrooms, drying dishes, working in a chocolate factory and a coat factory taught her that a job worth doing was worth doing well.
In 1961 she met Kenneth Peirce at the Unitarian Church in Edinburgh, Scotland, where they married three years later. They have been loyal members of First Unitarian Church in New Bedford for over fifty years and during those years she has been Chairman of the Board, member of the Board and President of the Women's Alliance, but of greatest importance she became director of Tryworks Coffee House in its fourth month of life. It was begun by the Rev. John DeSousa of Pilgrim United Church in 1967 and named by the Rev. Richard Kellaway, as they could clearly see a need for such a meeting place for the young people of the city.
She ran Tryworks for twenty of its thirty five years helping, teaching and bullying her "Tryworks kids" with her war cry of "Silence for the Singer" leading them into the world of music, song, discussion, and poetry, emphasizing the importance of listening to others, as she had been taught by older youth hostellers during her girlhood.
Since the late 1960's she took part in many folk festivals and by the late 1970's she was discovered by the late Dr. Kenny Goldstein of the Folklore Department of UPenn. to be a natural storyteller. This became her profession and during the following years she won four awards: SMU Eisteddfod, Massachusetts Arts & Humanities, and two from the National Assoc. for the Protection & Perpetuation of Storytelling in Jonesborough, Tennessee. In all her performances she continued singing pastoral and ballads from her homeland, as well as performing with the Christmas Revels of Boston and in English Musichall. She enjoyed it all.
Her other interests were knitting, primitive rug-hooking and writing. She authored "A Storyteller's Guide", "Keep the Kettle Boiling", "Christmas Mince" and in 2014 "A Belfast Girl". She loved her Memoir Class in Mattapoisett, her wonderful Poetry Group, and her Brit. Group of Women with whom she shared every Thursday. Friendship was important to her.
During 1976-1980 she attended SMU and graduated cum laude in German and returned in 1983 to finish a BA in Art History. To learn was one of her greatest loves but reading was her joy. At the age of eighty-five she lost much of her sight but pointed out that she could accept this loss because she had read non-stop for eighty years.
Besides her husband, she is survived by her daughter Cora Peirce of New Bedford and her children Alyzza, Sophia, and James McIlroy and his wife, Sarah and their children; her son Rev. Hank Peirce and his wife, Rebecca Scott of Medford, and their two daughters Ruth and Bethiah; She was sister to Dorothy Payne (deceased) and her two daughters Heather and Margaret in England and Scotland and Heather's children Adam and Jessica. She leaves many close cousins in Ulster and her loyal friend Matt Davis.
Visiting hours in the funeral home Friday, December 13, 2024, from 4:00-7:00 P.M. A Memorial Service will be held at the First Unitarian Church, Union Street, New Bedford on Saturday, December 14 at 11:00 A.M. Interment is private. The memorial will be live streamed on our YouTube channel if you can't come in person and would like to watch it.
Kindly omit flowers. Donations may be made in Maggi's memory to the charity of one's choice.
Funeral arrangements have been committed to the care of Wilson Chapel at Aubertine-Lopes Funeral Home, 129 Allen St., New Bedford.
To see the tribute wall for Maggi at Aubertine-Lopes Funeral Home, please click here.
UMass Dartmouth Marketing & Management Final Project
On December 5, 2025, Jessica attended UMass Dartmouth's Charlton College of Business for the final presentations of the students Jess worked with over the fall semester to create social media videos about the church. About 15 members were recorded a few months ago after service on "Why You Love UUNB." A small selection of those videos were edited by the students and posted on our TikTok page here. Jess has been working with Prof. Jacqueline Einstein and her students at UMass since 2022.
Photos from our visit to Pine Meadow Alpacas is Mattapoisett on November 30
Photos from the Holiday Market on December 7
A HUGE thank you to all the volunteers, staff, and vendors who made this event spectacular. We don't have the final totals yet, but we did make close to $600 in just the raffle!
Did you miss Sunday service? Watch it here
Upcoming Services
***Please be aware that from now on, if you arrive on Sundays after 11 AM you will have to use the Union Street entrance. This is because we do not have a Sunday Sexton.
Tickets are on a sliding scale, with a suggested donation of $20. Registration is required for this event. Since we haven't sold any tickets so far, this event may have to be canceled.
Registration is suggested for this event.
The calendar on our website shows everything happening at UUNB. Updates are shown immediately, so you will always know what is planned.
December 15: Presence & The Divine: Look for the Divine in Everyone!
{Exploring the Invitation of Christmas} The Messiah is One of Us...Megan McKenna
December 22: Solstice Says… Way Cool Sunday School service. Presence & Darkness: Look for the Gifts Hidden in the Darkness! (Exploring the Invitation of Winter Solstice)
December Birthdays.
December 24: Christmas Eve Service at 7:00 pm
December 29 CLOSED
“The Christians stole the winter solstice from the pagans, and capitalism stole it from the Christians.” George Monbiot
The bookcase at the back of the sanctuary now has new quiet creative materials for children during service. Please return any materials after service and inform ushers that this exists for new or existing children and families. We will continue to provide materials for children to be in service if they choose.
Contact Yasmin with any questions at flefleh@gmail.com
Join the Social Justice Committee tonight at 6:30 PM via Zoom
New Bedford Mayor's Youth Council Coat and Winter Clothing Drive
A long, long, time ago, there lived a woman named Mary. She was very young... hardly more than a girl. Mary had a baby growing inside of her—which was a problem in some ways. You have to have a special kind of cuddle to get a baby inside you, and Mary was supposed to wait to do that until she was married. Now, maybe she didn’t wait, or maybe the baby got in there some other way, but either way, Mary was in Trouble. She was scared because everybody would be angry with her and because she had to push that baby out. Which really hurts. And then, once it was out, she was going to have to take care of it, which isn’t very easy either.
To make matters worse, someone was after Mary’s baby. Someone wanted to kill it, so she was really scared. Also, it was tax time, which makes everyone grumpy.
Mary and her husband Joseph had travelled very far, on a donkey, which is uncomfortable even when you aren’t pregnant, and Mary was already exhausted when she started to feel a great pain in her tummy. The baby was coming.
At home, there would have been people to help her. People who knew her and loved her and who had pushed out babies themselves. People who would be On Top Of The Situation.
But there was nobody like that in this strange place. The only person to help her was her husband Joseph, who was going to all the hotels saying “a baby is about to shoot out of my wife, can we do all that bleeding and screaming in one of your rooms, please?”.
Unsurprisingly, all the hotels said they were full. So Mary had to have the baby in a barn, with nobody to help her but Joseph. Who was very nice, but not exactly great in an emergency.
Having a baby is hard, even in a hospital room, but it is extra hard if you are in a barn that is smelly and dark and filled with animals and pokey straw and poop. But Mary was doing her best, all crying and scared, and Joseph was doing his best, all crying and scared, and then all of a sudden, Mary had a Realization.
She realized that all of this was a bad idea. She realized it wasn’t going to work, and decided that the baby was going to have to turn right around and grow up in her tummy forever because she was not strong enough to push it out.
Except, it turned out that Mary was strong enough. When her brain didn't know what came next, her body showed her what to do. And there was noise, and there was mess, and there was wailing from everyone present, and after that, there was a beautiful little baby, like you see in the pictures.
Well, not exactly like you see in the pictures.
Because newborn babies actually look kinda like cross-eyed hairless rats covered in blood and slime and with gaping drooly industrial vacuum suckers for mouths. But when their parents look at them, they see the most beautiful thing in the world, and the pictures you see are the pictures of the baby as seen through Mary’s heart.
Not as the baby actually looked. The way the baby actually looked--and smelled--is what later prompted the wise guys to hand over a bunch of jewelry and perfume. Because they were not exactly wise, but they were definitely more objective about appearances.
So Mary sat there, looking down at her baby, and she was filled with the most amazing love for her little boy. In that moment, she was no longer a scared young woman huddled in a sea of night with a powerful man trying to hunt her and her family. She was a mother, with mama-bear love and mama-bear power. And Joseph was no longer a bad-in-emergencies maybe-father. He was a full one hundred percent father because parents aren’t created by baby-making, they are created by baby-loving.
And Mary was no longer far from home, because the love and hope that filled her heart made a family home out of wherever she was. The straw felt softer, and the animals were quiet and calm, and she and Joseph cuddled the baby and they realized that love makes a family wherever you are.
We say it all the time... "love makes a family", and we make it sound simple. Except it isn't. Love-making a family is often very hard. It involves crying and darkness and sometimes yelling and mess. It involves things not being right, not at all. It doesn't usually fit the first time, and it's often way harder than we pictured. It involves knowing we are not strong enough, but pushing through anyway. It’s not about un-messying things so that they can be wonderful. It’s about knowing that things can be messy and wonderful at the same time.
We tell that story at this time of year, when the days are short and it’s easy to be filled with gloom as we wait for the sun to return. We tell it now, because this is a good time to remind ourselves that each of us carries light inside of us. And that nothing that is going on around you can keep you from letting that light shine. Even when it's hard, and messy, and sometimes very loud, we keep going.
And it’s nothing like you see in the pictures--but it’s wonderful anyway.
By Liz James
Our Mission is to encourage diversity and mutual acceptance and work for positive change in ourselves and our community.
"We envision a congregation in which we practice the principles of our faith. We seek to enjoy peaceful reflection and inspiration in intellectually and spiritually satisfying church services. We aim to embrace the people and efforts of our church community by supporting our children and their programs, our committees and their goals, our staff and their efforts on our behalf, and each other."
Our Promises
Each person is important.
Be kind in all you do.
We help each other learn.
We search for what is true.
Each person has a say.
Work for a peaceful world.
The web of life’s the way.
Build the beloved community, free from racism and oppression.
First Unitarian Church in New Bedford
71 8th Street, New Bedford, MA 02740
(508) 994-9686
Administrator ext. 10
Minister ext. 13
Karen cell: (508) 441-9344
Thrift Shop ext. 12
Board Members & Officers
Steve Carmel, President
Charles Morgan, Vice President
Deborah Carmel, Treasurer
Cora Peirce, Clerk
Trustees
Committee Chairs
Staff
The Thrift Shop is open Tuesdays and Saturdays from 10 AM to 1 PM
(508)994-9686 ext.12
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