Our Minister

Reverend Dawn Sangrey began her ministry with the Fourth Unitarian Society in September 2003. She is the first professional minister to serve the Society in over forty years. Her work is focused by the congregation’s transition from an entirely lay-led fellowship to a shared ministry, where laity and clergy collaborate to fulfill the congregation’s mission. She is grateful for the opportunity to participate in this transformative time in the congregation’s life.

Rev. Sangrey was educated for ministry at Harvard Divinity School and in a college chaplaincy internship at Tufts University in Medford, MA; a hospital chaplaincy in the psychiatric units of the Griffin Hospital in Derby, CT; and a ministerial internship with the First Religious Society, a UU congregation in Carlisle, MA.. She was ordained to the Unitarian Universalist ministry in June 2001 in Carlisle and served as Consulting Minister to the UU Congregation of the Palisades in Englewood, NJ from 2001 to 2003.

A specialist in liturgy and worship, Rev. Sangrey enjoys working with others to create beautiful, meaningful worship services. During her tenures in Carlisle and Englewood, she helped found Worship Advisors groups to foster more lay participation in the worship life of these congregations. Her ministry has also supported congregational growth and development, life-span religious education, spiritual direction, and social justice. She is committed to marriage equality and was one of the first clergy to be arrested for officiating at same-sex weddings. The charges, brought in New Paltz, NY, in March 2004 were subsequently dismissed on Constitutional grounds.

Rev. Sangrey came to UU ministry after careers in education and in writing. She began her professional life as a high-school English teacher in Westchester County, NY, and has taught writing at Westchester Community College. She also worked for more than twenty years as a freelance editor and writer. She is the author of Wifestyles: Women Talk About Marriage (Delacorte Press, 1983) and The Crime Victim's Book (Brunner/Mazel, 1986) with Morton Bard.

She has lived with her husband, Paul Fargis, in the same house in Bedford Hills, NY, for more than a quarter of a century. Mr. Fargis recently retired as president of The Stonesong Press, a book development company in Manhattan, and he has embarked on a new career as a home improvement contractor. They have one son, Chris Fargis, who lives in Brooklyn. Rev. Sangrey is also stepmother to John Fargis and Alison Fargis, the children of her husband's first marriage, and grandmother to Dan Dan, Tulia, and Siena.

She enjoys hiking in Westchester, in Vermont, and in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. She plants and tends flowers and vegetables in her yard in spite of the deer, goes to the movies almost every weekend, and reads voraciously.

Reverend Sangrey can be reached at minister@fourthuu.org.

Sermons

UU101: An Introduction to Unitarian Universalism - fourthuu.org/sermons/UU_101.pdf

What Can We Do? Actions for a Kinder and More Just World- fourthuu.org/sermons/What_Can_We_Do.pdf

Baby with the Bath Water: Religious Language in UU Congregations - fourthuu.org/sermons/Baby_With_the_Bath_Water.pdf

The Colonizers of Dreams: Theodore Parker and the Transcendentalists - fourthuu.org/sermons/The_Colonizers_of_Dreams.pdf

Passionate Intensity: Where Has Our Passion for Justice Gone? - fourthuu.org/sermons/Passionate_Intensity_revised.pdf

Dancing in the Streets: Why We Need More Joy and Where to Find It - fourthuu.org/sermons/Passionate_Intensity_revised.pdf