the Rev. Hamlin’s bio
About the Reverend Sally Hamlin
Sally came to us from the Unitarian Universalist (UU) Congregation of Duluth, MN, where she served as Interim Minister. She joined us in late summer 2008 to ready herself for ministerial duties in the fall.
Born in Buffalo, NY, Sally felt an early call to ministry. However, as a girl and a Roman Catholic, her call was not acknowledged or accepted. Instead, she expressed her calling from an early age in the form of social activism. Sally joined the Catholic Workers in the early 1970s and worked with the hungry and homeless in Niagara Falls, NY. Her anti-war activism led to a 90 day prison sentence in 1974.
She returned to school, eventually training as a registered nurse and later a Nurse Practitioner in Women’s Health, working at the Women’s Health Collective of Vancouver, British Columbia, for eight years.
In the late 1970s, Sally married and now has two grown daughters, Emily and Rebecca, who were born in Vancouver. After living there for some years, Sally and her family returned to Buffalo when her father became ill in 1987. There she discovered Unitarian Universalism and joined the UU Church of Buffalo in 1988. Professionally, Sally pursued her interest in women’s health and worked as a director of services at a health care facility and at Planned Parenthood in the 1990s.
Sally’s marriage ended in the early ’90s; she is currently single. Both of her daughters are in Buffalo. Rebecca, married to Dave in July 2007, teaches middle school Spanish. Emily is a commercial contractor and will be soon moving to Florida.
Sally became a manager in a large HMO in 2000, working on quality assurance in their Medicaid division, but continued to pursue her lifelong interest in spirituality. By this time, she began to understand that working in health care was not fulfilling her original call to ministry, and so with support and encouragement from her minister, Sally applied to and was accepted at Starr King School of Ministry in 2003.
Graduating from Starr King in May 2007, she was ordained in June 2007 by the First Parish in Concord, MA., where she had been a ministerial intern. Sally met with the UUA Ministerial Fellowship Committee in December of 2006 and received their highest recommendation for entering the ministry. She has served as the interim minister in Duluth since August 2007, and has assisted them as they have completed the construction of, and move to, a new church building.
Sally has many interests, including writing and reading poetry, playing cards, sewing, gardening, stargazing, travel and spending time in the outdoors. She has learned to weave and knit while in Duluth.
Sally’s passion for social justice made her very interested in serving an urban church, and she is excited about the possibilities for ministry at First Universalist. Finding collaborative ways to work with individuals, to uncover their unique gifts, is essential to her ministry. She believes this type of work is best done in congregations like ours, where members are in covenant with one another to support their search for truth and meaning.
Sally is deeply committed to our denomination and to the world. She looks forward to working with the congregation to bring the gifts of worship and ministry to our church and the wider community.
