Rev. Joshua Mason Pawelek
Parish Minister
Education
M.Div., Harvard Divinity School, 1999
B.A., Oberlin College, 1989
Ordination
First Parish in Cambridge (Unitarian Universalist), Cambridge, Massachusetts, April, 1999.
Background and Ministerial Development
What amazing serendipity! The parish ministry position at UUS:E opened up just as I had come to know in my heart that I needed to consolidate my professional life. After applying for the position, I underwent a rigorous and fun “candidating” week, and to my great joy (not to mention the great joy of the Search Committee), we discovered that I was a good match for this congregation. I was called to serve UUS:E on March 23rd, 2003 and formally began my service in this position on August 15th of the same year.
I’ve always considered Connecticut my “home state,” although it was in Providence, Rhode Island that my twin brother, Aaron, and I were born on May 1st, 1967. Our younger brother, Nate, arrived 18 months later, and my parents soon thereafter moved to Hamden, Connecticut. My father worked for many years as a research scientist at Yale University and my mother as a music educator and music director at the Unitarian Society of New Haven in Hamden. I grew up in Hamden, and graduated from Hamden High School in 1985.
It was pretty much a “must” that we learn to play an instrument when we reached fourth grade, leading to what was perhaps one of the most defining aspects of my youth: my love of rock music. Aaron and I played in rock bands throughout our high school and college years, our 20s, and even into our early 30s, he on guitar and I on drums – Aaron also wrote the songs. After college, we moved to Boston with a friend and worked very hard and enthusiastically at our music, but two record deals during that time did not result in a viable income. (However, my love of music and the drums has never abated!)
In 1992 I was working at the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) in Boston in the position of Assistant Manager of the UUA Bookstore, focusing primarily on customer service. The bookstore sold an average of $1 million worth of books and resources every year. It was during this time that I met and started dating Stephany Pascetta, who was also working at the UUA. Stephany and I married in December of 1996 and moved to Connecticut in 1999 when she was hired as a Latin teacher at Glastonbury High School. We now live in Glastonbury, where we have a strong and growing network of friends and family. We have two sons, Mason Brites Pawelek (born April 24th, 2002) and Max Sterner Pawelek (who arrived May 8th, 2006).
My marriage to Stephany certainly stands out as one of the most important events of my life. Stephany comes from a large extended Italian and Portuguese family and has taught me many important lessons: how to take myself less seriously; how to engage in conflict fairly and still stay connected; how to look at a situation realistically as opposed to idealistically. Stephany holds me accountable. She keeps me honest. She supports me in everything I do and expects the same support in everything she does. She is a feminist who has had a powerful influence on the development of my own anti-oppression world-view. She is in my heart and I am in hers. I can’t imagine life without her.
At the time of our marriage in 1996, I was at Harvard Divinity School, which I had entered in the fall of 1994. I had also become involved as a trainer with the UUA’s anti-racism initiative. Through these experiences, I came to learn that spiritual grounding and success in ministry do not ultimately come from courses or books, no matter who is teaching them. Rather, they come from striving to live an authentic life.
Authenticity means many things to me: living a life based on values rather than material; praying prayers of thankfulness rather than petition; following my heart and head, rather than trends and established conventions; focusing more on the quality of my community than on individualism; reveling in tradition and family as much as progress and independence; taking action more and complaining less; acknowledging my shortcomings and vulnerabilities rather than presenting an image of total togetherness and competence; being nice; giving people the benefit of the doubt; loving nature; asking for clarification when I don’t understand something; and, at least once a day, just doing nothing except that which occurs to me in the moment.
After graduation from seminary in 1999, the question became how to apply these ideas about authenticity to the practice of ministry. I took two part-time jobs: one as parish minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Norwich, Connecticut, and the other as an anti-racism educator and organizer with the UUA’s anti-racism initiative known as Journey Toward Wholeness (a position that required considerable travel). I loved both positions. They were challenging and exciting.
My life changed on April 24th, 2002, when Stephany gave birth to our first child, Mason Brites Pawelek. Mason was born with a heart defect that required three surgeries after birth. His final surgery took place in May, 2005, and we are breathing a deep sigh of relief that all is well for now. We are enormously thankful for all those who supported us and held us during this difficult time. Dealing with Mason’s heart condition has been incredibly challenging for our little family. We’ve had to learn about the human heart and what went wrong with Mason’s. We’ve had to research surgical options, surgeons, and hospitals. We’ve had to wrestle with insurance companies. We’ve become part of the network of families of children with congenital heart defects known as “Little Hearts.” We’ve had to rely on family and friends to get us through our challenges in ways that we’d never done before.
After Mason’s birth, it became exceedingly difficult to balance two jobs, one of which required a fair amount of travel, and at the same time provide the in-home child care necessitated by Mason’s condition. As I came to realize and acknowledge the need to integrate my professional life, that serendipitous occurrence in March of 2003 brought me to UUS:E!
Serving as the parish minister of UUS:E has blessed my life in many ways. I have grown much in my time here. UUS:E is a strong and healthy congregation with incredible lay leadership. It has a solid commitment to social justice, an excellent religious education program for children, wonderful music, and a growing number of opportunities for adults to engage in spiritual growth. Most importantly, UUS:E allows me to continue striving for authenticity and encourages me always to seek and provide excellence in ministry. I am deeply thankful.
Organizational Involvement and Recognition
Last updated January 23, 2007
