In Memory of David Allen Pettee (August 18,1957- September 13, 2020)

DAVID PETTEE (1957-2020)

The Ministries and Faith Development staff offer our condolences to the family and colleagues of the Rev. David Allen Pettee who died on September 13, 2020 at the age of 63.

David was born on August 18, 1957 in Huntington, New York to Mary and James. He was a fifth-generation Unitarian who, in his own words, “carr[ied] forth an unbroken familial connection since the 1790s.”

Growing up near Boston, Dave attended the Winchester (MA) Unitarian Society until his teen years. In 1979 he graduated from Ithaca College with a B.S. in Recreation, and in 1983 with a Master of Social Work from Boston University.

In 1984, David reconnected with his UU roots in what he described as a “homecoming” at the UU Church of Reading (MA). Despite not despite not feeling suited to parish ministry, he began to consider entering the UU ministry and entered Starr King School for the Ministry shortly thereafter.

While a seminarian, David participated in what he called “a walking prayer for peace”—the Great Peace March from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C. For Dave, it became a “nine month conversion experience that indelibly convinced me of the ever-beckoning force of interdependence.” In 1988, Dave undertook a shorter, month-long peace march in the U.S.S.R. Like many other experiences he undertook, Dave was driven by his values just as much as he was drawn to once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.

During and after his years in seminary, Dave was arrested multiple times as part of protests that constituted “moral obedience acts as a reflection of my religious principles.” He derived a sense of faithfulness by living out these values, and reflected that “riding to jail with Daniel Ellsberg, William Sloan Coffin, and Bill Schulz taught me that there is a great sense of joy that comes from doing the right thing.”

When Dave graduated from Starr King in 1988, there were only two paths for credentialed ministry: parish and religious education. David didn’t feel called to either of those tracks—the work he wanted to do was in pastoral care and health care—but our tradition didn’t yet have a process to formally sanction that form of ministry. After a brief program of contemplation at St. Benedictine Monastery, Dave used his Social Work skills by working in a state-funded program for developmentally disabled adults in San Francisco. In 1990, he married Mindy Scharlin. They welcomed two daughters, Hannah and Sophie, and for a time, Dave was a full-time parent to his daughters.

When the new community ministry track was created in 1991, Dave began the process of claiming ministerial fellowship. He established a relationship with the First Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco, moving intentionally, and with collegial welcome, into the heart of congregational life. In so doing, Dave laid the groundwork for establishing the first affiliative relationship between a community minister and a UU congregation. Rev. Pettee was the first UU minister ordained—on June 5, 1994—as a community minister.

At the time, parish ministry was the norm for UU ministers and therefore conferred both authority and status. Rev. Pettee felt the burden and responsibility of being “first,” even as he was aware that his being a straight, white man made the way easier than it would be for others. The experience helped Dave grow his understanding and vision of what was possible in ministry—and, in turn, allowed him to do the same for others. In 1999, for example, Rev. Pettee chose to stop signing marriage licenses, lamenting that “when a minister signs a marriage license, he or she regrettably reaffirms the state-sanctioned discrimination against same-sex couples, who are categorically denied the opportunity to make their unions legal.”

Rev. Pettee was a founding member of the Pacific Central District (PCD) Community Ministry Council, and was also the first community minister to serve as President of a UUMA chapter (PCD)—a role he used to organize his colleagues to unanimously oppose Proposition 22, a ballot initiative that amended the California state constitution to make marriage legal only between a man and a woman.

Dave soon entered full-time Hospice work; his title remained social worker (not chaplain), but he always approached this work as a minister. Over the course of ministering to more than five thousand dying people, and striving to incarnate grace to them, Dave noted that “the dying experience offers a remarkable opportunity for healing and return to relationship.” He became a member of the Death with Dignity Education Center Task Force, and for a time provided counseling to couples facing infertility.

While living in California, Dave was tethered to his New England ancestry, in part, through his love for the Red Sox. For Dave, this went beyond mere baseball, as it was threaded with theological implications: that the Red Sox didn’t win a single World Series between 1918 and 2004 was an opportunity to live out, as both witness and fan-participant, the layered experiences of suffering, hope, fidelity in the face of explicit disappointment, and redemption.

In 2002—two years before their historic win—Rev. Pettee returned to Boston with his family, and joined the Unitarian Universalist Association as Ministerial Credential Director. It was a position he described as his “dream job,” in which Rev. Pettee was charged with overseeing the formation process for individuals pursuing ministerial fellowship. Over the course of the next eighteen years, he would conduct this institutional ministry, minister by minister, with pastoral grace and utmost integrity.

One of Rev. Pettee’s chief characteristics was the willingness to withstand discomfort in the service of deeply-held values. “He didn’t turn away from what was hard,” observed a colleague. This was true of his quiet pride of having completed ten consecutive Boston Marathons (and, later, an eleventh). It was also true in his professional work: he had high expectations for himself, as well as for others—and he therefore invited people to take responsibility for their choices.

During the course of his ministry at the UUA, Rev. Pettee’s exploration of his ancestors divulged, in 2006, that his own family members had been enslavers. To explore this legacy head-on, in 2007 he and Mindy traveled to Ghana, where his ancestor had traded rum for enslaved Africans. He also tracked down, in New York, a descendant of those enslaved persons and met with the family several times. He believed that “truth-telling and repentance can be an antidote to the abuse of power that was institutionalized in the practice of slavery.”

In 2017, after his marriage to Mindy had ended, Dave met Jen Nahas at a meeting where they soon learned that they were bonded by the belief that “walking solves everything.” Their relationship flourished, and they walked the Camino de Santiago together in 2018. In 2019 they completed a coast-to-coast hike in England. Upon returning home, Dave proposed to Jen and then received a daunting medical diagnosis. Musing that he was “always the peace activist,” Dave imagined his cancer as “a new and uninvited dance partner in my life…who communicates in strange and unexpected ways.”

Whereas the impact of Dave’s ministry and work had been one-on-one for decades, Dave shifted course: he began writing vulnerable CaringBridge posts that brought his Hospice work full circle by creating a public ministry of bearing witness to his own death. David used his raw, witty posts (“At least I lived long enough to see the Red Sox win the World Series, not just once, but four times”) to take cancer at a steady pace, “breathing through pain and taking advantage of the downhill moments.” It was an unfamiliar role for him, Jen observed, as “caregiving was Dave’s love language, his theology, and the way he walked in this world.”

Dave made the difficult decision to leave his position at the UUA on July 15th, officially retiring with “no regrets.” After devoting thirty-five years to serving the cause of Unitarian Universalism, with the last eighteen years on staff at the headquarters of his faith, Rev. Pettee died at a Hospice home on September 13th, 2020.

David is survived by his fiancée Jen Nahas; his daughters Sophie and Hannah; his brother Jon; and his father, James.