The Rev. Margo McKenna

The Rev. Margo McKenna, a lifelong seeker whose religious restlessness led her from social work to ministry, from Seventh-day Adventism to Unitarian Universalism, from Christianity to skepticism and thence back to a reconsidered theism, and whose torments drove her from doubt to hope and finally to despair, died sadly by her own hand on 16 February 2014 at age 53.

As a parish minister, Margo McKenna was radically welcoming and inclusive in a congregation whose political diversity required greater sensitivity than many UU ministers are called upon to exercise. With dedicated pastoral presence, she worked valiantly among her parishioners in the aftermath of the terrible wildfires that swept through interior San Diego County in October 2007, nearly destroying her church. One colleague who came to give her weekend relief recalled that “she was both exhausted and utterly gracious to me and to all those who came to church that Sunday.”

Her sister Marlene recalls that Margo never met a person who didn’t like her almost immediately: “Whenever we went shopping together for clothes, she would always have a crowd of women around her in the dressing room asking her opinion their selections. These were, of course, people she had never met before.”

Margo Rae Mattson was born in Toronto on 22 November 1960, one of four children of Henry and Frieda Mattson. With her missionary parents, she grew up in Nigeria from age 2 until the family returned from Africa and settled in Michigan in the late 1960s. She was graduated from Andrews University (the “flagship” university of the Seventh-day Adventists in the far southwest Michigan town of Berrien Springs) with a Bachelor of Social Work in 1983 and then studied for some time at Loma Linda University before responding to a ministerial call, transferring to Princeton Theological Seminary, and earning her M.Div. there in 1988.

Female clergy were controversial in Seventh-day Adventism (SDA), and Margo served associate ministries, without ordination, at Paradise Valley SDA Church of San Diego (1988-89), at Tierrasanta SDA Church of San Diego (1989-93), and at Garden Grove SDA Church (1994-98), where on 6 July 1996 she was finally one of the first women to receive SDA ordination. Meanwhile, around that time, a ten-year marriage to Larry Pitrone ended in divorce, whereupon Margo adopted “McKenna” as a new surname, affirming a strong sense of connection to her Irish heritage.

In 1998 the Rev. Ms. McKenna left Seventh-day Adventist ministry and began exploring Unitarian Universalism. She served as the Director of Religious Education at the UU Church of Riverside, California (1999-2000). After receiving UUA ministerial fellowship in November 2000, she was called to the pulpit of Chalice UU Congregation of Escondido, California, in 2001, and served there until 2010. During that ministry, she met and married Tom Brower, with whom she led district workshops on creative responses to political diversity in UU congregations. They were legally separated in 2013.

Leaving parish ministry 2010, Margo spent her last years as a social worker in hospice settings throughout Southern California, while pursuing various creative arts. “She loved drawing, painting, sculpting, and photography,” recalled her sister Marlene. “She was an artist at heart.” From an early age she also enjoyed hiking and mountain climbing. The photo at right shows Margo with her sister Marlene in their late teens after they had just hiked the Bright Angel Trail on the north rim of the Grand Canyon.

In both Seventh-day Adventist and Unitarian Universalist ministries, Margo’s conviction of religion as a cooperative force for social good and equality was lived out in her many commitments to public and interfaith work. She founded the Women Ministers Association (SDA) in 1988, and served presidencies of the North Park Christian Service Agency of San Diego in 1990 and of the North Park Ecumenical Ministerial Association in 1991. She was co-organizer of the Orange County Interfaith Council in 1995 and a member of the Orange County chapter of the National Conference Commission on Justice from 1995 to 1998. She maintained membership with the National Association of Socially Responsible Organizations, the National Organization for Women, and later, the Liberal Religious Educators Association and the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association. Colleagues remember Margo arriving at ministerial gatherings with her tiny and much beloved canine companion, Gita, peeking out of the top of her purse or from inside her jacket.

Margo is survived by sisters Melodie Mattson-Bell and Marlene Harris, a brother, Morris Mattson; her mother, Frieda Mattson, and eight nieces and nephews. A memorial service was held on 15 March 2014 at the Chalice UU Congregation in Escondido, California. Margo was remembered as “very outgoing” and “loved by everyone,” and described by a sister as “a beautiful person” who was “a blessing to so many people.”

Memorial donations are encouraged to Heifer International, 1 World Ave, Little Rock, Arkansas 72202.