Ho ho ho

This could be the happy holidays of driving! We left DC (Goodbye, DC!) for Champaign, and after a lovely night at the gym followed by a special meal at the Great Impasta, we are leaving Champaign (Goodbye, CU!) for MN.

I found one really cool description of my church, All Souls, and found it worth sharing. A few highlights:

All Souls was founded in 1821 as the First Unitarian Church of Washington; among the church's founding members were John Quincy Adams, John C. Calhoun, and Charles Bulfinch (who designed the original church building at 6th and D Streets NW). The All Souls bell was cast in 1822 by Joseph Revere, the son of Paul Revere; this bell, paid for with contributions by, among others, President James Monroe, originally served as a quasi-official town bell for Washington, DC.

The church has a long tradition of promoting liberal religious views and social justice issues. In the first half of the 1800s it was known for its opposition to slavery, and counts among its past ministers the prominent abolitionist William Henry Channing. The Revere Bell was stripped of its status as Washington's "town bell" after the congregation tolled it to commemorate the death of John Brown; it was thereafter often called the "Abolition Bell."

Documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act revealed that J. Edgar Hoover was so deeply distrustful of the direction in which Eaton was leading All Souls that he planted an undercover FBI agent in the church to monitor the congregation and undermine Eaton's ministry.