What a difference a day makes...

It's been a beautiful day today on the island, though I understand Seattle has been under siege again, with thunderstorms, hail, and windy conditions. It was bright sun here, at least part of the day, with a few sprinkles. But what a relief not to be without electricity!

I've been working on my sermon on the Second Source and will post it here on Sunday evening. But it's been a little tough going. My routine is normally to start the sermon on Wednesday, finish a major practice draft by Thursday night, let it rest on Friday, and polish it up on Saturday. It just didn't work that way this time.

It's not that the subject matter is so difficult, it's more that I wanted to give it a spin away from the usual suspects, the ones we always think of when we consider our prophetic women and men and I didn't manage that. The wording: Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love.

I think of all the non-Unitarian and Universalist characters in history who set an example for us, centuries ago. Not just Michael Servetus and King John Sigismund, but people like Madame Curie, Robert Ingersoll, Francis Rabelais, and Voltaire. Not to mention Mark Twain and Thomas Paine and others who stood polite society on its ear with their sturdy defiance of convention and the hidden oppression that everyone took for granted in polite society and in religion.

Eventually I decided that the followup Conversation on this Source would be where we'd spotlight these non-UUs and that the sermon needed to be more historical in nature, for the benefit of the visitors we've been getting who know nothing about UUism. I'm proud of our history and our usual suspects.

But the Conversation, I've decided, will feature a readers' theatre experience of one of the playlets in Charles Erskine Scott Wood's "Heavenly Discourse". I chose the chapter entitled Noah's Cruise, which features a number of characters, including Noah, Darwin, and William Jennings Bryan, all discussing the "truth" of Noah and the Ark with much hilarity. We'll see how that goes.