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An essay of mine, titled “Beyond Either/Or,” appears in a book just published by Skinner House Press and edited by Susan A. Gore and Keith Kron, Coming Out in Faith: Voices of LGBTQ Unitarian Universalists. It’s a beautiful little volume, with diverse and fascinating voices represented in the fifteen essays, and I highly recommend it.
In my essay, something happened along the twisting path of editing and revising. The published version appears to be, not my final draft altered by the usual edits that every author must grin and bear (and often benefit from!), but a reversion to an earlier draft that was still floating around in someone’s hard drive, as earlier drafts do. It’s a shame, since I found the editors’ comments on my later draft extremely insightful and I knew they were improving my piece. The final version, however, didn’t incorporate these (though I’ve heard from readers that it’s good as is). Here, as best as I can recreate it, is the final version that I believe all three of us intended to appear in print.
After this service, one of the wonderful leaders, J., who attended Mark’s talk at our church, and who had said he wished he could come to Thursday’s meeting (“Toward a More Diverse UUCPA”) but had a conflict, came up to me and said, “I wasn’t going to come Thursday because I had a prior commitment. It’s still prior, but this is more important. I’ll be there.”
Do you see why I am filled with confidence? Do you see why I love my congregation and have such faith in their ability to do whatever they set their minds and hearts on? I can’t wait ’til Thursday.
I had my sermon all but finished, but Saturday morning, a niggling voice told me it wasn’t where my passion lay, and I listened to it and wrote an entirely different one. I had been brooding over the economic news, but Bernie Sanders’s own sermon in the Senate this week–it sure hit me like a sermon–sent me over the edge. Our crazy economic system and how we are arguing about just how much crazier to make it–that was what I wanted to say about childhood in this country at this moment.
So with the couple of hours in the early morning of Saturday and Sunday when I’m usually up before my family, plus a strong dose of anger and grief, I wrote this. I’m glad I followed my instincts. I heard from many people how much they needed to hear it, and I think that was mostly because it was the sermon I most needed to say.
I’m getting those preaching chops back–guest-preached this morning at the Community Church of San Miguel, an interdenominational and quite liberal Christian church that was one year old this past Valentine’s Day. It’s been many years since I preached from the lectionary, and I enjoyed it. As with an art exercise or academic assignment, sometimes having to work within set constraints can be paradoxically freeing and inspiring.
Sermons in Stones 
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