Heirlooms of UCN History #61
by Will Frank
In 1940, the Rev. Robert W. Sonen frequently included excerpts from his sermon of the previous week in the next week’s order of service. Here is a sample:
January 21, 1940
We cannot bring ourselves to think that simply changing garments on the seventh day and going to different places and listening to music and enjoying ritual and hearing things said exhaust the categories of religion. Because of this attitude, many of us were outside all religious organizations for years. We would have none of it. Then the time came when somebody told us the simple truth that it is not sacred days or books that are holy, but it is life.
February 11, 1940
There is more to the world than chance; there is more to life than the event of the moment; there are certain great laws in operation which permit us to say, “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.” The future, more than we sometimes care to admit, depends upon the present. What we will be is determined to a great extent by what we are. Education – growing up – is a life-long process. The books we read, the friends we have, the habits we form, the movies we see, the places we visit, the things we do today will be reflected in our lives in the future. We are, in truth, building for the morrow.
March 3, 1940
Eternity deals with the long haul. If we are “Eternity-minded” we are stabilized. Nothing disastrous can happen to us. Our ups and downs compensate. We will expect the ship to roll and pitch but we will know that it will not capsize. When some mental, moral, or physical victory is won by a group, for a season, we will not raise a hysterical should that the Kingdom has come. And when some circumstance has brought on a period of ruthless fraud, savage selfishness and various phenomena of retrogression, we will not whine, “Lo - there goes the Kingdom.” If we are Eternity-conscious, we will be assured against being kited into transient ecstasies - loaded with the makings of disappointments - but protected against buckling under the strain of some apparent catastrophe.