Our guest preacher, Rev. Steve Edington, writes:
The sermon title draws on one of the chapters in my work in progress book The Gospel According to Jack: Tracking Kerouac in My Life.
When Jack Kerouac passed away in 1969, he was largely regarded as a literary flash-in-the-pan. Some of his published works were out of print. He was primarily defined by his best-known novel On the Road—a very limited definition of who he really was. The past 2-3 decades have seen a Kerouac renaissance, as his true literary and cultural importance have come to light. In this sermon I’ll offer some of my thoughts as to why this is the case.
I’ll cite two of the reasons here: As each generation comes of age, its members seek their own road. On the Road is actually a metaphor for that search, and it reveals both the joy and excitement of finding one’s path, as well as some of the pitfalls and downsides of such explorations.
Our dual need for roots and wings is also found in much of Kerouac’s work. Part of Jack never got out of his hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts; while another part of him had to escape it. There are some guideposts Kerouac offers here when it comes to how we shape our own identity as to where we have come from and where we want to go.
Rev. Steve Edington is the Minister Emeritus of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Nashua, New Hampshire. He is the author of The Beat Face of God—The Beat Generation Writers as Spirit Guides and Bring Your Own God—The Spirituality of Woody Guthrie.
Worship leader: Rev. Steve Edington
Follow along in the order of service: bit.ly/uucpa_oos_20240825.
If you prefer to attend online, there are two options. One, join the service via Zoom bit.ly/uucpa_service_1015am_v3. To get the passcode, email sundayservice@uucpa.org or call UUCPA’s outgoing voicemail message, 650-494-0541. It is also included in the weekly update emails. Two, to watch the service live on our Facebook page (no passcode required), visit UUCPA’s live Facebook feed.
Photo by Goodshoped35110s, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons