February 13-February 15

This week I focused on finishing the metadata for the 1957-1958 sermons and scanning the sermons of 1959. Working on the descriptions of the metadata was very time consuming, not only because the sermons had more text than the meeting minutes but also because the documents the text were on were in bad shape. For some reason most of the documents were cut into smaller pieces which meant I had to reassemble the papers in order to make the text legible. When reassembled, the paper appeared to be larger than the folder so it appears that they were cut into pieces on purpose so that they would fit, even though some were not cut up at all. Once scanned, the digital images of the documents had to be rotated so that they could be read by me. Despite these hindrances I managed to finish the metadata and begin scanning the 1959 documents that recorded the sermons given in that year. Once again I was amazed by how liberal Reverend Fuller was. Unlike most sermons that talk about Biblical events or the parables of Jesus, Reverend Fuller's sermons discussed current events and practical advice from him was distributed. Since I had spent the greater part of Monday working on metadata I had to finish scanning the folder on Wednesday.

On Wednesday I once again focused on scanning the documents. Once again some of the pages were cut up and time had to be dedicated to reassembling them. The content of the sermons was very interesting. One interesting sermon concerned a group of people that wanted to find a school to teach diplomats how to fight communism. Reverend Fuller sympathized with this proposal because of his belief that communism was against Unitarian values. However, he proposed that a peace school be founded instead in order to bring nonviolence to the whole world. Another sermon that was interesting and quite unlike anything I've heard before concerned the topic of differences in generations. In this sermon Reverend Fuller compared the Victorian generation with the generation that grew up during WWII and came to a surprising conclusion. This was that the Victorian generation had many good values that the current one was missing. According to Reverend Fuller, the Victorian era was peaceful and filled with an optimistic human society that looked forwards to the future, unlike the pessimistic wartime one. Personally, I think Reverend Fuller looked much too fondly on the past but I found his view to be interesting since I have never heard one like it before. Still, it appears to me that no one ever told Reverend Fuller that the "good old days" are sometimes not as good as older people make them out to be. Another secular thing discussed in a sermon by Reverend Fuller was that of school desegregation. Apparently, in 1959, Orlando had not desegregated its schools. However, Reverend Fuller was confident in his sermon that the city would eventually follow the example of other southern schools that were becoming integrated. He insisted that Orlando desegregate soon or else the schools will be forcefully integrated and that would cause a lot of  unneeded chaos. By the end of the day I finished scanning all the documents and left feeling very satisfied.