Minister’s Message Summer 2014 “I sing the body electric.” This was a line from a song in the musical Fame, which chronicles the careers of high schoolers in a New York arts school. I remember this line and this song well, because I attended Cincinnati’s version of this school, the School for Creative and Performing Arts. Every year at graduation, we would hear the song from the Fame musical with its provocative line “I sing the body electric.” What I did not know at the time was that this line is from a poem by Walt Whitman. It appears in his Leaves of Grass. The book is a magnificent one, one that broke ground in a lot of different ways. It expressed the urge of other Unitarian Transcendentalists at the time to find inspiration in nature and in diverse sources. It critiqued social injustice like slavery and held high hopes for democratic togetherness. And it offered a positive vision of sexuality and the body, especially in such pieces as its “I sing the body electric” poem. Each year I recommend a book to read over the summer. So far, I have chosen works in philosophy, autobiography, and prose. This year I would like to suggest that we pick up this classic from the cultural icon and fellow Unitarian, Walt Whitman. I recommend the original 1855 edition. When we gather again in the fall, I will preach a sermon that uses this work as a jumping off point. I close with a brief selection from this work: I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass… With wishes for a wonderful and enriching summer, Rev. Lucas Hergert