Hello, dear readers! It’s been nearly four years since my last post. Much has changed.
First of all, I’m no longer a seminarian (although I am still a humanist): I graduated with my Master of Divinity degree in 2019, and in May 2020 I was ordained into the Unitarian Universalist ministry by my home congregation, the First Unitarian Universalist Church of San Diego. As of this writing, I am finishing up a one-year half-time contract position as the minister at Summit Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Santee, California (east of San Diego).
And, of course, for more than a year there has been a worldwide pandemic.
I have not had time to continue regular posting on this site, and in any case I should think of another name for it, now that I have graduated seminary. That will have to wait until I have some more time.
During the past four years, the posts on this blog that have gotten the most hits are the ones about the “I believe in the sun” quotation. I’m about to post an unexpected fifth entry to that four-part series, but I wanted to leave a note here beforehand to let you know why I have been so quiet and what I’ve been up to.
I hope that there will be more to say here soon!
The Humanist Seminarian 
I have come late to the discussion of “I believe in the sun” as presented by my church choir. I found your blog while searching for something that made sense after seeing how countless churches modified the words to suit their preferences, turning it into treacle. The whole story seemed a fiction. Your persistent research answered that question and presented more to be considered.
The performance as a hymn was so affecting for me because the music, not only because of the words. You would think that the composer, to emphasize Christian hope would have created a a note of joy by the time we arrive at God. A few hallelujah perhaps.
Instead the tone, the key, the song is a somber lament of human suffering, hanging onto a thread of comfort, a hard bitten belief. In this way, the words are stronger and better rearranged as you noted. Thank you for your work and good wishes for your future.
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