Rejected - Jeffrey Lockwood

When I was asked to write a set of meditations for the UUA’s meditation manual series, I wrote more pieces that I knew would be used in the final product (A Guest of the World, Skinner House, 2006).  As a way of figuring out which meditations to include, I asked ten friends—a sort of test panel or focus group—to read the pieces and rate them.  Some of the writings were rather uniformly approved, and these formed the foundation of the book.  However, twenty pieces were rejected, and these orphans continue to interest me for various reasons.  Some were rated very highly by one or two people but were nixed by the others.  Some were rated quite well by my readers but were nixed by the editor (editors having God-like powers in this regard).  And some nobody liked but me.  This Sunday, I’ll share the best of rejects—and let you decide whether or not the right meditations made it into the book.