Author: Ken Sehested

We still have a dream

A litany for worship commemorating
the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

Ken Sehested

Admiring Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream is not the same
as being captured by it. Too many find it possible to
respect the man but relinquish the mission. It has become
too easy to revere the dreamer but renege on the dream.
So let us now recall the deep roots of that vision as
spoken in ages past:

We remember when Hannah praised God by saying:
The bows of the mighty are broken,
but the feeble gird on strength.

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Marking Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday

A litany for worship A litany for worship, using lines from
“Lift Every Voice and Sing” by James Weldon Johnson

Ken Sehested

Hear this, O People of the Dream: It is good and right that you recall the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the movement which mobilized him. The journey to the Beloved Community is sometimes dark and desperate and dangerous, and we need constellating light to orient our hearts and direct our feet.

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A Martin Luther King Jr. remembrance

by Ken Sehested

I have a vivid memory of the exact moment. I was in seminary, having fled my native South to New York City to finish college and then seminary, embarrassed at being a Baptist, at being a white Southerner, and not entirely sure if I was a believer. But the God question wouldn’t go away.

A mighty wrestling match was underway in my soul, trying to come to terms with my adolescent “youth revival” preacher days. Neither the Civil Rights nor the anti-Vietnam War movements had disturbed my piously-furrowed brow.

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The stilling power of Advent‘s drama

Ken Sehested

“Between the wish and the thing the world lies waiting.”
—Cormac McCarthy, “All the Pretty Horses”

Invocation. “Keep your lamps trimmed and burning . . . / the day is drawing nigh. / Darker midnight lies before us . . . / the day is drawing nigh. / For the morning soon is breaking . . . / the day is drawing nigh. / Children, don't get weary / till your work is done.” —“Keep Your Lamps,” arr. André Thomas, combined choirs of Florida State University 

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¡Silencio! When, and when not, to keep silence

A meditation in praise of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life
in light of Holy Week’s threat yet to come

Ken Sehested

Invocation. “Dr. King received a message / As he sat there in his cell / In Birmingham Alabama / He had gone there to repel / The troubles in that city / For which it was well known / Though his message spoke of peace / Into the prison he was thrown / Pastors sent that message / Urging King to wait / They didn’t want his protest He wasn’t welcome in their state / History has taught us The Reverend understood / The bad get their power / From the silence of the good.” —Eric Mcfadden, “The Silence of the Good” 

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Advent mnemonics

What person, event, or object helps you recover your “right mind” in order to hear and respond anew to the Nativity story?

Ken Sehested

Hymn of invocation. “Creator of the Stars of Night.” —9th century hymn performed here by the St. John’s Compline Choir 

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When holidays cue the blues

Ken Sehested

The major holidays can be sad occasions for some who have lost a loved one: “Blue Christmas” services of sorrowful remembrance, Easter when resurrection day did not return your beloved, Thanksgiving when there is a painfully empty seat at the table of bounty.

Not to mention the fact that the Nativity story’s context included a state-sponsored terror campaign (cf. Matthew 2:16). And in the US, 27 November is a “National Day of Mourning” commemorated by Indigenous peoples of the ongoing struggle to recognize the historical atrocities committed by European undocumented immigrants in the colonial era and its aftermath.

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