Let us plant dates even though those who plant them will never eat them. We must live by the love of what we will never see. . . . Such disciplined love is what has given prophets, revolutionaries, an… — Rubem Alves
by Ken Sehested
Dear Jesus: Don’t do that. Don’t go saying “I come not to bring peace, but division.” You’re scaring us. Don’t you know there are children in the room!
Peace is not the product of the politics of fear, of Wall Street fraud or war profiteer.
Read more ›by Ken Sehested
Sisters and brothers, these are among the convictions that we harbor and herald:
Faith is not belief in spite of the evidence. Faith is life lived in scorn of the consequences.*
Read more ›
A note from Gerald,“Signs of the Times” is on vacation this week, but we’ve posted two election reflection pieces you will enjoy.
The first, “O Shizzle! Electoral season parable,” is a first-person story about a happenstance conversation across party affiliation lines, “in this age of un-friending, of only seeking news outlets that contribute to opinions we already hold.”
Read more ›by Thom Fogarty and Micah Bucey
We learned of the following anecdote by way of friends at Judson Memorial Church in
New York City, involving Micah Bucey, Judson’s associate minister, and Judson
member Thom Fogarty, Artistic Director of 360 Repertory Theatre Company.
Thom tells the story, and Micah adds commentary at the end.
Micah met me for lunch today to debrief on the fabulous reading of Alyson Mead’s “The Quality of Mercy” and talk back we had at Judson last Saturday.
Read more ›A note from Gerald,“Signs of the Times” is on vacation this week.
But two new poems have been posted. (See below.)
Turn off (what passes for) the news.
Boycott the season’s electoral charades.
Don’t give in to Pokémon’s promise of
“augmented reality.” Attend instead to
unmitigated reality: bloodied, stricken
and strewn. Offer grief the hearing it
demands, the voice it obliges, and
the risk it assumes.
—continue reading Ken Sehested's "Lamentations' call to arms: A poem inspired by the Book of Lamentations"
by Ken Sehested
Hillary Clinton’s election this week as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee surely knocks another hole in the “glass ceiling” obstructing women’s full inclusion into the human enterprise. [1]
It should go without saying that the struggle for gender justice is far from over; but every advance should be permitted its celebration—even for those who, like me, maintain profound 
concerns about Clinton’s entanglement with Wall Street’s domination of our economy along with her militarized foreign policy instincts.
by Ken Sehested
There are, to be sure, moments of high drama in the work of holy obedience:
marches to be made, confrontations to be staged, dangers to be endured,
corruption to be exposed, trips made to distant or unfamiliar places,
occasional rackets to be raised, maybe even jail cells to be filled.
On rare occasions, the whole world is watching.
Read more ›by Ken Sehested
Turn off (what passes for) the news.
Boycott the season’s electoral charades.
Don’t give in to Pokémon’s promise of
“augmented reality.” Attend instead to
unmitigated reality: bloodied, stricken
and strewn. Offer grief the hearing it
demands, the voice it obliges, and
the risk it assumes.
When not even Wendell Berry’s “peace
of wild things” will suffice—the wilderness
itself being salted and assaulted—turn to
the Lamentator’s naked confession for
uttering the heart’s howling confusion
amid terror’s ambush.
Signs of the Times • 13 July 2016 • No. 81
¶ Processional. “Ella’s Song,” Sweet Honey in the Rock.
by Ken Sehested
All glory to you, Gracious One, who smiles on the earth, restoring the fortunes of our ancestors.
In your presence, the weight of shame is lifted, and we are drenched in pardon.
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