Author: ppadmin

Wedding on the oncology ward

A meditation on the hurried-up wedding of my youngest and the occasion of International Women’s Day

by Ken Sehested

Introduction: It is right and proper to retrieve and celebrate the memory of women of significant achievement who model excellence, infused with righteousness, for us all. However, the vast majority of such women (and men) are highly contextual, inconspicuous, and will only be known to a handful of witnesses. Kathy Waters is one of those.
        The following is a meditation, circulated to friends, after the collision of trauma and joy surrounding my youngest’s wedding. I did not realize until now that these events from 14 years ago coincided with International Women’s Day.

 

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News, views, notes, and quotes

Signs of the Times  •  3 March 2016  •  No. 61

Processional. “I Want Jesus to Walk With Me,” Fannie Lou Hamer.

Right: This lavender labyrinth, in Germany, was developed by Christa Wendling in 2005. It is a replica of the one laid in the floor of the Chartres Cathedral in France in 1220.

Invocation. “We know the road to freedom has always been stalked by death.” —Angela Y. Davis

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No resurrection by proxy

What 8-year-old Amelia Meyer has to teach us about Lenten arrangements that lead to life’s flourishing

by Ken Sehested

        My vote for this Lent’s saint of the season is 8-year-old Amelia Meyer of Kansas City. Given the current electoral charade, with its evisceration of democratic traditions, her testimony couldn’t come at a better time.

        I learned of her story in a most mundane setting. My lunchtime habit is to heat up leftovers, or smear apple slices with peanut butter, and watch television news channels or sporting reports while eating. Occasionally, when all of those have simultaneous commercials, I flip to CNN’s “Headline News” for an update on “trending” styles and the subjects of public gossip. (You should try it—it can get pretty funny.)

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Remembering in a different way

A meditation on communion, forgiveness and reconciliation's labor, inspired by Isaiah 43:16-21

by Ken Sehested

I had a dream. We were in Sunday’s circle, settled in our motley gaggle of chairs, some fabric, some stained; some vinyl, some torn,

Huddled ’round an ordinary, store-bought Formica-topped table, of folding legs, covered in cloth and adorned with host and cup and candles burning,

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News, views, notes, and quotes

Signs of the Times  •  25 February 2016  •  No. 60

Processional (and celebrating the rising of the women). The ceremony marks the first aboriginal women—Melanie Mark—elected to British Columbia (Canada) legislature.  (Thanks, Lee.)

Photo at right. Colima Volcano in Mexico shows a powerful night explosion with lightning and incandescent rockfalls. This photo, by Velasco Garcia, took second place in the 2016 World Press Photo Contest.

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Claim on Jesus

A call to worship and litany, inspired by Luke 15:11b-32 ("The prodigal son" parable)

by Ken Sehested

Call to worship

It has been said: Our weakness is our only claim on Jesus. “Come to me, you who are weary. . . . For my yoke is light” (Mt. 11:28, 30).

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Let the lost rejoice

A litany for worship inspired by Jesus' parables of loss in Luke 15

by Ken Sehested

When power reaps death from countless
killing fields, and every war sows the seeds
      of the next, those in the Great Shepherd’s
            flock resist the bloodletting lure.

Let the mournful rejoice in the Lamb who
      rules, for the Tendering Day draws near!
Both lion and lamb are inheritors of the
      coming peaceful kingdom, but
            the latter’s sleep is the sweeter.

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Maître D’ of Heaven

A litany for worship

by Ken Sehested

The Maître D’ of Heaven commands the ’poverished-poor to table: the halt and helpless, lamed and maimed ushered up for honored seating.

The Beloved’s steadfast love is like a lip-smacking feast of abundance. But the Market’s squaloring famine sows the seeds of violent harvest.

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Raucous

God’s mutiny against Lenten tedium and patriotic pablum

by Ken Sehested

There’s a raucousness to God, in God, of God, by God,
that the orderly mind cannot abide (finds chaotic, riotous)
that the prim-proper mind finds embarrassing (even trashy)
that the erudite mind judges tacky (mangy)
that the pious mind believes unseemly (well-nigh depraved)
that the disciplined mind finds rowdy (or at least untidy)
that the morally rigorous simply cannot condone.

Have you ever been in a place like, maybe, as a child
in church, sitting next to your best friend who, despite
trying hard not to,
            how can I say this without
            offending delicate sensitivities
“breaks wind”? What might normally be only marginally
humorous, now
            given the sanctuarial circumstances,
            the prohibition of irreverence being severe
becomes funny all out of proportion and, despite your
best efforts, trying to swallow the guffaw rising from
your esophagus,
            like trying to muzzle a sneeze
it squirts out anyway, and the breath suppressed explodes
through nasal cavity, launching a mucus-laced snort,
unleashing giggles, a mutiny against solemnity.

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