by Ken Sehested
We engage our rituals,
we practice our disciplines,
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The 11 June 2015 issue of "Signs of the Times" (No. 25) has disappeared—for reasons I don't understand. I'll soon begin recreating it. —Ken
Read more ›All People That On Earth Do Dwell
Old hymn, new lyrics
by Ken Sehested
All people that on earth do dwell, Sing to our God with cheerful voice
Let Resurrection joy foretell, Life in the Spirit’s breath rejoice
The Most High One is God indeed, Without our hand the world was made
Yet would not leave us in our need, But walks among us unafraid
News, views, notes, and quotes
4 June 2015 • No. 24
¶ Invocation. “I am, you anxious one. / Don’t you sense me, ready to break / into being at your touch? / My murmurings surround you like shadowy wings. / Can’t you see me standing before you / cloaked in stillness? / Hasn’t my longing ripened in you / from the beginning / as fruit ripens on a branch?
“I am the dream you are dreaming. / When you want to awaken, I am that wanting: / I grow strong in the beauty you behold. / And with the silence of stars I enfold / your cities made by time.” —Rainer Maria Rilke
¶ Last week's announcement that the US State Department has removed Cuba from its list of "state sponsors of terrorism" is one more significant step in reestablishing normal diplomatic relations. To celebrate, take a few minutes to view the grandeur in these photos: “Unseen Cuba: First aerial photographs reveal island's spectacular beauty.” Lithuanian aerial photographer Marius Jovaisa was the first artist to receive government permission to fly over the country and photograph it from above.
Read more ›“Stingy spenders hold back growth”
Is it a trivial matter to complain about such screamer headlines?
by Ken Sehested
“Stingy spenders hold back growth.” So reads the title of a recent USA Today business section story reporting that “penny-pinching consumers tainted” otherwise robust economic indicators.
Is it a trivial matter to complain about such screamer headlines?
Read more ›There is a new creation
The Apostle Paul’s vision of the ministry of reconciliation
by Ken Sehested
So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation:
everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ,
and has given us the ministry of reconciliation;
that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself,
not counting their trespasses against them,
and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.
2 Corinthians 5:17-19
Few things are more uniform among Baptist churches the world over than Sunday school. Many are surprised to learn that this organized form of Bible study began in Britain in the 18th century. And its specific purpose was to provide literacy training for poor children. It was a ministry of reconciliation in an age when industrialization was deepening the chasm of poverty.
Read more ›Parable of the Sower
Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. You are not obligated to complete the work but neither are you free to abandon it. (The Talmud)
And how are we to spend ourselves for the sake of the world that God loves? For the recognition? For the virtue?
For the hope of return in the future? Maybe for the pleasure?
Read more ›Are the poor “always with us”?
Brief commentary on a fatalistic reading of an ancient text
My hometown paper, the Asheville Citizen-Times, recently ran an editorial arguing that poverty is not inevitable. The following was my response, printed as a letter to the editor.
Wednesday’s AC-T editorial (“The cycle of poverty is not inevitable”) offers a compelling rebuttal to the notion that poverty is preordained. One reference, however, repeats a popular misreading of ancient authority: “Many who are not poor accept the biblical maxim that the poor will always be with us. . . .”
The “maxim” in Deuteronomy 15:11 (referenced by Jesus, in three of the Gospels, for other purposes) is the premise for this conclusion: “I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy.’”
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28 May 2015 • No. 23
Special issue on
The Bible
¶ “What bothers me about the Bible is not the parts I can't understand, but the parts I can understand.” —Mark Twain
¶ “Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whisky bottle in the hand of [another]. . . . There are just some kind of men who’re so busy worrying about the next world they’ve never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.” —Harper Lee, “To Kill a Mockingbird”
Read more ›Bowling in Baghdad
Which memorial will guide?
by Ken Sehested, Memorial Day 2015
The Al-Fanar Hotel restaurant was bustling when I walked in. I sat with a new friend, Charles, a professional photojournalist and fellow Iraq Peace Team member. There were about 40 of us, split between three hotels in downtown Baghdad on the banks of the Tigris River. This was February 2003, in the weeks leading up to the “shock and awe” invasion.
We were monitoring the effects of U.N. sanctions and providing an alternative account to that of the mainstream media’s war promotion. The trip was not undertaken lightly, given the impending invasion, along with the threat by our own government of prison sentences and steep fines for breaching the U.S. travel ban.
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