Author: ppadmin

Hallelujah

New lyrics to Leonard Cohen’s song, adapted from Psalm 23

The Lord’s my shepherd, I’ll not want
Green pastures rise and from the font
Flow waters, ever gentle, to surround me
My soul restored, my heart aflame
My feet will walk and for that Name
My lungs will lift to sing, Hallelujah.

Chorus: Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah.

In darkest valley, I’ll not fear
Though evil threat be crouching near
Your Presence ever shadows and enfolds me
At banquet feast you bid me rest
With enemies as table guests
My cup o’erflows with shouts of Hallelujah.

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News, views, notes, and quotes

21 May 2015  •  No. 22

Invocation. "This old world is mean and cruel, / But still I love it like a fool, this world, / This world, this world." —Malvina Reynolds, “This World”

Right: ©Julie Lonneman

Call to Worship. “Send Me,” a litany drawing from Isaiah 6:1-8.

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After the ecstasy, the laundry

Ken Sehested
Texts: Isaiah 6:1-8; Psalm 29; John 3:1-17

 

         It was the first football game of my senior year of high school. We traveled west-by-northwest, paralleling the Louisiana coastline, to New Iberia, where that bottle of spicy Tabasco sauce in your kitchen cabinet was made.

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Lovers in Dangerous Times

Ken Sehested
Text: Romans 8:12-25

“We are lovers in dangerous times.” —Bruce Cochburn

“Faith is not belief in spite of the evidence. Faith is life lived in scorn of the consequences.” —Clarence Jordan

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Oh foofaraw

by Ken Sehested

Dear God:
There was a time when your provision was like
a splendid feast,
      a delicacy for the eye,
            a delight to the palate,
                  an aroma so fine it buckled my knees.

But no more.
The thrill is gone.
      The aroma gags.
            I’ve had my fill of this swill.

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All Together

A litany for Pentecost

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.

And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting

Blazing tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.

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The Promise of Pentecost

A sermon for Pentecost

by Ken Sehested
Texts: Acts 2:1-21; Ezekiel 37:1-14; Romans 8:22-23

      Word association: What images or associations come to your mind when you hear the word “Pentecostal”?

      Three texts intersect for today’s service:

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The Promise of Pentecost

A sermon for Pentecost

by Ken Sehested
Texts: Acts 2:1-21; Ezekiel 37:1-14; Romans 8:22-23

      Word association: What images or associations come to your mind when you hear the word “Pentecostal”?

      Three texts intersect for today’s service:

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News, views, notes, and quotes

7 May 2015  •  No. 20

Special issue on
IMAGINATION

RIP: Guy Carawan. Few, if any, songs carry the politically realistic power of imagination more than “We Shall Overcome.” It likely began as a song sung by farm working slaves as “I’ll be all right someday.”  In 1901 Rev. C. Albert Tindley published “I’ll Overcome Someday,” though its lyrical and musical structure is significantly different.
        The song’s history is deliciously ironic: Molded in large part by Guy Carawan (at left—he was affectionately known as a “hippy-hillbilly”), which became the unofficial anthem of the Civil Rights Movement in the US, and sung since by hope-filled dissenters from South Africa to North Korea, Beirut to China’s Tiananmen Square. I was taught the Arabic version by a group of children in Baghdad in 2000. (Watch this one minute video of Jordanian young women singing “We Shall Overcome” in English.)

        Carawan, folk musician and musicologist who died this past week, is not well known outside certain musical and civil rights circles. A California native, he more than any other is responsible for what we now know as “We Shall Overcome.” (Here is an 8+ background audio story on National Public Radio. See also this story from the Roanoke Times)

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