Women: Arise, then, women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or of tears!
Men: Speak up, that all may hear!
W: Say firmly: We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies.
Read more ›Author: ppadmin
Prayer: The Intersection Between Personal and Social Transformation
A collection of quotes for meditation
Selected by Ken Sehested
§ To clasp hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world. —Karl Barth
Read more ›Adelante—Keep Moving Forward
by Ken Sehested
Come close, sisters and brothers, all you who have journeyed to this House of Memory, to this Table of Delight. All you anear, welcome!. All from afar ¡bienvenido!
I was glad when they said unto me, “Let us join the assembly of mercy to hear again the mandate of peace.”
Read more ›Liturgical reform and worship renewal
Ken Sehested, Alliance of Baptists Convocation
17-19 April 2015 [expanded version]
Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and
to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, falsehoods.
The liturgical movement must become a revolutionary movement,
seeking to overthrow the forces that continue to
destroy the promise, the hope, the vision.
—Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
News, views, notes, and quotes
16 April 2015 • No. 18
¶ Invocation. “Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God; But only he who sees, takes off his shoes….” —Elizabeth Barrett Browning
¶ In memoriam. Award-winning journalist and author Eduardo Galeano died this week at his home in Montevideo, Uruguay. He was best known for his critique of colonialism, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent, which was banned for years by military dictatorships in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay, which arrested and exiled him in 1973.
Read more ›Holy Obedience
One Christian’s story of civil disobedience (calling for the closure of Guantánamo Bay prison)
by Ken Sehested
Unfortunately, it’s too easy to write off Tim Nolan’s decision to commit civil disobedience at the U.S. Supreme Court, calling for the closure of the Guantánamo prison for the suspects in the U.S. “war on terror,” as political looney-tune. But no less a public figure than former Secretary of State Colin Powell has stated:
Read more ›The earth is the Lord’s
A litany for worship to celebrate Earth Day
by Ken Sehested
At the conclusion of creation, God saw everything that was made, and behold, it was very good. Surely the earth is satisfied with the fruit of God’s work.
God said: I will make for you a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the air; and I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land.
Read more ›The earth is the Lord’s: A collection of texts
Biblical texts which reveal the non-human parts of creation responding to God’s presence, provision and purpose.
Selected by Ken Sehested
And God saw everything that was made, and behold, it was very good. (Gen. 1:31)
§ Jesus answered, “If these my disciples were silent, the very stones would cry out.” (Lk. 19:40)
Read more ›Poisoned sea, impoverished soul
A litany of lament over a despoiled ocean
by Ken Sehested, following the 2010 British Petroleum Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico
In the beginning, darkness covered the face of the deep.
Then the Breath of Heaven swept across the waters, blessing the sea with all manner of creatures.
Read more ›News, views, notes, and quotes
9 April 2015 • No. 17
¶ Invocation. “ Love is / The funeral pyre / Where I have laid my living body. / All the false notions of myself / That once caused fear, pain, / Have turned to ash / As I neared God.” —Hãfez, 14th century Persian poet whose work is regarded as a pinnacle of Persian literature
¶ A novice once came to Abba Macarius in the monastery at Scete, eager to excel quickly in his quest for holiness. “I’ve got three days to spend here,” he said. “I want to learn how to be a Desert Father just like you.” The abbot’s amused response was to send him to a nearby cemetery, instructing him to make all manner of accusations against those buried there. Though confused by the instruction, the novice complied.
The next day the abbot issued an even more unusual assignment to the novice. This time, he instructed the novice, go to the cemetery and utter the most profound praises to those buried in these same graves. The novice dutifully complied. But at the end of the day he reported back that not a single one among the dead had replied either to curses or praises.
Macarius responded, saying that they must be holy people indeed. “You insulted them and they did not answer; you applauded them and they said nothing. Go and do likewise.” —cited in Belden Lane’s “Backpacking with the Saints”