Commentary

by Ken Sehested

     Context: On 8 February 2003 Rev. Ken Sehested traveled to Iraq for three weeks as a member of the Iraq Peace Team, a project of Voices in the Wilderness, calling for an end to the threat of war by the U.S.
     Prior to going, the Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times newspaper published his article, “Journey to Iraq,” as a guest editorial and asked Sehested to write three weekly columns for the newspaper while in Iraq. Printed below is the initial article followed by three columns posted from Baghdad. The latter are titled “Caitlin Letters,” written as open letters to Caitlin Wood, a member of Circle of Mercy Congregation in Asheville. Caitlin was among the more than 200 high school students in Asheville who participated in the 6 March 2003 “Books Not Bombs” nationwide school walk-out in opposition to war on Iraq.
     Sehested previously traveled to Iraq in March 2000 as part of an interfaith delegation of Jews, Christians and Muslims from the U.S.

by Ken Sehested

Working for peace and justice isn't easy. We live in a world predicated by greed and violence. Swimming against that stream isn't easy. It can be unpopular and lonely. As has been said, paraphrasing a verse from John's Gospel: "You shall know the truth, and the truth will make you odd!" Sometimes we wonder if we're crazy. Sometimes even prophets need pastoral care.

All of us have known people who have attempted to "win the world" only to have their own spirits wither, their vision blurred. Maybe not with such tragic drama—maybe they've simply stopped speaking out. Something has come undone in their lives. Maybe it's happened to you.

by Ken Sehested

        I once preached in the Chapel Hill, North Carolina, church were legendary basketball coach Dean Smith was a member. Smith, who died this week, was not expected to be there that morning, since his University of Carolina team had a road game, far away, the night before. Then he and his wife slip in the back about the time I get up to read Scripture. I doubled-down on the text and tried not to make eye contact during the sermon.

        In my youth I played every sport that used a ball, of whatever shape or size, from dirt yard marbles to Boys Club ping pong to Division 1 college football. I loved the college campus recruiting visits, during high school, receiving a bit of “expense” money, prowling the game time sideline with the prospective team and a pre-arranged dance date after the game. Though I always felt bad about the unlucky coed assigned to this high schooler who, to add insult to injury, didn’t dance or drink, for reasons of evangelical piety. Though I’m not an active participant in the muckraking exposure of how major college athletics programs find themselves awash in cash, I applaud that exposure.

By Ken Sehested
Thursday, 18 April 2002

Yesterday came suddenly; but it seemed to go on forever. My arm no longer aches; yet the stone hurled as a curse by a young Jewish settler in Hebron struck a more tender target. Not even the bruise remains; but my heart still hurts.

Only two days prior I began a 24-hour journey to the illegally-occupied lands of the West Bank of the Jordan River. It's a long way from Clyde to the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem where we spent our first two nights. Except for the similar terrain of hills and hollows, the regions are a universe apart. The mountains of Western North Carolina may be the world's oldest; but the recorded history of ancient Palestine is among the most intense.

When we hear the word “fasting”—an historic Lenten emphasis—the initial image is associated with dieting. For most of us in North America, fasting is a foreign and somewhat threatening notion , conjuring notions of self-depreciation and ascetic mortification.

In Scripture, fasting is among the most common acts of religious piety. Yet it also comes in for severe judgment.

“Why have we fasted, and thou seest it not?” whined the people of Isaiah’s day. To which Yahweh thundered in response, “Is not this the fast that I choose: to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house. . . ?” (58:6) Similarly, in his only explicit listing of behavioral qualifications for entrance to heaven—when sheep will be sorted from goats—Jesus’ short list includes care for the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and the prisoner. That’s all. No mention of fasting or any other form of  “pious” behavior or doctrinal orthodoxy.

This past Friday night [26 January 2001] I had what will undoubtedly be among the most enduring experiences of my life, sitting by my father's hospital bed from late evening until dawn. Keeping vigilance. It turned out to be his last night. I was not tempted to sleep. I had much work to do.

Part of what I did was to write. Here are some of those thoughts.

"Tonight I sit by my father's hospital bedside, straining emotionally in rhythm to his labored breathing. His breaths are short and shallow; his exhales are punctuated, frail muscles from chest to stomach rippling in brief contortion, emptying the lungs in desperation for the next gulp of air. Only occasionally does his body relax, save for the percussion of scarred lungs doing their best against impossible odds.

            This past Tuesday, 27 January 2015, was the fifth anniversary of the passing of Howard Zinn, the historian, activist and playwright who guided many an innocent, blinded-by-the-might nativist (folk like me) to understand the not-so-exceptional history of their country. Zinn was best known for his A People’s History of the United States, of which Matt Damon’s character in the movie Good Will Hunting says, “That book will knock you on your ass.”

            Such a posture, of course, is the starting point of every meaningful spiritual journey (and, typically, includes repeated encounters with that hard ground).

            Tuesday was also the 14th anniversary of my father’s passing. It would take multiple levels of interpretive work for my Dad to understand Zinn’s writing—something I never accomplished. But I kept at it because I believe that—at the core of his sense of honor, and honor was key—he knew the way of the world favors the devious. He consistently refused to give himself to that dishonoring system, though he was mostly skeptical at the prospects of release from its sway.

This unpublished paper was drafted in 1992 in preparation for the Baptist Peace Fellowship board of directors’ consideration of several projects related to US-Cuba relations. Though dated, this material nevertheless provides useful background information related to the topic, including the thaw in church-state relations in Cuba.

by Ken Sehested
 

During a recent flight I took out the airline magazine to look at the map. Just before returning it to the seat pocket, something on the map jumped out at me. My eyes had wandered down through the Caribbean, especially the strong of Lesser Antilles islands, many of whose names serve as Columbian memorials to so many saints. (Who were those guys?) And there were the larger islands: Puerto Rico, the world’s oldest colony. (It’s still under U.S. “protectorate” status.) There’s Hispaniola, cohabited by the Dominican Republic and Haiti (site of the first successful African slave revolt and much in the news of late); the Bahamas; and . . .