How easy it is to denounce structural injustice, institutionalized violence, social sin! And it is true, this sin is everywhere, but where are the roots of this social sin? In the heart of every human… — Oscar Romero
Ken Sehested
Invocation. “Early morning, April four / Shot rings out in the Memphis sky. / Free at last, they took your life / They could not take your pride. / In the name of love / What more in the name of love.” —“Pride (In the Name of Love),” U2, celebrating the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.
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Note: I wrote an earlier version of this article (“Dueling spirits are loose in the land: A meditation on the pandemic and the outbreak of political infamy”) in June 2000 when the COVID-19 epidemic wrought infectious fear and trembling, coinciding with the pestilence of President Trump’s first term in office. Some copy has been edited and added in this updated version.
Processional. “Psalm 116: How can I repay the Lord.” —Poor Clares and Pauline Sisters, Lusaka, Zambia
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Text: Philippians 3:17-4:1
Invocation. “Lovers of the world unite / bound to Creator’s vision, bright / that even these our darkest nights / become the light become the light.” — “Hope Beyond All Hope,” Alana Levandoski
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The original blessing of God’s delight in Creation echoes through this blessing given by Isaac to his son: "May God give you of the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the earth, and plenty of grain and wine" (Genesis 27:28). Such luscious, material bounty is bound up with and parallels the maintenance of covenant faithfulness with the Heaven’s insistence.
But a fraud is perpetuated by Jacob (suggested by his mother and Isaac’s wife, Rebekah), who disguised himself as his brother Esau, Isaac’s first-born.
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Invocation (on the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine). —“A City Under Siege,” in solidarity with Ukraine, composed by Elijah Culp, text from Psalm 31: 21-24
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Invocation. “Tempted and tried we're oft made to wonder why it should be thus all the day long / While there are others living about us, never molested, though in the wrong. . . . / Farther along we'll know all about it; farther along we'll understand why / Cheer up, my brother; live in the sunshine, we'll understand it all by and by.” —“Farther Along,” Dolly Parton
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Mardi Gras processional. “Jubilee Stomp.” —Tuba Skinny
Ash Wednesday invocation. “When Love Meets Dust” —Alana Levandoski
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Processional. “Ode to Joy” (“Ode an die Freude”). —from Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, flashmob performance, orchestra and choir, in a Sabadell, Spain public plaza
Invocation. “Among the tales of sorrow and of ruin that come down to us from the darkness of these days there are yet some in which amid weeping there is joy and under the shadow of death light that endures.” —J.R.R. Tolkien
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Every lit and lively season (Christmas, especially) comes, for some, with heartache, usually over the absence of a beloved whose remembrance still cuts to the quick and pickles the heart. In addition, Nativity’s season unfolded with ancient Palestine’s writhing under the oppressive heel of Rome’s imperial boot. The poem below is set in these parallel moods.
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¶ Processional. “Who then shall stir in this darkness, / prepare for joy in the winter night. / Mortal in darkness we lie down blindhearted, / seeing no light. / Lord, give us grace to awake us, / to see the branch that begins to bloom; / in great humility is hid all heaven / in a little room.” —“What Is the Crying at Jordan,” The Miserable Offenders
¶ Invocation. “Let us consider how to incite one another to love and good works . . . encouraging one another. . . .” —Hebrews 10:24-25
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