Commentary

Against the backdrop of the war in Gaza

Ken Sehested

“For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you shall
burst into song, the trees in applause.”
—Isaiah 55:12

by Ken Sehested 

I was a stranger in a strange land, having left behind a Baylor University football scholarship for the alluring but intimidating environs of New York University’s Greenwich Village campus in Manhattan. I was so over being who I was, so eager for, if frightened by, what was to come. Odd that it was there, so far from home, that I should encounter the iconoclastic voice of a fellow Baptist-flavored Southerner whose testimony would come to profoundly impact the tenor of my own.

“Here’s somebody you should know about,” said Dr. Carse, my religion department mentor, as he tossed an open copy of Newsweek magazine across his desk. The upturned page contained a one-column profile of self-styled bootleg preacher, Rev. Will Campbell.

Ken Sehested

Lent’s emphasis on ascetic practices—prayer, fasting, and almsgiving—is not an obligatory gauntlet of self-abuse, designed to curry favor with the Beloved. These practices, rather, are illustrative means (there are many others) by which we can check personal and communal appetites, which so easily get out of control and function as illusions for what leads to the flourishing life intended from the Beginning. Of course, these aren’t limited-time-only practices; but during Lent the community of the Way devotes special attention to their observances.

A modern illustration: Some newer autos are equipped with a GPS-guided feature that sets off an audible alarm when it detects the car’s drift out of its lane of traffic. This is Lent’s training purpose for deepening life in the Spirit.

14 February 2025

by Ken Sehested

Processional. Thousands of students and faculty from the Catholic-run St. Scholastica’s College dance en masse to protest violence against women and children on 25 February 2024, in Manila, Philippines. The annual dance, dubbed One Billion Rising, is held every Valentine’s Day.

Might the church in the US have a new liturgical season,
beginning with the anniversary of King’s birth and extending to Ash Wednesday?

Processional. “I Want Jesus to Walk With Me.” —Fannie Lou Hamer, renowned civil rights leader from Mississippi, who persevered despite receiving unrelenting threats and endured brutal beatings by police

Invocation. “May God bless you with discomfort . . . so that you may live deep within your heart,” begins “A Franciscan Blessing”

Call to worship. “Who the hell is Diane Nash?” features a brief (2:04) interview with former Assistant Attorney General John Seigenthaler remembering his phone conversation with civil rights leader Diane Nash, trying to talk Black students from Nashville from carrying on the “freedom ride” after the original participants were brutally beaten when their bus arrived in Birmingham, Alabama

A King’s birthday and the presidential inaugural of a swindler

Ken Sehested

Invocation. “Pride (In the Name of Love).” —U2

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In anticipation of the 500^th anniversary of the first
'believer’s' baptism and the launch of the Radical Reformation

Invocation. “Wade in the Water.” —Blind Boys of Alabama

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Epiphany’s provocation to abandon innocence

Ken Sehested

Invocation. “Ring out, wild bells.” —poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892), music and performance by Alana Levandoski

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Ken Sehested

Processional. “Give Thanks.” —Abyssinian Baptist Church choir, New York City

Invocation. “Come ye fearful people come / Cast your sighs to highest heav’n / Yet—though terror’s harvest spread, / Casting sorrow in its stead— / Still the Promise doth endure / Life abounding to secure / Come, ye thankful hearts, confess / Mercy’s lien o’er earth’s distress.” —Ken Sehested, new verse to “Come, Ye Thankful People, Come”

Ken Sehested

Invocation. “O King of the nations, and their desire, / the cornerstone who makes both one: / Come and save the human race / which you fashioned from clay.” —English translation of lyrics to “O Rex Gentium” (“O King of Nations”), performed by the monks of St. Meinrad

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