Litanies & Prayers

by Ken Sehested

The Maître D’ of Heaven commands the ’poverished-poor to table: the halt and helpless, lamed and maimed ushered up for honored seating.

The Beloved’s steadfast love is like a lip-smacking feast of abundance. But the Market’s squaloring famine sows the seeds of violent harvest.

by Ken Sehested 

Call to worship

The season of Lent is upon us. Listen for your instructions!

by Ken Sehested

Drenched by Jordan’s buoyant power, confirmed by dove’s anointing perch, conformed to Heaven’s sundering plow, bewildering days now beckon.

Spirit-led and Spirit-fed, off to the famishing wilds now tread.

by Ken Sehested

Create in me a clean heart, O God.

Mercy, mercy, have mercy on me.

“I am but a child!” you say.
“What business do you have with people of no claim,
of no clout, of no clue about the road to repentance
and the return from exile?”

Aahh, O clueless one, of no claim and no clout,
you know not that of which you speak!
Before your mother’s maiden life, I knew you;
before your father’s toddling feet,
I planned your sinews and mapped your countenance.

O child of consecrated lips and covenant voice,
      relinquish your fear!
            You shall not be put to shame.
                  Your Refuge is secure.
It is you, O child of destined grace,
      who will utter the Word that will shatter all enmity.

by Ken Sehested

Throw off the covers of earth’s darkened slumber! Unplug your ears, you creatures of flesh! From deepest sigh of tear-stained eye, set your sight on Heaven’s resolve.

For the sky’s bright luster, alive with motion, shows the wonder of Blessed intention.

by Ken Sehested

Hear this, O People of the Dream: It is good and right that you recall the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the movement which mobilized him. The journey to the Beloved Community is sometimes dark and desperate and dangerous, and we need constellating light to orient our hearts and direct our feet.

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way; Thou who hast by Thy might led us into the light, keep us forever in the path, we pray.*

by Ken Sehested

Arise, shine; for your Light has come, for heaven’s Glory rises to greet you!

But how can such frivolous claims be made? For blind rage covers the earth, and the nations are allied in enmity.

Friends, of all the things we believe or disbelieve, only this is sure:

We are a delight to the One who crowns the earth with sky,

Who shines on the soil by day and shelters the heart by night.