Other Poems

by Ken Sehested

What a day! What a day! Not to mention a year, twenty-five
of them piled head-to-toe, some of them a bit fuzzy now
                  (thank God!),
others like constellations whose radiance
         still guides during dark nights of the soul.
Little did you know, a quarter-century ago,
         what your profession would involve,
where your convictions would take you,
                  the joys then unimaginable,
         the sorrows ruthless beyond belief.
         And the "ordinary" days, the days
                  for which songs are never composed,
                  for which cakes are never baked,
                  for which poems are never rhymed
                  nor hymns inspired,
for which hardly anyone but the Beloved (Above you)
         and your beloved (beside you) took note.

Scores upon scores of hallelujahs and heartaches, too.
         Cares that kept you up at night
         and joys that set you moving
                  at the first sight of dawn’s light.

O Come, thou fount of Mercy, come
And light the path of journey home
From Pharaoh’s chains grant liberty
From Herod’s rage, confirm thy guarantee
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel!

O Come, thou Watchful Keeper, bestow
Glad heart, warm home to creatures below
Give cloud by day and fire by night
Guide feet in peace with heaven’s delight
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel!

Secure the lamb, the wolf no longer preys
Secure the child, no fear displays
The vow of vengeance bound evermore
God’s holy mountain safe and adored
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel!

We are free to act boldly because
we are safe.

We are safe because we are at rest.

We are at rest because we have
been forgiven.

The problem with humility is that
if you think you have some, you
probably don’t. No mirror exists
that will reflect it. And trying to
check on your “humility quotient”
is like pulling up a plant to see if
the roots are developing.

Genuine humility is swayed neither
by promise of heaven nor threat of hell.
Humility is blind to every lovely face,
every bar of achievement, every
seductive gesture save that of God.
Not because God is possessive or
judgmental or petulant. God is
delightful. Once you experience
that Delight, all other measurements
seem frivolous.

Once you experience that Delight,
you become fearless, free from the
clutches both of vanity and hesitation
alike. Such self-forgetfulness gives
rise to freedom, and freedom results
in audaciousness, for in the Presence
of such a Lover no gain can boast nor
loss encroach.

“Do this in remembrance of me,”
       Jesus told his disciples during their
       final meal together.
To “remember” Jesus is not simply
      to experience fond memories
      and tender emotions:

Those were the days, were they not?
Let us toast their memory!

It is not simply to recollect the events
of that evening. This memorializing is
anamnesis, to recreate, reenact and
reanimate the drama of Jesus’ life:
       •to enter into his passion and
              character;
       •to love whom he loved and
              confront whom he confronted;
       •to be animated by the same vocation;
       •to be turned and churned, even
             spurned, in like manner;
       •to be similarly authorized—and
              stigmatized;
       •to be implicated in his mission
              and thus in his fate.

It has been said: Our weakness is our only claim on Jesus. “Come to me,
you who are weary. . . . For my yoke is light” (Mt. 11:28, 30).

“Aha!” you say. “Just as I suspected. What God really wants is to keep
us subservient and dependent! On our knees, rather than on our own
two feet. This religion business is nothing more than a form of social
control—with leaders, pretending to speak for God, slyly bolstering
their own exploiting power.”

If that were true, I would say: This “Master” must die if we are to find
our freedom. This “God” is nothing but a pimp and his disciples are
but hustlers.

Weep, oh my soul,
with tears painful and public:
when life abandons ardor for order;
when the demand for sober security

upstages the generative prospect of passion;
when the birthright of fertile charism
is bartered for a ration of bridled expedience.
The blessed struggle—¡Buena lucha!—is upon us.

The City of Promise
is bathed in the tears of the Beloved
      —would that you knew,
            would that you knew—
who cries not in indignation or threat

May you store up patience, for life is not always kind,
and you need to persevere.
     Remember that regret is not the last word.

Despite life’s disregard, the last word is this:
           One day every cup will overflow.

May you store up affection, for sometimes the heart
grows cold, and you need to persevere.
     Remember that bitterness is not the last word.

How well I remember standing there on the
Sidewalk in Santa Fe in front of a jewelry store
           where you'd just picked up your rings.

My wife of twenty-seven years, me, the two of you.
The two of you trying your best not to melt into the
           pavement under the weight of emotions;

The two of us with eyes watering from the
Holy smoke from some nearby burning bush,
           wondering if we should take off our shoes.

Who among you believe that
grieving and lamentation
are symptoms of despair.
Not so!
Only the hopeless are silent
in the face of calamity—
silenced because they no
longer aspire even to be heard,
much less heeded. The labor
of lament, on the other hand,
is premised on the expectation
that grief’s rule will be bound
by the Advent of Another.
The liturgy of grief transforms
the pain of lament into passion
for an outcome forged in justice
and tempered in mercy. Such an
outcome is not ours to impose
by strength of will or accomplished
by force of threat; yet it does demand
of us relentless struggle and steadfast resolve.

Come, you whose beds are awash
in weeping, you whose portion is
tear-mingled wine and bread of mourning.
Come, come to the mountain
of Refuge. There the Spirit,
as with Jesus before, kneels
ready to bathe your feet with her tears.
Hear this Word of assurance, you
of wavering endurance: the
moment nears when those sowing
in tears will reap shouts of
extravagant joy.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Written for an ecumenical “Service of Lament and Healing” following the August 2014 killing of Michael Brown by police in Ferguson, MO. Inspired by Ps 6:6; 42:3; 80:5; 102:9; Luke 7:38;