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Ken Sehested

“Between the wish and the thing the world lies waiting.”
—Cormac McCarthy, “All the Pretty Horses”

Invocation. “Keep your lamps trimmed and burning . . . / the day is drawing nigh. / Darker midnight lies before us . . . / the day is drawing nigh. / For the morning soon is breaking . . . / the day is drawing nigh. / Children, don’t get weary / till your work is done.” —“Keep Your Lamps,” arr. André Thomas, combined choirs of Florida State University 

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The photo below is not an award-winner, like those of the Natural History Museum’s annual wildlife winners. Or those on the “Religious Feeling Photo Contest Winners” site. Or the comedy wildlife photo awards. Or the Smithsonian magazine’s “Breathtaking Space Images.”

 

But it will from this day forward shape my Advent imagination.

This picture below features Wanda Hernández Murga, coordination of the Kairos Center, a ministry of Primera Iglesia Bautista in Matanzas, Cuba. She is standing, arms raised in the posture of jubilation, exultant smile, standing in the midst of a gutted building. The atmosphere appears dank, architecture of wreckage, in a building razed back to its decrepit walls and load bearing arch.

The scene instinctively makes you want to gasp and whisper, oh, that’s not a safe place to stand.

Ah, but you would be wrong. What you’re looking at is a long-held dream in an early stage of being materialized, in the midst of what seems to be rubble, of a building about to be rehabbed to house a music school, liturgical arts laboratory, and social services center on the edge of one of Matanzas’ poorer neighborhoods.

The rubble I witnessed there on a trip last fall has been removed (except for the stack of rescued bricks and slate ready to be recycled). I marveled at the architect’s sketches depicting the building’s resurrection. I had previously seen the constant flow of children and youth (regardless of religious affiliation) pouring into Primera Iglesia’s building, next door to this new site, arriving for music lessons, along with the influx of pensioners coming for freely-offered communal meals.

I’ve seen photos of the Center’s orchestras in holiday marches throughout the city streets. The creative liturgy workshops, incorporating all manner of drama, dance, readings and music, flow directly into the congregation’s worship and influencing liturgical practice in churches across the nation.

As it is, the Center’s activities share cramped space with the congregation’s programs. The dream of having its own dedicated space has persevered over a decade. Locating options—and the funds to purchase such a site—has required much patience. Last year, solicitation here in the US raised the funds to purchase the building. (Real estate is surprisingly cheap in Cuba.) And now acquiring the funds to renovate the building is underway. (Building materials are scarce, and expensive.)

The patient perseverance, the waiting and longing, of these friends in Matanzas is an Advent parable. The patience is not nonchalance. Waiting is not inertia. Longing is not wistfulness. This kind of waiting is the on-the-edge-of-your-seat, ever ready, hands readied for the labor to come. Not resignation, but a long deferred dream which will allow the Center’s creative craft to be expanded—all in the context of a community of faith which affirms that, in Mary’s words, the day approaches when the Spirit will “scatter the proud in the imagination of their hearts.”

We cannot engineer miracles; but we can prepare for them.

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Hymn of petition. “Now we who mystically represent the Cherubim, / And chant the Thrice-Holy Hymn to the Life-giving Trinity, / Let us lay aside all worldly cares, / That we may receive the King of all, / Who comes invisibly escorted by the Divine Hosts. / Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!” —English translation of the first verse of “The Cherubic Hymn” by G. Lvovsky, performed by the Choir of the Sretensky Monastery 

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I doubt novelist Cormac McCarthy ever pondered Advent, but he provides a succinct sentence pointing to the heart of the matter.

“Between the wish and the thing the world lies waiting.”

You may already know that McCarthy’s novels contain a great deal of violent conflict. In a 1992 interview with the New York Times, he commented, “There’s no such thing as life without bloodshed. I think the notion that the species can be improved in some way, that everyone could live in harmony, is a really dangerous idea.”

As if history is utterly fixed, the universe irreparably fated in its endless spinning, not progress but degress, a de-Creation, if you will, from its original delight to a spiral of entropy, random fracturing, no Center to hold, oriented only to exhaustion and utter ruination, no world-without-end-amen, only a terminus ad quem without rhyme or reason, absent transcendent verity or moral apogee.

The Nativity story in first century Palestine was just such a dangerous idea. As a child in Nazareth, Jesus most certainly heard of the butchery in nearby Sepphorus, four miles north, when an estimated 2,000 Jews were crucified, hung along the streets and highways in that area, following a failed rebellion against Roman rule after Herod’s death in 4 CE. It’s a historical fact that needs to be processed in our Nativity recollection.

Advent’s announcement of incarnation is not an invasion, nor merely an accretion to Creation’s original blessing, an added element to repossess a terminally incorrigible world. Rather, it is a dessoterramento, a Portuguese word that signifies an uncovering of what has been buried or repressed. It is not Creation that is sanitized and sucked up into Heaven; it is the announcement that the Most High has pitched a tent among mortals (cf. John 1:14 & Revelation 21:3) whose minds have been righted to reverential posture.

As William Sloan Coffin Jr. noted, only reverence can restrain violence: because it, and it alone, can constrain self-centered living.

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Hymn of consolation. “Away from the manger they ran for their lives / The crying boy Jesus, a son they must hide / A dream came to Joseph, they fled in the night / And they ran and they ran and they ran / Ooh / No stars in the sky but the Spirit of God / Led down into Egypt from Herod to hide / No place/  for his parents no country or tribe / And they ran and they ran and they ran / Ooh / Stay near me LORD Jesus when danger is nigh / And keep us from herods and all of their lies / I love the LORD Jesus, the Refugee King / And we sing and we sing and we sing / Alleluja.” —“Refugee King,” Liz Vice 

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Advent’s call to patient perseverance, what my seminary professor Dorothee Sölle called “revolutionary patience,” is penitential in nature: penitential not in feeling bad about ourselves, but in reawakening, of being recalled, resituated and recentered from the cacophony of life lived outside covenant vows; rescued from the omnipresent governing values that assure the strong take what they can and the weak endure what they must; generosity not-for-gain but due to the simple facts that blessed people bless people. It’s who we are (or, more precisely, who we are becoming, season by season, occasionally falling back into self-centered stupor) being born again (and again and again) into our high calling in Christ Jesus.

It is the Holy Spirit slapping our face, saying “SNAP OUT of it!”

Some years ago I attended a service where the bulletin cover depicted a gentle-flowing stream, over which were imposed the “Peace, be still” refrain which shows up in various forms throughout the biblical narrative. I kept it as a reminder that the original “be still” phrase was spoken by Moses to the Hebrew people when their backs were against the sea with Pharaoh’s ruthless army bearing down on them (Exodus 14:13-14).

Peace . . . fear not . . . be still. These are admonishments in the context of conflagration–and not on a nice, sunny-day picnic on warm, green grass, champagne flute in hand, with the gurgling mountain stream in the background and butterflies all around.

Rather than a recommendation to leisure (much less, passivity), “be still” is actually a war-cry, only the terms of engagement are nothing like what we usually associate with soldierly action. The psalmist’s image of standing “beside still waters” is in the context of “the valley of the shadow of death,” where the Lord’s table is spread “in the presence of my enemies.” The issues are those of life and death.

This is what Dr. Sölle (blessed be her memory) meant by practicing “revolutionary patience”—an utterly impatient posture which nonetheless refuses the idolatrous resort to violence, even emotional violence, because of an abiding confidence, that despite much evidence, death itself will be undone. We are but participants and witnesses, not engineers, to this promised new world order, to God’s Kinship which first gathers up “the alien, the widow, and the orphan,” not because of their moral worth but simply because they have been left behind, left out, leftover—surplus in the world’s ordering of power.

To be sure, calluses can grow on fretful rubbed hands. Disappointments are not uncommon. Sometimes, in prayer, we need to stomp our feet and issue curses into the ether. Like our friends in Cuba, we plan, and we wait; we intercess, and we wait; we dream, and we wait; we plead, and we wait; we engage, across the spectrum from random acts of kindness to public acts of civil disobedience, and we wait—because even when we “win,” the winning is always incremental.

Nevertheless, we confess, with Mother Pollard, resident of Montgomery, Alabama, who walked to work during the year long bus boycott, my feets is tired but my soul is rested.

Unfortunately, few if any can experience this stillness, can generate this peaceful still point amidst the storm, on our own. It’s almost always mediated by the fleshly presence of others and the vibrant memory of saints gone before. Which is why pastoral ministry–fostering communities oriented to this vision–is so crucial in cultivating the seedbed’s soil from which prophetic action blooms.

Which is why memory is essential. Which is why I stay in touch with people like my friend Wanda, who can look past dilapidated history to a farther horizon where joy emerges. They help me keep my lamps trimmed and burning.

“Tribulation” is the normal circumstance for Still Ones in a fractious world whose currency is the power to exclude and dominate. But “be of good cheer . . . take heart . . . have courage,” for this “world” is being dismantled (cf. John 16:33), a new heaven and new earth are on their way (cf. Revelation 21:1ff).

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Benediction. “My body groans for Your redemption / My spirit waits for Your day / My heart longs for consolation / On You we wait, for You we wait . . . / Do not tarry, Lord / On You we wait, for You we wait.” —“Do Not Tarry,” Rachel Colman 

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Ken Sehested

Invocation. “O Holy Night.” —a minor-keyed version of the traditional Christmas carol by Ben Caplan

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In early adulthood I developed a strong affinity for the plaintive, minor-keyed Advent hymns—and was quickly moving away from traditional Christmas carols through Advent’s stretch leading up to Christmas Eve.

Because plaintive music fit the mood of a plaintive people of Jewish communities in first-century Palestine, living as they did under Roman military occupation and corrupt, exploitive practices by Temple authorities controlled by the 1%. The Romans squeezed tribute from the Judeans, disproportionately poor farmers and small merchants. The Temple’s Sanhedrin, the judicial system which Rome permitted to rule over civil affairs, often sided with large landholders over subsistent farmers in disputes over land and commerce and debt. And the temple treasury itself held a monopoly on selling animals for sacrifice, and its money changers charged exorbitant rates of currency exchange to those on pilgrimage from afar.

The popular Advent hymn tune “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” is adapted from the “Veni, Veni, Emmanuel” song, composed by an anonymous 15^th century French composer as a Requiem Mass chant. But in 1851 English composer Thomas Helmore published his adapted tune as we now know it and paired it with a modern translation by Mason Neale now commonly used in Protestant Churches.

With darkness vs light as a binary choice, modern North American culture inevitably prefers a chirpy, jingle-belling, cornea-shrinking Halogen light to Advent’s shadowy, foreboding context. We want our angels to be cherubim, chubby infants with harmless allure. We don’t want scary interruptions.

We don’t want smelly, uncouth shepherds stinking up our Nativity creches. We cringe at the thought of pagan sages being the model of pilgrimages to honor the Christ child, or of astrological phenomenon guiding their way.

We don’t want Jesus to be a refugee: first, in utero, sheltered in Mary’s womb as she and Joseph, in compliance with Roman decree, traveled to Bethlehem for census registration, Caesar’s means of calculating tax liabilities and compiling military conscription lists. Then again fleeing as an infant to hated Egypt, memories of Hebrew slavery still fresh, in order to escape Herod’s henchmen in their bloody campaign to snuff out potential kingly rivals by means of gruesome executions of male babies in Bethlehem.

We have not yet learned, as Valerie Keur suggests, that Advent’s darkness might be a womb rather than a tomb.

As filtered through Western intellectual and cultural traditions, the Bible—Christian Scripture—appears to have a pronounced bias favoring “light” and opposing “darkness.” Surely there is plenty of evidence to justify that assumption. But another reading is also possible, a minority report, one more pronounced in Christian mystical traditions, where the Holy One is encountered in darkness.

“Then the people stood at a distance, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was.” (Exodus 20:21) (For more on this theme, see “Carpe Noctem—Seize the Night.”)

We greatly prefer the certainty of creedal conformity, which is in fact a way of taming God’s purpose and presence, to apophatic theology, whereby we can positively say what God is not but cannot, in the end, make a copyright claim on God’s promise or build a wall restricting the Holy Spirit’s movements.

Yet, consider these things: according to the psalmist, fearlessness comes to those who trek “the valley of the shadow of death” (23:4); the goodness Gospel news comes “to those who sat in darkness” (Isaiah. 9:2; Matthew 4:16). To these faithful ones “the treasures of darkness” are promised (Isaiah 45:3).

Hope is not hope outside the context of threat. The labor of spiritual formation comes by way of entering shuddersome occasions with the confidence (despite our trembling voices and shaky knees) that God is not yet done, that death has lost its sting, that nothing can separate us from the love of the One who takes delight in us; and, in the end, is able to save simply because we are delectable, despite our flaws, in Heaven’s reckoning.

Paying attention—up close and personal—to the plaintive voices, the melodies of lament and arias of agony, of those left behind, the left out and leftover, those considered surplus and disposable by existing principalities and economies and social consensus. Their destination is our proper journey into the pathos of God, the One who dares to reside in the heart of human violation and despair, in the depth of every apocalyptic season, determined to shine healing light on every abscess, to humble the heights and lift the arroyos, to flip the script on every damnable, arrogant narrative, to announce dawn’s joy to all whose nights have marinated in tears.

If the beatific consummation seems to tarry, be patient. (See Habakkuk 2:15.) Its arrival is assured, for those with ears to hear and eyes to see, those with readied, empty hands and hearts made supple by mercy’s sway.

For on that day “all flesh shall see the glory . . . the salvation, of our God” (Isaiah 40:5, Luke 3:6).

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Benediction. “Before the ending of the day, / Creator of the world, we pray / That with Thy wonted favour Thou / Wouldst be our guard and keeper now.” —English translation of the first verse of “Te Lucis Ante Terminum,” performed by St. Martin’s Chamber Choir 

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“O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”
New lyrics, old hymn

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!

Arise, you fear-confounded, attest
With Insurrection’s voice confess
Though death’s confine and terror’s darkest threat
Now govern earth’s refrain . . . and yet
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel!

O spring, from Jesse’s root, the ransom flower
From Mary’s womb, annunciating power
Bend low you hills, arise you prostrate plain
All flesh shall see, all lips join in refrain:
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel!

O Come, announce the Blessed Manger’s reach
All Herod-hearted, murd’rous plans impeach
Abolish every proud and cruel throne
Fill hungry hearts, guide every exile home.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel!

—Ken Sehested

Ken Sehested

Hymn of invocation. “Creator of the Stars of Night.” —9^th century hymn performed here by the St. John’s Compline Choir 

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I don’t remember when I picked up this handy mental trick. Sixth grade, maybe seventh?

My first recollection of using it came during a world geography class. The teacher asked us to memorize the names of European countries’ capitals, many of which I’d never heard before. So I worked at creating a mental image using two different words or facts.

To this day, I recall the capital of Bulgaria as Sophia. Because I imagined a bull lying on a sofa.

It wasn’t until much later that I learned the proper words for this exercise: mnemonic device.

Neuroscientists have dozens of theories and countless technical words to describe how the mind works, particularly how memories are shaped, stored, altered, and retrieved. But the basic insight goes back to ancient Rome’s first century statesman-lawyer-orator, Cicero, who wrote “the eyes of the mind are more easily directed to those objects which we have seen, than to those which we have only heard.”

Some of my mental pairings are humorous, like the status of Sophia. But most are not. I recall more than a few Scripture verses because my “mind’s eye” has paired them with specific visual representations. Like the names and/or faces of specific people or historic moments.

For years I’ve had two such key associations with Advent. Last Sunday night I gained a third.

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Hymn of confession. “It’s been a long dark night / And I’ve been a waitin’ for the morning / It’s been a long hard fight / But I see a brand new day a dawning / I’ve been looking for the sunshine / You know I ain’t seen it in so long / But everything’s gonna work out just fine / And everything’s gonna be all right / That’s been all wrong.” —“Light of a Clear Blue Morning,” Wailin’ Jennies 

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Every Advent, my first association has been with what would become the historic first week of December 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama. Rosa Parks refused to relinquish her seat to a white man on a segregated bus. Her frustration boiled over into a risky act of defiance on Monday of that week.

E.D. Nixon, key leader in the city’s National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, began urging the city’s Black pastors to respond.  The next day they gathered and formed the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). One of the city’s newest pastors, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (who was still at work on his Boston University School of Theology doctoral dissertation), was elected as its president.

The group voted to call a city-wide bus boycott for Friday 5 December. The Women’s Political Action took on the task of publicizing the event. (Illustrating a long history of men deciding to do something, the women actually making it happen.)

On Friday evening, 5 December, thousands jammed into Holt Street Baptist Church, filling the sanctuary, the basement auditorium, others spilling out into the street. Under the banner of the MIA, the assembled group voted to continue the boycott until the city met its demands.

Little did they know it would take 381 herculean days to accomplish the task.

Why this particular moment sparked a movement is unclear, for a half dozen other African American citizens had previously been arrested for violating the city’s bus segregation policies, including Dr. Vernon Johns, Dr. King’s predecessor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

That week in Montgomery, during Advent’s risky remembrance, an array of historical factors conjoined with Holy Spirit mischief to crystalize what would become a world-reshaping movement.

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Hymn of petition. “Lord I’m Tired of Trying To Be Okay.” —Jelly Roll & Lady Gaga

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My second Advent reminder comes from the martyrdom of four Catholic missioners, three of them religious sisters, one a lay Catholic: Srs. Dorothy Kazel, Ita Ford, and Maura Clarke, plus Jean Donovan.

On 2 December 1980, the four were carjacked by Salvadoran soldiers on an isolated road, tortured, raped, and executed. Their hastily buried bodies would not be found until two days later.

Their crime? Working with and advocating for the poor in El Salvador

US Ambassador to El Salvador Robert White was fired by the Reagan administration for refusing to manufacture a cover up of the Salvadoran military’s role in the massacre.

It took years of pressure from the US, which was funding Salvador’s dictatorial military government, to convict five low-ranking members of the military. But not those responsible for ordering the assassinations, including two generals who were later found living in retirement in Florida.

I encourage you to view a 12+ minute film about the four churchwomen, created in 2014 by the New York Times.

For more background, see “The four churchwomen murdered in El Salvador,” Tracy L. Barnett, Global Sisters Report

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Hymn of lament. “When you’re broken open.” —First of five movements in Anna Clyne’s cello concerto. Each of the movements is named for a five-line poem by 13^th century poet Rumi.

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This past Sunday, I got a new Advent memory prompt.

At the close of our worship service, one of our folk—a member of an immigrant rights advocacy group in our congregation—passed out small whistles used to alert neighborhoods when someone spots agents from the infamous Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Each whistle was attached to a metal ring, making it possible to use this as a key ring, conveniently available. Also offered were small brochures, in English and in Spanish, which provide practical advice on when, how, and why to use the whistles.

Probably like you, I have been gobsmacked by the uprising of homegrown actions, nationwide, challenging ICE agents’ campaign of terror, purportedly against violent immigrants, but in fact mostly those whose criminal rate is lower than natural born citizens.

For an excellent (and free, online) collection of articles by Christian leaders on the MAGA campaign against migrants, see the current issue of Christian Ethics Today.

If you want to dive deep into the details of the financial bonanza which undocumented workers provide the US economy via the taxes they pay (and to whom few federal resources are available), see “Tax Payments by Undocumented Immigrants.”

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Hymn of exultation. “Ring Them Bells.” —The Spirituals Choir 

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You may think me overly somber to list these three trepidatious narratives as memory prompts for the blessed Nativity story. But consider the terror-filled context of a population occupied by ruthless Roman occupation and corrupt temple authorities.

The Gospel lections for this year’s Advent readings are filled with dangerous confrontation:

• The apocalyptic prospect of the “coming of the Son of Man” (Matthew 24:36-44).
• John the Baptizer’s verbal assault on the temple bouncers: “You brood of vipers!” and his warning that “even now the ax is laid at the root of the trees” which, if they fail to bear fruit, “will be cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matthew 3:1-12).
• Mother Mary’s threatened “public disgrace” which could have merited stoning to death under Jewish law (Matthew 1:18-25).
• The “terrified” shepherds to whom the angels brought the news of Jesus’ birth (Luke 2:1-14).
• The state-sponsored terror of Herod’s ordering the slaughter of male babies in Bethlehem, and the Holy Family’s frantic escape into Egypt as refugees (Matthew 2:13-23).

Most prefer Advent to be enchanting rather than contentious. We read the Nativity story by way of jingle bells, roasted chestnuts, and jolly St. Nick. (Who, 17 centuries ago, was a Middle Eastern bishop known for making anonymous gifts to the poor, without first checking whether they had been naughty or nice.)

Advent is no “sleep in Heavenly peace,” but a troublesome rereading of Creation’s covenant. What was previously presumed to be “law and order” is exposed for the façade of injustice it really is. There is turbulence in Nativity’s wake. Every Herod-heart is laid bare and flails, enraged by the manger’s insurgent proclamation.

Every Pharaoh, every Caesar, is put is put on notice. And they will not go down without a fight.

Advent’s affidavit warns of trouble at hand. Christmas morn is the inauguration of Mary’s previous declaration of praise—the scattering of the proud, the toppling of the mighty, the ascent of the lowly—signaling a divine beachhead on the shorelines of enmity.

Yet through this fog of war and wanton circumstance, the child of God’s promised re-creation breaks into history’s bleak midwinter. The season’s lections from Isaiah concerning the coming Rule of the Beloved are as jubilant as they are breathtaking:

The boots of trampling warriors will be burned as fuel for the fire. Swords will be beaten into plowshares; neither shall they learn war any more. The rod of oppression will be broken. Exultation will be multiplied. Deserts will rejoice and blossom. The lame, leap like deer; jackals, removed; grain and wine, plentiful; ruins, rebuilt. (Excerpted from chapters 2, 11, 35, 7, 9, 62.)

“And all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God” (52:10).

Note, though, that these promises are made to people “who sit in darkness” and “in the shadow of death” (Isaiah 42:7, Luke 1:79). The risk-averse will not hear Mary’s Magnificat, will not notice the star’s ascendance, the shepherds’ awe, the Magi’s arrival. Nor the slaughter of the innocents.

Kindred, do not fear Advent’s tumult amid history’s turbulence. Improvise your own Advent mnemonic signals. Wait patiently, with open hands, hearts in repose—but on the edge of your seat. For unto us a child. . . .

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Benediction. “Let Love Melt Into Memory.” —National Lutheran Choir 

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Ken Sehested

The major holidays can be sad occasions for some who have lost a loved one: “Blue Christmas” services of sorrowful remembrance, Easter when resurrection day did not return your beloved, Thanksgiving when there is a painfully empty seat at the table of bounty.

Not to mention the fact that the Nativity story’s context included a state-sponsored terror campaign (cf. Matthew 2:16). And in the US, 27 November is a “National Day of Mourning” commemorated by Indigenous peoples of the ongoing struggle to recognize the historical atrocities committed by European undocumented immigrants in the colonial era and its aftermath.

To mark such occasions, I’ve made a (somewhat random and totally subjective) collection of blues music—not only from that musical genre, but songs of sorrow and lament from many different styles.

Sample the selections below as needed and desired.

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¶ “Sometimes I get so sad / Sometimes you just make me mad / It’s a sad and beautiful world / It’s a sad and beautiful world.” —“Sad and Beautiful World,” Mavis Staples 

¶ “Psalm 23 in Blues.” —1950s Gospel Soul Version 

¶ “When it thunders and lightnin’ and when the wind begins to blow / There’s thousands of people ain’t got no place to go.” —Bessie Smith, “Back Water Blues” 

¶ “I am a pilgrim, a pilgrim of sorrow / I’m left in this wide world, this wide world alone! / Ain’t got no hope, got no hope for tomorrow / trying to make heaven my home.” —Liberty High School Chamber Singers, “City Called Heaven” 

¶ I’ve been in the storm / Too long / Lord, too long / Ooh-ooh-ooh / I’ve been in the storm / Too long / Lord, too long / Lord, please heal me / I need a little more time / I need a little more time to pray (a little time to pray) / Ooh-ooh-ooh.” —“I’ve Been In the Storm Too Long,” Mighty Clouds of Joy. 

¶ “I got no big name and I ain’t no big star / I play the blues for you on my guitar / All your loneliness I’ll try to soothe / I ‘ll play the blues for you.” —“I’ll Play the Blues for You,” Joe Bonamassa

¶ “Lead oh Father / Lead me my savior / in all the sorrows of this world Father . . . / for you still protect me.” —English translation of “Ndikhokhele” (Lead me), Mzansi Youth Choir of South Africa (singing in Xhosa)

¶ “Lord, do not rebuke me in Your anger / or discipline me in Your wrath. / My guilt has overwhelmed me / like a burden too heavy to bear.” —“Psalm 38–Lord, Do Not Rebuke Me,” Brotherhood of the Hallelujah 

¶ “How Blue Can You Get.” —B.B. King 

¶ “Let us pause in life’s pleasures and count its many tears / While we all sup sorrow with the poor / There’s a song that will linger forever in our ears / Oh Hard times come again no more / Tis the song, the sigh of the weary / Hard times, hard times, come again no more / Many days you have lingered around my cabin door / Oh hard times come again no more.” —“Hard Times Come Again No More,” Mavis Staples 

¶ “In the midst of pain, I choose love. / In the midst of pain, sorrow falling down like rain, / I await the sun again, I choose love.” —“I Choose Love,” Lindy Thompson & Mark Miller, performed by Voces Aged. The song was written in response to the 17 June 2015 mass murder at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC.

¶ “Tooth for tooth, eye for an eye / Sell your soul just to buy, buy, buy / Begging a dollar, stealing a dime / Come on, can’t you see that I / I’m stranded / Caught in the crossfire.” —“Crossfire,” Stevie Ray Vaughan 

¶ “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my heart.” —“Joy,” Latifah Phillips, performing the well-known praise song, but in a sober mood and minor key, adding a new refrain, and splices “It Is Well With My Soul” as a coda. 

¶ “Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the / world, have mercy on us, who takes away the / sins of the world, grant us peace.” —Translated lyrics to “Lament for the Valley,” one song in Karl Jenkins’ “For the Children” cantata, written to mark the 50^th anniversary of the 1966 Aberfan disaster in Wales, where a mountainside coal slurry damn broke sending the sludge down the mountain into Aberfan, crushing a school and nearby houses. One hundred sixteen children were killed, along with 26 adults.

¶ “Long Way Home.”

¶ “Give me a mighty oak to hold my confusion / Give me a desert to hold my fears / Give me a sunset to hold my wonder / Give me an ocean to hold my tears.” —Holly Near, “I Am Willing”

¶ “Forsaken.” —The Many: Lament for Black Lives Lost

¶ • “O troubled dust concealing / An undivided love / The Heart beneath is teaching / To the broken Heart above.” —“Come Healing,” Leonard Cohen

¶ “Dear Refuge of my weary soul, / On Thee, when sorrows rise, / On Thee, when waves of trouble roll, / My fainting hope relies.” —18^th century hymn by Anne Steele, performed by Sandra McCracken 

¶ “I hoped I’d never ever have to know / What it’s like to let you go / And I can’t turn back but it’s hard to forget / Getting over you is the hardest thing / I haven’t done yet / Why does the wind cry the blues / Every time I think of you / How do I face another day / How will I find a way?” —“Wind Cries the Blues,” Teresa James

¶ “God don’t hate the Muslims / God don’t hate the Jews / God don’t hate the Christians / But we all give God the blues / God don’t hate the atheists / The Buddhists or the Hindus / God loves everybody / But we all give God the blues.” —Shawn Mullins, “Mercyland: Give God the Blues” 

¶ “Wayfaring Stranger.” —Johnny Cash 

¶ “In every life / There’s heartache and pain / Some live with sorrow / Some live with shame / Regret and worry / Forever can last / So lay down your burdens / Put them in the past / And rise and shine.” —Balsam Range, “Rise and Shine” 

¶ “This Is to Mother You.” —Sinead O’Connor 

¶ “Every face is in you / every voice, every sorrow, in you / every pity, every love / Every memory woven into fire.” —Stephen Paulus, “Hymn to the Eternal Flame,” performed by the Kantorei Summer Choral Institute 

¶ “Stand By Me.” —traditional hymn by Charles Albert Tindley, performed by Darrell Adams with new lyrics by Ken Sehested 

¶ “I am a poor pilgrim of sorrow / Cast out in this wide world to roam / My brothers and sisters won’t own me / They say that I’m weak and I’m poor / But Jesus father the almighty / Has bade me to enter the door.” —“Stand By Me Father,” Lou Rawls & The Pilgrim Travelers 

¶ “Walk Me Home Lord.” —by Thomas A. Dorsey 

¶ “Stand By Me.” —Bruce Springstein & Friends

¶ “I got stones in my passway / And my road seem dark as night . . .  / I have pains in my hearts / They have taken my appetite / I have a bird to whistle.” —Eric Clapton, “Stones In My Passway” 

¶ “Merciful Jesus . . . / Father, who takes away the sins of the world / Grant them rest. . . / Merciful Jesus. . .  / Father, who takes away the sins of the world / Grant them rest . . .  / Lamb of God . . .  / Father, who takes away the sins of the world / Grant them rest . . .  / everlasting . . .  / Rest.” —English translation of “Pie Jesu” (“Merciful Jesus”), Andrew Loyd Webber, performed by Sarah Brightman, Paul Miles-Kingston. The music accompanies actual film footage from World War I’s “Battle of The Somme” where more than 1 million men were wounded or killed. 

¶ “When a man has got the blues and feels discouraged / And has nothing else but trouble all his life / But he’s just an honest man like any other / Living in a world that’s tearing at his mind / If he’s sick and tired of life and takes to drinking / Do not pass him by don’t greet him with a frown / Do not fail to lend your hand and try to help him / Always lift him up and never knock him down.” —Old Crow Medicine Show, “Lift Him Up” 

¶ “Blessed Is the One (Psalm 1).” —Brotherhood of the Hallelujah

¶ “Listen, smith [artisan] of the heavens, / what the poet asks. / May softly come unto me / your mercy. / So I call on thee, / for you have created me. / Most we need thee. Drive out, O king of suns, generous and great, every human sorrow from the city of the heart.” —English translation of “Heyr himna smiður” (“Hear, Heavenly Creator”), 12th century Icelandic poem, put to music by Thorkell Sigurbjornsson, performed by Eivør Pálsdóttir (click the “show more” button to see all the lyrics)

¶ “Heaven Knows — Deep Gospel Blues Testimony.”

¶ “David, the king, was grieved and moved, / He went to his chamber, his chamber, and wept; / And as he went he wept, and said, / “O my son! O my son! / Would to God I had died, / Would to God I had died, / For thee, O Absalom, my son, my son.” —“David’s Lamentation,” Second Ireland Sacred Harp Convention 2012 

¶ “Ain’t No Storm Wild Enough to Break Me.” —Bertha Mae Lightning

¶ “No more, my Lord, / No more, my Lord, / Lord, I’ll never turn back no more. / I found in / Him a resting place, / And He have made me glad. / Jesus, the Man I am looking for, / Can you tell me where He’s gone? / Go down, go down, among flower yard, / And perhaps you may find Him there.” —“No More, My Lawd,” Negro Prison Blues and Songs 

¶ “Feelin’ Bad Blues.” —Ry Cooder, covered by Resonator93

¶ “How many times / Have I stood / By the river / And could not see / To the other side / Hoping like moses / The clouds / Would be lifted / Stretch out my hand / The waters divide / Lay back the darkness / Let in the light / Take all the wrongs / Make them all right / And if I could / Lay down these blues / For good.” —Kate Campbell, “Lay Back the Darkness” 

¶ “Your labor is not in vain.” —The Porter’s Gate feat. Paul Zach & Madison Cunningham 

¶ “Nobody out here / at a point of no return / I’m just a desolated man / my poor heart burned / Seem that everybody left me / but a devil by my side / Never felt so broken down / ain’t got no place to hide.” —Bill Will & The Bluesmen, “Hard Times”

¶ “Jesus’ blood never failed me yet . . . / This one thing I know, that he loves me so.” —Gavin Bryars & Tom Waits 

And, as an encore, close with this one:

¶ “Lento e Largo.” —from Henryk Górecki’s Third Symphony, Opus 36 (“Symphony of Sorrowful Songs”), second movement

“No, Mother, do not weep, / Most chaste Queen of Heaven / Support me always.” This is the opening line to the Polish prayer to the Virgin Mary. The prayer was inscribed on wall 3 of cell no. 3 in the basement of “Palace,” the Nazi German Gestapo’s headquarters in Zadopane, Poland. Beneath is the signature of Helena Wanda Blazusiakówna, and the words “18 years old, imprisoned since 26 September 1944.”

You can listen to the entire symphony here. (56:13) 

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Ken Sehested

 

The 7^th of November is the anniversary of Leonard Cohen’s passing. He was a Canadian singer-songwriter, poet, and novelist who explored themes like faith, mortality, and social conflict. He started writing and releasing folk-rock and pop music in the 1960s, and is best known for his 1984 song “Hallelujah.”

If any recall only one Leonard Cohen song, it’s probably “Hallelujah,” now considered iconic, and covered by some 300 artists in multiple languages. But the history of the song’s reception is bewildering and circuitous.

His record company refused to release the song in 1983. When an independent label released it the next year, no one noticed. It would be 20 years before the song was widely circulated—in another artist’s cover. Cohen is said to have written 150 verses. Remarkably, the song didn’t make it to the Billboard charts until shortly before Cohen’s death.

The lyrics most often heard (many covering artists have picked different verses in different order) are somewhat enigmatic, sometimes frankly sensual, often thoroughly devotional.

The fascinating narrative of the song’s unfolding history is detailed in Alan Light’s 2012 book, “The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley & the Unlikely Ascent of ‘Hallelujah.”

What follows is a short list of my favorites.

• “Hallelujah,” Leonard Cohen
• “Ring the bells that still can ring / Forget your perfect offering / There is a crack in everything / That’s how the light gets in.” —“Anthem”
  
• “O troubled dust concealing / An undivided love / The Heart beneath is teaching / To the broken Heart above.” —“Come Healing” This song contains my favorite Cohen lyrics. It is on the rotation of worship music we sing in our congregation.
• “Dance me to the children / who are asking to be born / Dance me through the curtains / that our kisses have outworn / Raise a tent of shelter now / though every thread is torn / And dance me to the end of love.” —“Dance Me to the End of Love”
  
• Many of Cohen’s songs are vocal prayers. He expressly named this one as such. “If It Be Your Will,” performed with the Webb Sisters (with lyrics).
• Here’s a sharply prophetic word from him: “. . . from the staggering account / of the Sermon on the Mount / which I don’t pretend to understand at all. / It’s coming from the silence / on the dock of the bay, / from the brave, the bold, the battered / heart of Chevrolet: / Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.” —Leonard Cohen, “Democracy” (Click the “show more” button to see the lyrics.)
• It’s been reported that k.d. lang’s cover of Hallelujah, performed at the 2010 Olympics was the one he found most moving.
• On 7 November 2017, the first anniversary of Cohen’s passing, Cantor Azi Schwartz sings the “Hallelujah” tune, substituting the Hebrew text of Psalm 150 which is recited daily in Jewish prayer.
• Here’s my lyrics rewrite, excerpting from Psalm 23, to Cohen’s “Hallelujah” tune, performed by Ken Medema

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by Ken Sehested

Invocation. “When the Saints Go Marching In.” —Louis Armstrong 

§  §  §

Like most, my early memories of holiday festivities are varied and (mostly) pleasant. But Halloween stands out, with the most distinct memories, since it involved an evening of roaming (without adult supervision) in homemade costumes throughout the small town where I lived, collecting sweet treats in decorated paper bags.

Then came the much-anticipated sorting of the evening’s haul: the keepers (the really good stuff), the giveaways (won’t eat even though it’s free), then everything else for trading with friends, which could go on for a week or more.

In Southern-flavored baptistic territory, All Saints Day—following “All Hallows Eve” (part of the origins of Halloween)—was never mentioned, much less observed. We didn’t believe in saints. Though we did have Annie Armstrong and Lottie Moon, namesakes of bi-annual mission offerings—a surprisingly feminine pantheon for a body with severely circumscribed leadership roles for women.

I now believe there is no observance in the liturgical year in greater need of recovery than All Saints Day. In turbulent times and turgid circumstances, we need the sustenance of resilient memory.

Remembrance of those gone before us provides the buoyancy to continue the struggle despite bleak prospects. Such stories perform vivid reminders that (a) we are not the first to encounter hard times and (b) the assurance that sustenance (beyond our own ingenuity) will be provided.

Even more: Telling stories of faithful witness—with faces and names and details—is far and away the most effective means of catching courage and transmitting hope. We need a horizon beyond market reports, electoral predictions, and the cacophony of broken-hearted headlines.

The work of imperial powers over a conquered people always begins with the suppression of indigenous language and, thereby, the people’s ancestral stories.

Jesus’ primary mode of communication was stories—not because he was pre-modern or philosophically illiterate, but because he knew stories have an animating power that propositions and apologetics lack. It’s still true.

Resilient communities are storied communities who do the work of hallowing, of naming and memorializing its redemptive moments and characters—filled with faces and names and details—and connecting such memory with that of the Beloved’s Name and Presence.

The preamble to the Ten Commandments required the injunction to memory: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of slavery” (Exodus 20:2). Jesus’ model prayer began with the hallowing of God’s name, thereby unleashing the consecrating power to invoke the Blessed One’s reign over creation: “your will be done on earth” (Matthew 6:10).

Hallowing is declaring allegiance to what we revere and honor and stake our lives and fortunes on. Its practice is the harbinger of death’s demise amid joy’s full embrace. Hallowing is the asset that sustains us, wounded but poised and resolute, in the face of history’s brutal affront.

Memory renewal is among our most important spiritual disciplines.

May the poise of the saints—however famous or inconspicuous—be yours. Such poise, such aplomb, is the seedbed of insurgent faith: faith that is not cowed by ominous circumstances, does not buckle in the face of intimidation, is not impressed by parades of vanity and pomp and sheer brawn.

For the saintly practice of insurgent faith knows a secret: that there is a power made perfect in the very thing the world considers weak. And nothing threatens imperial power more than fearless subjects, who live as if death were not.

§  §  §

Benediction. “For all the saints: New lyrics for an old hymn”

From earth’s wide bounds, from ocean’s farthest coast*
We praise the Name alone in which we boast
Seal our unity around Thy Host
Alleluia! Alleluia!

We stand amid the wonderment and woe
Caressing each other, as You our hearts console
Break forth in song, all creatures here below!
Alleluia! Alleluia!

Ringed by this cloud of witnesses divine
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine
Yet in your love our faithful lives entwine
Alleluia! Alleluia!

This mercy circle longs to shine your Light
Attend our yearning, restore to us our sight
By your grace, our hearts with hope incite
Alleluia! Alleluia!

O love the Lord, with all your heart and mind
And welcome neighbors, make them kin and kind
Then to our Christ we’ll ever be resigned
Alleluia! Alleluia!

Hasten the day, when tears no longer stain
All then shall rise to sing that great refrain!
Enliven our lungs to shout Hosanna’s Reign!
Alleluia! Alleluia!

The saints are living still, their voices heard
Speaking, reminding, of Heaven’s dream deferred
Hasten to hear, that earth’s woe may be cured
Alleluia! Alleluia!

No greater love hath any than to yield
Privilege and pow’r to welcome and to shield
The least, the lost, the whole creation healed
Alleluia! Alleluia!

—Ken Sehested
*first line from William W. How

Recessional. “O strength of Wisdom / who, circling, circled, / enclosing all / in one lifegiving path, / three wings you have: / one soars to the heights, / one distils its essence upon the earth, / and the third is everywhere. / Praise to you, as is fitting, / O Wisdom.” —English translation of “O Virtus Sapientiae (O Strength of Wisdom),” St. Hildegard Von Bingen, 12^th century German Benediction abbess, performed by St. Stanislav Girls’ Choir of the Diocesan Classical Gymnasium   

§  §  §

For more see:

• “Halloween 2025”, a fascinating account of the ancient history of Halloween and All Saints Day
• “Quotes and notes about saints”
• Want to expand your personal All Saints Day imagination? Visit Dan Buttry’s “Global Peace Warriors” blog for brief profiles of peace-wagers and justice-seekers from every age, every part of the world, and of every religious tradition.

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Ken Sehested

¶ Processional. “If you heart is hurting for your loved ones who have gone to the other side camp, be encouraged that you will see them again! Dedicated to all the missing and murdered Indigenous women around the world and anyone who has lost a loved one!” —song by Theresa Bear Fox’s Sky World sung by Teio Swathe

¶ Call to worship. “The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that its center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.” — Oglala Lakota Chief Black Elk

¶ “If you want to read about a European pioneer on Columbus Day, learn about Bartolomé de las Casas. His story is one of unfolding repentance over the course of his life in regard to treatment of the indigenous population of the Spanish conquest of the ‘New World.’” —continue reading “Witness to villainy: An excerpt from Bartolomé de las Casas’ documentation of Spanish conquest in the Americas“

¶ Colonial theological mischief. “Writing 1571 in opposition to Bartolomé de las Casas’ advocacy for indigenous citizens of the Americas, an unnamed Spanish church official in Peru penned the following parable as a theological rationale for conquest.” —continue reading “God acted as a father who has two daughters: A theological rationale for the conquest of the Americas”

¶ Closer to home. “It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stink and scent thereof; but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and [we] gave the praise thereof to God.” —William Bradford, governor of the early Plymouth Colony, writing in 1637 of his Pilgrim community’s annihilation of a Pequot Indian village along the Mystic River

¶ Slave trader. It was Christopher Columbus who inaugurated the trans-Atlantic slave trade when he shipped two dozen native Taíno people of the Caribbean. In a 1494 letter to the Spanish monarchs, Columbus judged that his exploration of the “new” world could be financed by slaves’ value, these “who are so wild and well built and with a good understanding of things that we think they will be finer than any other slaves once they are freed from their inhumanity, which they will lose as soon as they leave their own lands.” —quoted in Bill Bigelow, “No Monuments for Murders,” CommonDreams

¶ Los nadies. “Columbus’ world is not so different from the world we live in today. Big countries continue to dominate ‘lesser’ nations. The quest for profit is still paramount. The world is still sliced in two between the worthy — the owning classes, the corporate masters, the generals — and those the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano called los nadies — the nobodies.” — Bill Bigelow, “No Monuments for Murders,” CommonDreams

¶ “Witness to villainy: An excerpt from Bartolomé de las Casas’ documentation of Spanish conquest in the Americas”

¶ Heather Cox Richardson on Columbus Day. “The Columbus Day holiday began in the 1920s, when a resurgent Ku Klux Klan tried to create a lily-white country by attacking not just Black Americans, but also immigrants, Jews, and Catholics. This was an easy sell in the Twenties, since government leaders during the First World War had emphasized Americanism and demanded that immigrants reject all ties to their countries of origin. From there it was a short step for native-born white American Protestants to see anyone different from themselves as a threat to the nation.

“The Klan attacked the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal organization. Klan members spread the rumor that one became a leader of the Knights of Columbus by vowing to exterminate Protestants and to torture and kill anyone upon orders of Catholic leaders.

“To combat the growing animosity toward Catholics and racial minorities, the Knights of Columbus began to highlight the roles those groups had played in American history. In the early 1920s they published three books in a ‘Knights of Columbus Racial Contributions’ series, including The Gift of Black Folk by pioneering Black sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois.” —continue reading her October 12, 2025 post on “Letters from an American”

¶ Of course, we now know that Viking explorer Leif Erickson and his Norse companions were likely the first to reach the Western Hemisphere, approximately in the year 1,000 CE, some 500 years before Columbus made landfall in what he thought was the East Indies (then construed as southern and eastern Asia), thus giving the name “Indians” to the indigenous people of the Americas.

¶ How the chaplain got her name “Kicking Doe” from a Native American prayer circle in a maximum security men’s prison. “It had been a warm spring day after a particularly harsh winter. How wonderful it was to finally go outside to the [Native American] sacred circle without a heavy coat. As I watched the pipe ceremony begin to unfold, I noticed a regular participant sitting on the grass. I asked him why he was not joining the group. ‘My spirit is full of too many hurts and too much anger this week. I don’t want to infect the others,’ he explained. ‘But I need to hear the prayers.’

“I shuddered to think how many times I had contaminated groups with my agitated spirit. But that day the blue-canopied sky gave me a sense of peace.

“At the end of the prayers, Tokala, the pipe-bearer, offered an unusual invitation. ‘Come join us in the circle,’ he said gently to me. Surprised, I walked clockwise around the circle to the entrance. Waving a feather over a smoking seashell, Tokala smudged me with sage and motioned for me to stand close to the center.

“He swirled a dab of cornmeal and water in the palm of his hand. Then he marked my forehead with the paste. ‘Chap, we’ve decided to give you a new name today. We name you ‘Kicking Doe,’ to honor your fighting spirit and gentle heart.’” —continue reading Nancy Hastings Sehested’s “Kicking Doe” story, from Marked for Life: A prison chaplain’s story”

¶ Hautey, a chief of the Taíno people (in what is now the Caribbean region) who led the first major resistance campaign against the Spanish conquistadors

Bartolomé de las Casas, a Spanish priest who witnessed and wrote about the atrocities of the conquistadors, tells the story of Hatuey, who was captured by the Spanish in what is now Cuba. He was sentenced to be burned at the stake.

As Hatuey was bound to the stake and surrounded by brush, a Spanish friar attempted to covert this first Cuban national hero. The friar explained to him about conversion and baptism, noting the options of eternity spent either in heaven or hell. When offered the opportunity of baptism (to save his soul, not his skin), Hautey asked for time to think it over.

Finally, he responded, requesting final clarification: “And the baptized, where do they go after death?”

“To heaven,” said the friar.”

“And the Spanish, where do they go?”

“If baptized,” the friar answered, “to heaven, of course.”

After weighing his decision, Hautey concluded: “Then I don’t want to go there. Don’t baptize me. I prefer to go to hell.”

¶ Benediction. “Courage is more exhilarating than fear and in the long run it is easier. We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just one step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down.” —Eleanore Roosevelt

¶ Recessional. “Why is one man rich and another man poor / Why we ain’t satisfied, why we gotta have more? / Why is suicide rates on the rez so high? / Why I tell you the truth, but you say “Don’t lie.” / Why is being a good father at an all time low? . . . / Why it’s so hard to forgive and leave the past behind? / And if you did, then that’s divine / Why don’t you help your brother when you see him fall? / Why do we act like God don’t see it all? / Hanawena ha wen hey (Why) /  Hanawena ha wen hey yo wa (Why).” —Supaman, “Why,” culture-scrambling indigenous (Crow Nation) hip-hop

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Ken Sehested

Processsional. “Lead me, O Lord, O great redeemer through the troubles of this world. Lord, I thank you for watching over me thus far. You are forever by my side.” —English translation of “Ndikhokhele Bawo,” University of Pretoria Youth Choir 

Call to worship. “There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that hurry to run to evil, a lying witness who testifies falsely, and one who sows discord.” —Proverbs 6:16-19

§  §  §

Night owl that I am, these thoughts began composing in my mind at the stroke of midnight Tuesday, just as the US government closed (many of) its doors. I began imagining the anxiety, even panic, which hundreds of thousands federal employees are furloughed (and now, maybe, fired).  Hundreds of thousands, considered “essential” to protect lives and property—and more than one million members of the military—now working without pay.

These fraught facts come just hours after the President, lecturing hundreds of military generals and admirals, said that our nation’s enemies “are within” our borders rather than from without. He urged military commanders to pursue “training exercises” within urban areas, using “full force.” Newly minted Secretary of War Pete Hegseth promised that the military’s “warrior spirit” would be “reawakened.” This, from a part time former Fox News anchor, frequently accused of drunken behavior on the job, who had to promise the Senate that he would become a teetotaler in order to receive their confirmation.

Both Hegseth and Trump promised to eliminate every vestige of the military’s “rules of engagement” protocols, which governed the extent of lethality needed to accomplish a mission. In other words: no more moral compasses, not even the pretense of wartime’s “justifiability” criteria. Think “kill them all and let God sort them out,” variation of the Latin phrase describing the rules of engagement in the 13^th century Cathar Crusade.

The shutdown pivots on the soon-to-be abolished subsidies of the Affordable Health Care Act and a massive purging of the Medicaid roles. An estimated fifteen million people’s health insurance would either rise dramatically or disappear altogether. The downstream fallout will hit hospitals hard, particularly those in small town and rural areas. Republicans say these health care concerns can be remedied before year’s end. Democrats (correctly, I believe) are convinced no such remediation will occur in the time left before recent budget restraints take effect.

Scripture’s scrutiny of bootleg piety is never more unambiguous than this one sentence in John’s first epistle (3:17): “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods, sees a neighbor in need, yet refuses?”

The threats to our small-d democratic institutions, policies, and norms—and the headlong rush to authoritarian and oligarchic rule—are too numerous to summarize, too vast to even say grace over.

Just this week we learned that three in 10 US citizens now say that political violence may be necessary to get the country back on track. And that number has grown significantly since the previous poll in April 2024. And nearly two-thirds of citizens now say our nation’s political system is beyond repair.  Which means tens of millions who, though not participating in political violence, would nevertheless not lift a finger to stop it.

If one change in federal data collection reflects the current administration’s character, it was the announcement last month of the US Department of Agriculture’s decision to cease issuing its annual Household Food Security Report. Why? Surely to hide the fact that, with the implementation of Congress’ “big beautiful budget bill,” approximately four million citizens already enduring food insecurity will become ineligible for receiving food stamps.

While that report rarely if ever was the cause of national repentance, it did, at least one day per year and one day’s news cycle, hold up a mirror displaying the results of our predatory economy’s grievous impact. In a nation where accumulated wealth is the standard of worth and value, being poor means being a sinner. Out of sight, out of mind.

So, what are we to do, how are we to respond? Here are seven commendations for your consideration.

First commendation. Avoid practicing magical thinking, professions of unicorn sightings, cushioned parlor games of fantastical daydreaming, delusional reverie rising from hot tub bemusement.

Second commendation. Acknowledge that our desperation (whether occasional or constant) reveals how privileged we are, in relation to the unnumbered, both within our nation and without, who have lived in despondence long before now and still do. For those of us who do not fret about where tomorrow’s food will come, despair is a form of narcissism resulting in a self-imposed debility.

Third commendation. It’s time to get a grip, cast off the easy comfort of optimism, and welcome being roughly tutored by the Spirit as to the true and wasted places where hope emerges, where water flows from rock and manna appears in drought-impaired landscapes; where impossibilities are reversed, valleys of despair are raised and spirits restored, heights of arrogance are humbled and brought low.

Fourth commendation. It is our duty to be informed. But not consumed. Doomscrolling is a kind of self-mutilation which serves the interests of those who want us distracted, agitated, and frantic, unable to apply the modest weight of our convictions in campaigns of mass reconstruction.

Fifth commendation. It is essential that we be grounded in real world events, cognizant of the brute facts of seemingly incorrigible and corrupt patterns of power. But we are also called to practice what John Paul Lederach, in his book The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace, calls “moral imagination” which is “the capacity to imagine something rooted in the challenge of the real world yet capable of giving birth to that which does not yet exist. . . . The moral imagination believes and acts on the basis that the unexpected is possible. It operates with the view that the creative act is always within human potential, but creativity requires moving beyond the parameters of what is visible, what currently exists, or what is taken as given.”

Lederach also writes, “Pessimism born of cynicism is a luxurious avoidance of engagement.”

Sixth commendation. As Wendell Berry counsels, it is not from ourselves that we learn to be better than we are. We need communities of conviction, starting with one that is locally grounded; but also to which we are connected at a distance. Such communities must facilitate boundary-crossing connections with those not of our caste, class, ethno-nationalities, etc. As Archbishop Hélder Câmara, outspoken critic of the US-backed military junta that ruled Brazil for more than two decades, we are called to throw off confusion “in order that we may be free to the point of being able to deliver ourselves from ourselves and be able to give ourselves to others.”

Seventh commendation. More than anything else, the Little Flock of Jesus’ vision and mission must sustain impervious resistance to imperial dominance. In these days, here and now—at historic levels—the community of faith in the Way of Jesus (and other communities of faith as well) is threatened by the corruption of its purpose, its promise, its provision. The source of our confusion is the assumption that we can ride out this storm on our own.

As has been said, there are fates worse than death. Should our small-r republication polity be superseded by unabated authoritarianism, those on the Jesus Road have historically been a resilient community. Attempted repression has often led to our thriving. Some would go so far as to say we are at our best on the run.

What is most fearful is the work of the Confuser (one alternative rendering of Satan, the Prince of Darkness, Deceiver, Father of Lies, etc.). There are those who believe Jesus would have been prudent to accede to the three wilderness promises of the devil. One who could turn rocks into bread would surely be universally hailed; could be crowned sovereign of all the kingdoms of the world; should be immune to physical threat and bodily harm.

As Jesus said later, those to be feared are not those who can kill the body but those who can kill the soul (Matthew 10:38).

§  §  §

Prayer of the aggrieved. “For there is no truth in their mouths; their hearts are destruction; their throats are open graves. . . . because of their many transgressions, cast them out” (Psalm 5:9-10).

§  §  §

Some months ago, Dr. Russell Moore, editor-in-chief of Christianity Today (who was exiled from the princely circle of Southern Baptists’ theological policing force for opposing Trump), has written, “Multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching — ‘turn the other cheek’ — (and) to have someone come up after to say, ‘Where did you get those liberal talking points?’ And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, ‘I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ,’ the response would not be, ‘I apologize.’ The response would be, ‘Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak.’”

The struggle for people of faith is not against unbelief but warped and wrenched faith. Atheism is not our problem. Idolatry is.

Before you read another word, pause and watch this 41-second video, posted the day before conservative provocateur Charlie Kirk’s hagiographic memorial service, of Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth reciting the Lord’s Prayer interspersed with footage of American troops, tanks and stealth bombers.

And so on: The United States Department of War Rapid Response X account, on Sunday 7 September, posted a brief video showing military personnel completing outdoor training as the words “Be strong and of good courage. Do not be afraid, nor dismayed. For the Lord your God is with you, wherever you go” faded into the screen.

And so on: In August, the DOW posted another video on X captioned “We Are One Nation Under God,” a motto from the pledge of allegiance, showing military aircraft and soldiers in operations as “I pursued my enemies and overtook them; I did not turn back till they were destroyed” (Psalm 18:37) appears onscreen.*

I stayed in touch for years with my roommate, developing a friendship forged during my three weeks in Iraq shortly before the “shock and awe” massive bombing campaign that began the US invasion in 2003. One fall, as Advent season approached, including Matthew’s text accounting Herod’s slaughter of infants in and around Bethlehem, I sent a note to Ed, commenting, “There is agony in the air, and we must listen for the sounds of angel wings.” Ed responded, “Nor, alas, dare we ignore the flailing of devils’ tails.”

Both of these things are true; and both are attended in developing a life faithful both to Earth’s agony and Heaven’s jubilance.

I am committed to democracy not primarily for reasons of political philosophy but because democracy is how citizens can practice nonviolence in the public square. As previously stated, I do not fear for communities of faith should our nation devolve into despotism.

What I do fear—what keeps me up at night, what feebles my knees, clouds my sight, and threatens my breath—is that the Body of Christ becomes confused; becomes a chaplain to the empire; trades away its covenant vow and vision of a new Heaven and new Earth for a seat at Pharaoh’s table, or privileged recognition in Caesar’s court, or assure Herod’s good graces.

I shiver every time a public figure concludes remarks with this benediction: May God bless America. It almost always implies the conviction that our national righteousness is deserving of Heaven’s devoted, generous attention. As biblical scholar and activist Ched Myers writes in “Mixed Blessing: A Biblical Inquiry into a ‘Patriotic’ Cant”:

“Of the 41 appearances [in the New Testament] of the Greek verb eulogeoo (literally ‘speaking a good word’), only twice do we find it in the imperative mood. In neither case does it involve God. It does, however, involve us. In Jesus’ famous sermon he invites his disciples to ‘Bless those who curse you’ (Matthew 5:44 & Luke 6:28). These instructions are later echoed by the apostle Paul: ‘Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse’” (Romans 12:14).

The more relevant text for our nation comes from Deuteronomy’s dire warning to the Israelites, should they ever boast “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me” (8:17). Centered in such hubris, God functions more as a totem; a national mascot; a magic lamp to be rubbed, summoning a wish-granting Genie.

Surely the most challenging confusion in modern culture is the illusion that we are on our own, accountable to no one, orientated to no horizon except the one we ourselves create, operating under no vow, no covenant, no discipline, only what the solitary self desires along with the transactions needed to obtain treasure and esteem and coercive dominance. In such a universe, might truly is the only thing that makes right, and despots of every sort take their victory laps using the heads of the defeated as stepping stones across a river of blood.

Therefore, kindred, every Little Flock of Jesus, fear not the sovereigns of this present age. They cannot take from you what is essential. Only fear the spinners of theological confusion, the weavers of deception, the conning shysters that peddle delusion—most especially those robed in pious pretense and cloaks of sanctimony.

Tell the truth, and shame the devil.

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Benediction. I’ve returned again and again—in times of anxiety, confusion, and feelings of not being sufficient for the work at hand—to this simple mantra. “I have come from God; I have lived in God (in my better moments); and I am going back to God: for Whom nothing is wasted; to Whom I am a delight, regardless of my foibles; with Whom is no regret; by Whom all trauma and failure and shame will serve as the fuel for the fire to cook feasts for our fiestas and joyful merriment.” —KLS

Recessional. “We / are not alone / we are not alone / we / are not alone / for God is with us.” —“We Are Not Alone,” Pepper Choplin, performed by the Oasis Chorale 

*For more see faith-based commentator Brian Kaylor’s “The Bible According to the Department of War’ https://publicwitness.wordandway.org/p/the-bible-according-to-the-department-8b8. Kaylor’s new book, The Bible According to Christian Nationalists: Exploiting Scripture for Political Power, is coming soon. You can preorder here.

       My former colleague, Dan Buttry, was asked by the Faith team at the national No Kings network to revise his older Bible Study Manual on Conflict Transformation in a shortened version to be focused specifically on the challenges of rising authoritarianism.  Advance permission is granted download Resisting Authoritarianism Bible Study, copy, for group study.

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Ken Sehested

Invocation. “Lead me, O Lord, O great redeemer through the troubles of this world. Lord, I thank you for watching over me thus far. You are forever by my side.” —English translation of lyrics in “Ndikhokhele Bawo,” University of Pretoria Youth Choir

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Immediately following the dastardly terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, I sat at a computer screen—in the secretary’s office of Austin Heights Baptist Church in Nacogdoches, Texas, far from home—for the better part of a day trying, desperately, to write something that made sense of this tragedy. It unfolded not only as a devastating body count but also a grievous psychic wound to the US national self-image.

(The article: “In the valley of the shadow: Reflections on the trauma of 11 September 2001.”)

This changes everything, I wrote.

I was soon chided for that remark by Ray, a Canadian friend—a theologically astute and socially aware friend—who responded that such tragedies are multiplied many times over in many parts of the world on a regular basis.

My purpose was not comparative, singular tragedies, I responded. In fact, the country of Chili has its own 9/11 woebegone memory: Of the 11 September 1973 coup d’etat overthrowing the democratically-elected government of Salvador Allende, bringing to power a right-wing military junta led by General Augusto Pinochet who ruled—with support from the US—for 27 years, killing or “disappearing” more than 3,000, torturing most of the other 38,000 political prisoners.

It’s the context of our terror memory that makes this such a grievous wound, in this one country (my own): Being the wealthiest in history, and being the most heavily armed, and having one of the most extensive colonial influence-peddling operations in the world (accomplished more by economic penetration and financial manipulation than by gunboat diplomacy), the US would likely undertake retaliation for a generation or more.

Sure enough, on the heels of 9/11, Congress passed a revised “authorization of use of military force,” which allows the president almost unlimited use of military force by simply saying “terrorism.” For the first time, legal justification for preemptive war. (And remember: the US has never made a no-first-use policy regarding nuclear strikes against our enemies. That preemptive option has never been ruled out.)

I remember a comment made by General John Abizaid, then head of US forces in Iraq, made a few months after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He admitted that his troops face “a classical guerrilla-type campaign” and said that troops might have to double their expected tours of duty in order to pacify the country. After that, a special assistant to Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of defense under President George W. Bush, said about the unrest in Iraq: “This is the future for the world we’re in at the moment. We’ll get better as we do it more often.”[1]

A generation after the 9/11 attacks on the US, the recoil of that abominable day has spawned the ravenous and ruthless administration of our current president, his molesting cabinet, and his duplicitous judicial, legislative, and social media enablers.

Not to put a too theological spin on it, we are in deep doo-doo. As a nation-state, certainly. Small-d democrat institutions, rules, and norms are crumbling. Political commentator Ezra Klein recently  said “This is not just how authoritarianism happens. This is authoritarianism happening.”[2]

As communities of faith, clearly, as the public posture of Christian congregations is not only dwindling but increasingly devoid of reference to Jesus (except as a mascot).

As former Time magazine essayist Lance Morrow wrote, “War is rich and vivid, with its traditions, its military academies, its ancient regiments and hero stories, its Iliads, its flash. Peace is not exciting. Its accoutrements are, almost by definition, unremarkable if they work well. It is a rare society that tells exemplary stories of peacemaking—except, say, for the Gospels of Christ, whose irenic grace may be admired from a distance, without much effect on daily behavior.” (Italics added.)[3]

As that anguished prophet, Jeremiah, moaned: “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved” (8:20).

The time of testing is upon us. The day of judgment will be disruptive. As William Shakespeare’s storm-tossed characters in “The Tempest” cried, “All is lost, all is lost, to prayer, to prayer.” Such is, I would argue, the truthful claim that the courage needed for the facing of these days comes from beyond human facility.  Which is to say, transcendence is involved: a firmer footing, a deeper clarity, a capacity beyond what is thought possible.

Such transcending prayer, however, is not an escape hatch, not a head buried in the sand, not a “Hail Mary” (a desperation football play), not whistling through the graveyard.

Rather, prayer is the portal available to grace-shaped lives to envision another world, an earth cradled in Heaven’s Kinship, a re-created future when all shall linger ‘neath their own vine and fig tree, and none shall be afraid (Micah 4:4), the day when “all flesh shall see the salvation of God” (Luke 3:6).

The call to prayer is not merely reclusive. Sometime the center to which our “centering prayer” calls us is smack dab in the middle of the world’s decentered, disoriented, disabled and dysfunctional life.

Such prayer conjures memory supplied in the Little Flock of Jesus’ two primary sacraments: baptism and eucharist. The first being a renunciation of the squandering world’s reliance on the myth of redemptive violence (as New Testament scholar Walter Wink so aptly called it); the second, the sheer joy of the bread-and-cup table of assurance that nothing can finally separate us from the love of Christ (Romans 8:35).

At this table we learn that we can risk much because we are safe. That not even mortal wound can sever ties with the Beloved.

The eucharistic meal is a repetitive reminder of our baptismal vows, vows which are safeguarded by the promise that, though weeping endures for the night, joy comes in the morning (Psalm 30:5).

It’s important to remember, though, that the eucharistic invitation is not for a happy-clappy life. As mentioned above, embedded in this invitation to blessed assurance and feast of plenty is the memory of the baptismal act of renunciation of “the world’s” modus operandi, of the incessant claim characteristic of profaned life that only the strong survive, that you get what you earn and you keep what you can protect.

As the fifth century BCE general and historian Thucydides commented, “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”[4]

Integral to the infant baptismal vows in several denominations are these three questions: “Dost thou renounce Satan? and all his works? and all his pomps?” To which the parents reply, to each question, “I do renounce.”

To profess this renunciation is not simply to parrot the words but to foster a life devoted to the places where life has come undone, where the abused and forsaken congregate, to offer care not as a patron to a debtor but out of the conviction reflecting God’s preferential option for the impoverished and the excluded who have no place at the table of bounty.

We locate ourselves in compassionate proximity to the abandoned because it is in such locations that we are most likely to be attuned to the Spirit’s movement in history. Counter intuitively, it is in such circumstances that we find our own salvation, that our own breath is restored, and where the Kinship of God is announced.

Our very souls are at stake in the midst of this conquest by the haves of the have-nots.

As playwright Archibald MacLeish penned in his play “J.B.,” a modern retelling of the Book of Job: “Isn’t there anything you understand? It’s from the ash heap God is seen. Always! Always from the ashes.”

Between the baptismal soak and the table’s delightful feast, there is the Apostle’s call to mobilized training and outfitting, of “putting on the whole armor of God” (Ephesians 6:10-17). Such preparation is the sine qua non, the first and fundamental duty, of those on the Way of Jesus. The text is militant, a boot-camp stipulation, an exacting disciplining, like steel-on-steel sharpening. Living hopefully “in the world” is a risky business, for which rigorous preparation is essential.

Despite all apparent odds and most available evidence, hope is our rightful posture, rooted in a beatific vision, the provision of buoyancy in the midst of drowning billows. Ours is a faith that history is not fixed, that the future is not fated, that creation is not abandoned to its violent, predatious habits and corrupt predilections.

“To prayer, to prayer” . . . but, no, in the end, all is not lost. And thus we pray:

Blessed One,

Hallowed be Your Name; and thereby may your
consecration uphold us in the living on these
trying days. We confess that our faith, our hope,
and our love are oft under siege by the
powers of enmity, animosity, and

acrimony. Teach us to live within the bonds of
your strength rather than the pretense of our
vanity, so that we may stand against the wiles of
the Confuser. Remind us that only reverence can
counter the tides of

violence. In the struggle for earth’s proper
alignment with Your promise in Creation, and
your intention in Re-Creation, clothe us with the
attire that makes for life’s flourishing: with the
belt of truth to cinch every lie; with

the breastplate of righteousness that confronts
every injustice; with feet shod with the hope that
sustains against the bruising stones of despair;
with the helmet of assurance that averts the
arrows of insult and

contempt and shame; with the shield of faith that
denounces the spirit of confusion and the
temptation of despondence; and with the sword
of protection against the soil’s despoiling, the
water’s fouling, the

air’s poisoning. Most of all, help us to remember
that we are not loved because we are valued, but
that we are valued because we are loved[5]; and
that, in the end, love will outlast hate, kindness
will displace hostility, mercy

will trump vengeance—in our longing
for and leaning toward that day when all flesh
shall see the goodness of God in the land of the
living. We ask these things not for private gain
but for the common good, endowed in and

through the name of Jesus, our masterless friend,
and aspired by the Holy Spirit’s work twining the
heart’s desire with history’s consummation and
habitation of that Land which is fairer than day.
Maranatha. Come quickly. Amen.

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Benediction. “You do not carry this all alone. / No, you do not carry this all alone. / This is way too big for you to carry this on your own, so / You do not carry this all alone.” —“Carry This All,” Alexandra Blakely https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBhCFsatU0Y

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[1] Quoted in Harper’s Weekly, 22 July 22 2003

[2] “Stop Acting Like This Is Normal,” New York Times, 7 September 2025
Weeks earlier, on her weekly broadcast, cable news reporter said the US is not headed toward an authoritarian state under President Trump, “We are there. It is here.” —“Rachel Maddow Warns the US Isn’t Headed for Dictatorship: ‘We Are There,” Tess Patton, The Wrap, 5 September 2025
“On Friday, September 5, Trump lawyer Cleta Mitchell told Southern Baptist pastor and Newsmax host Tony Perkins that Trump may try to declare that ‘there is a threat to the national sovereignty of the United States’ in order to claim ‘emergency powers to protect the federal elections going forward,’ overriding the Constitution’s clear designation that states alone have control over elections.” —Heather Cox Richardson, “Letters from an American,” Sept 8, 2015

[3] “To Conquer the Past,” 3 January, 1994

[4] Spoken by Athenians during the Melian Dialogue in Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War

[5] Line borrowed from William Sloane Coffin

Compiled by Ken Sehested

• “But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment. . . .” —Matthew 5:22a

• “Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil.” —Ephesians 4:26-27

• “Give in to your anger. With each passing moment you make yourself more my servant.” —Star Wars movie Emperor Palpatine taunting Luke Skywalker

• “Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage: anger at the way things are and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are.” —Saint Augustine

• “Anger, used, does not destroy. Hatred does.” —Audre Lorde

• The truth will set you free but first it will piss you off.” —Joe Klaas

• If it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? —Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

• “Grab the broom of anger and drive off the beast of fear.” —Zora Neale Hurston
  
• “What do you think we ought to do with the anger and the yearning for vengeance that is so powerful among us? I proposed in [Praying the Psalms] that what the lament psalms do is show Israel doing three things. First, you must voice the rage. Everybody knows that. Everybody in the therapeutic society knows that you must voice it, but therapeutic society stops there. Second, you must submit it to another, meaning God in this context. Third, you then must relinquish it and say, ‘I entrust my rage to you.’” —Walter Brueggemann

• “Hurt people hurt people.” —author unknown

• “All great spirituality is about what we do with our pain.” —Richard Rohr

• “Beneath the shouting, there’s suffering. Beneath the anger, fear. Beneath the threats, broken hearts. Start there and we might get somewhere.” —Parker Palmer

• “One Saturday evening a church member called my wife about worship the next morning. She had assigned him a Scripture reading.
  “I made a mistake and wrote down Psalm 109,” he said.
  “That’s the one,” Nancy said.
  “Are you sure?” he replied, “This one’s not very nice—and you want me to read this in church?!” —Ken Sehested

• “Do not be quick to anger, for anger lodges in the bosom of fools.” —Ecclesiastes 7:9

• When bell hooks first met Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Buddhist priest and peace activist, all she could say was, “I’m so angry.” To which he responded, “Oh, hold on to your anger and use it as compost for your garden.”
• “…when God forbids oppression of the poor in the Book of the Covenant [Exodus 22:21-24], it is the first time the Scriptures explicitly affirm that God becomes angry.” —Thomas D. Hanks

• “Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.” ―Mark Twain

• “Declare your jihad on thirteen enemies you cannot see: egoism, arrogance, conceit, selfishness, greed, lust, intolerance, anger, lying, cheating, gossiping and slandering. If you can master and destroy them, then you will be read to fight the enemy you can see.” ―Abu Hamid al-Ghazali

• “Men in rage strike those that wish them best.” ―William Shakespeare’s “Othello”

• The unregenerate are “by nature children of wrath.” —Ephesians 2:3

• “The best answer will come from the person who is not angry.” —Arabic proverb

• “Anger often acts as a shield that conceals more vulnerable feelings. These underlying emotions often include fear, shame, grief, powerlessness, betrayal, and fatigue. . . . From a neurobiological standpoint, anger is tied closely to our threat detection system. When we perceive a threat, real or imagined, our amygdala activates, preparing us for fight, flight, or freeze. This reaction can override our prefrontal cortex, which manages emotional regulation and social engagement. Consequently, we might lash out in anger when we perceive a threat. We might respond angrily when what we actually need is a feeling of connection and safety.” — Vivian Chung Easton, “Beneath the Surface: A Therapist’s Guide to the Anger Iceberg”
• “Anger as soon as fed is dead– / ‘Tis starving makes it fat.” ―Emily Dickinson

• “Not the fastest horse can catch a word spoken in anger.” —Chinese proverb

• “The Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) said: When God created the creation, he inscribed upon the Throne, ‘My Mercy overpowers My wrath.’” —Imam Bukhari and Muslim b. al-Hajjaj ahadith, or official collections of oral traditions relating to the words and deeds of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad

• “Contrary to the rest of men enlist yourself in an army without weapons, without war, without bloodshed, without wrath, without stain. . . .” —Clement of Alexandria

• “Salvation is not flight from the wrath of God; it is accepting and reciprocating the love of God. Salvation is not separation. It is the beginning of union with all that is or has been or will ever be.” —James Baldwin

• “Jesus does not weep in anger or in indignation or with any satisfaction. He weeps in profound grief for this gift of God that has died.” —Walter Brueggemann

• “The fiercest anger of all, the most incurable, / Is that which rages in the place of dearest love.” ―Euripides

• “Anger is the prelude to courage.” ―Eric Hoffer

• “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves: one for the enemy, one for yourself.” — Confucius

• “At the heart of all anger, all grudges, and all resentment, you’ll always find a fear that hopes to stay anonymous.” ―Donald L. Hicks

• “How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.” —Marcus Aurelius

• “You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger.” — Gautama Buddha
• “Hatred bounces.” —e.e. cummings

• “Talk to us about reconciliation / Only if you first experience / the anger of our dying. / Talk to us about reconciliation / Only if your living is not the cause / of our dying.” —excerpt from a poem by Filipino author Justino Cabazares

• “If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it—usually to those closest to us: our family, our neighbors, our co-workers, and, invariably, the most vulnerable, our children.” —Richard Rohr

• “No matter how hot your anger is, it cannot cook yams.” —Nigerian proverb

• “Every war already carries within it the war which will answer it. Every war is answered by a new war, until everything, everything is smashed.” —Käthe Kollwitz

• “I sat with my anger long enough until she told me her real name was grief.” —C.S. Lewis

• “I have learned through bitter experience the one supreme lesson: to conserve my anger, and, as heat conserved is transmitted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmitted into a power which can move the world.” —Mahatma Gandhi

• “Anger makes us all stupid.” —Johanna Spyri

• “If I have learned anything in my life, it is that bitterness consumes the vessel that contains it.” —Rubin “Hurricane” Carter

• “I wouldn’t have to manage my anger if people would manage their stupidity.” —anonymous

• “If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.” —Chinese proverb
• “Conquer anger by love; conquer evil by good; conquer the miser by liberality; conquer the liar by truth.” —Gautama Buddha

• “Catering to fear and pessimism is a function of the most dangerous belief: that violence can bring order out of chaos.” —Gareth Higgins

• “Let us not be afraid to protect the weak because of the anger of the strong, or to defend the poor because of the power of the rich.” —Brazilian theologian Rubem Alves

• “What Christians call discipleship is nothing less than organizing people for another way of life that deals with the inequalities, the frustrations, the anger, and the hopelessness of their times in constructive ways.” —Joerg Rieger

• “For what we Christians lack is not psychology or literature . . . we lack a holy rage—the recklessness which comes from the knowledge of God and humanity. The ability to rage when justice lies prostrate on the streets, and when the lie rages across the face of the earth . . . a holy anger about the things that are wrong in the world. To rage against the ravaging of God’s earth, and the destruction of God’s world.” —Kai Munk, Danish pastor killed by the Gestapo in 1944

• “Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” —Gautama Buddha

• The seven sins: Luxuria (extravagance, later lust), Gula (gluttony), Avaritia (greed), Acedia (sloth), Ira (wrath, more commonly known as anger), Invidia (envy), and Superbia (pride).
• “A Cherokee elder sitting with his grandchildren told them, ‘In every life there is a terrible fight—a fight between two wolves. One is evil: he is fear, anger, envy, greed, arrogance, self-pity, resentment, and deceit. The other is good: joy, serenity, humility, confidence, generosity, truth, gentleness, and compassion.’ A child asked, ‘Grandfather, which wolf will win?’ The elder looked him in the eye. ‘The one you feed.’” —Cherokee parable

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