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26 March 2015  •  No. 15

¶ Invocation. It’s not the Muslim, not the Jew, but it’s me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer. —old spiritual, new verse

¶ Amazing. Renewable energy sources “now generate nearly half of Nicaragua's electricity, a figure that government officials predict could rise to 80 percent within a few years. That compares to just 13 percent in the United States. . . . There is so much untapped energy in Nicaragua that it's planning to export electricity to its Central American neighbors.” —John Otis, "Nicaragua's Renewable Energy Revolution Picks Up Steam”

¶ The message from Eduardo came with the asunto [subject] line “First time ever!!!!” followed by several photos, taken at the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the People office in Ciego de Avila, where the St. Paul, Minnesota-based Global Volunteers delegation presented an American flag as a gesture of hope for reconciliation. Rev. Eduardo Gonzalez (at left, center, back row), pastor of Iglesia Bautista Enmanuel, served as the local host.
        A gringo friend, Stan Dotson, currently teaching in Cuba who’s been able to travel throughout the island nation, reports that US President Barack Obama’s 17 December 2014 announcement reestablishing diplomatic ties with Cuba has been received with enthusiasm by people across the political spectrum (including the politically indifferent).

¶ Several pieces of legislation have been submitted in the US Senate and House calling for an end to US-Cuba travel restrictions and the US embargo. See this summary by the Washington Office on Latin America.

¶ Intercession. “There are things that can be seen only with eyes that have cried.” —Roman Catholic Archbishop Christophe Munzihirwa, former bishop in the Democratic Republic of Congo, killed in the war there in 1996

¶ Words of assurance. In 1971 music producer Gavan Bryars was working on a film about people living on the street in London, recording their songs of all sorts. One, by a man whose frail voice sang “Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet.” Bryars eventually turned those 13 bars of music into a loop, slowly adding Tom Waits’ voice on top and in harmony, then slowly adding orchestral accompaniment. It is a haunting tune (especially for a Tom Waits fan like myself) to which I’ve listened numerous times as a kind of extended meditation.
        There are versions on the web in several lengths, including a four-minute version , a 20-minute version, and a one hour 14-minute version (the latter available on CD).
       For more of the intriguing story behind this music, see Matthew Archbold’s “The True Story Behind One of the Most Beautiful Hymns I’ve Ever Heard.”

¶ Foot washing. Some years ago, in a visit to our partner congregation in Cuba, our hosts asked us to plan and lead their Wednesday worship service. We chose to focus on the Gospel of John’s “Lord’s Supper” account, where there is no ritual bread and wine observance, only Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. We asked Iglesia Getsemani leaders if we might do a foot washing ritual and found out they had been previously been discussing this. (Pictured at right are two of our members washing the feet of Rev. Angela Hernandez, Iglesia Getsemani’s pastor.)

¶ Lection for Maundy Thursday. “Jesus, knowing that the Abba had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet. . . . After he had washed their feet . . . he said to them, ‘Do you know what I have done to you?’” —John 13:3-5, 12

¶ Foot washing will alter your point of view. “It remains an experience of incomparable value that we have for once learnt to see the great events of world history from below, from the perspective of the outcasts, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed and reviled, in short from the perspective of the suffering.” —Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

“Christ Washing the Feet of the Apostles” by Meister des Hausbuches, 1475, Gemäldegalerie art museum, Berlin, Germany

¶ Preach it. “Maundy means commandment; it’s Commandment Thursday. Jesus expression should be serious.” Unfortunately, “the lectionary gives us only the beginning of Jesus’ farewell discourse. His later words in chapter 14-17 clarify the provocative washing of feet and declaring of a new commandment. He speaks of joy: ‘I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete’” [15:10-11]. —David Keck, “Living the Word,” The Christian Century

¶ Disingenuous confession. The modern form of evasive apology by public figures gives the appearance but not the substance of confession. All are variations on the theme of “I’m sorry if my comments offended anyone,” which is to slyly say it’s your fault if you were offended. (See Edwin Battistella’s “The Art of the Political Apology” for more on this topic.)
        Case in point: This week’s “apology” by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his Election Day race-baiting broadcast that “Arab voters are coming in droves to the ballot boxes” and that “left-wing NGOs [non-governmental organizations] are bringing them in buses.” Then, back-tracking on Monday after his reelection, he said “I know the things I said . . . offended some of Israel’s citizens, hurt Arab citizens. I had no intention whatsoever that would happen.” [Approximately 20% of Israel’s citizens are Arab.]
        He also said his election-eve vow to block the creation of a Palestinian state was misunderstood. However, the Likud Party (Netanyahu is its elected leader) Platform states that “The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river.”

¶ Regret is not repentance. Rather, “regret” is often a self-centered sentiment designed to draw attention away from the situation of harm and blind to the requirements of repair.

¶ “Godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation and brings no regret, but worldly grief produces death.” —2 Corinthians 7:10

¶ This, on the other hand, is more like a real confession, though there’s no mention of repairing the damage and though the change isn’t as great as some of us would like. “The former president of Bob Jones University (BJU), one of the nation’s bastions of Christian fundamentalism, has apologized for comments he made in 1980 that gays and lesbians should be stoned to death.”
       “I cannot erase [those words], but I wish I could,” said Bob Jones III (grandson of the school’s founder), who retired in 2005, in response to a petition by an informal network of 2,000 LGBT alumni/ae and their supporters asking him to recant his 1980 statement. —Religious News Service

¶ When Roger Williams, founder of the first Baptist congregation on the American continent, was banished by his fellow Puritan leaders from the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635, the first of four charges against him was that he held "that we have not our land by patent [land grant] from the king, but that the natives are the true owners of it, and that we ought to repent of such a receiving of it by patent."

¶ There’s no getting over a certain foreboding in Holy Week liturgies (the “Triduum” of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday), including a dimly-lit Tenebrae (literally, “shadows”) service which typically ends in total darkness and silent recessional. We need a reminder that Jesus didn’t die of a heart attack; that he sweat blood trying to figure out an alternative to what by now seemed inevitable; that his closest friends deserted him. He was executed, in the most publicly shameful manner available, as the Roman Empire’s terror-inspiring warning against all insurgent aims.
        If Holy Week’s schedule gets wearisome, take an irreverent break to ponder God’s burden in abiding our pontifical attention: a new poem, "Raucous."

Cross at left hand-painted by artists at the Kairos Community Center, Matanzas, Cuba.

¶ Preparations for Holy Week and Easter. The brutal violence afflicting citizens of Aleppo, Syria, brings to mind another, even longer-standing (and sometimes violent) conflict within the church: When to celebrate Easter? That conflict is based on differing opinions regarding the lunar calendar, dates of the Jewish Passover observance, and a 16th century switch in the Western church from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. Most years, the Eastern and Western churches observe Easter on different Sundays—often a week apart, sometimes as much as a month, and occasionally on the same day (as in 2010, 2011, 2014, not again until 2017).

¶ In 1997 the World Council of Churches sponsored a parlay in Aleppo in hopes of uniting the global Christian community’s observance. Easter would be defined as the first Sunday following the first astronomical full moon following the astronomical vernal equinox, as determined from the meridian of Jerusalem. This reform has not yet been implemented. (Maybe because it’s too confusing?)

¶ Egad! “Fistfights broke out yesterday between Christians gathered [at the church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem], the site of the crucifixion and burial of Jesus Christ,” according to a 2004 story in The Guardian. There was lots of hitting going on. Israeli police called in to quell the minor riot were hit. “There were a lot of people with bloodied faces.” Theological-ecclesial competitors (does this sound familiar?) have resorted to fisticuffs before and since. Here’s a video of a monk-brawl at the Holy Sepulcher in 2008.

¶ Don’t be surprised when you walk down the aisle of your local CVS to find that the company has decided to do its part in supporting our troops. For $3.99, you can buy a package of camouflage-colored Easter eggs, with matching green and white armed plastic soldiers—the “toy prizes” are just like the jellybeans of Easters past and, according to CVS, “Perfect for Easter egg hunts.” —Nancy Aykanian, “CVS Makes War on Easter,” Common Dreams

¶ Hard to stay focused. On Easter Sunday 2013 the Baylor University (mascot: bear) women’s basketball team played in the NCAA quarterfinals for the national championship. The Waco, Texas, Grace Baptist Church sign that day read: “He is risen /  Go Lady Bears.”

¶ Hershey’s wants a piece of Easter action, too, with a milk chocolate cross. (I didn’t see a fair trade dark chocolate option.)

¶ In the movie Son of God, Jesus is played by Diogo Margado “who plays the title role with a gleaming smile and a surfer-dude vibe.” —USA Today movie review

¶ “As E.B. White watched his wife Katherine planning the planting of bulbs in her garden in the last autumn of her life, he wrote, ‘there was something comical yet touching in her bedraggled appearance . . . the small hunched-over figure, her studied absorption in the implausible notion that there would be yet another spring, oblivious to the ending of her own days, which she knew perfectly well was near at hand, sitting there with her detailed chart under those dark skies in dying October, calmly plotting the resurrection.’
       "Katherine was a member of the resurrection conspiracy, the company of those who plant seeds of hope under dark skies of grief or oppression, going about their living and dying until, no one knows how, when or where, the tender Easter shoots appear, and a piece of creation is healed." —Robert Raines

¶ “Get an Exclusive Coupon on this Cute ALLYOU Easter Craft Kit.”

¶ "To preach to the powerful without denouncing oppression is to promise Easter without Calvary, forgiveness without conversion, and healing without cleansing the wound." —"From What We Have Seen and Heard: A Pastoral Letter on Evangelization From the Black Bishops of the United States," 1984

¶ Altar call. “It is likely that there can be no resurrections by proxy. Each person and each generation may be called to stand anew at the river.” —Vincent Harding, Hope and History: Why We Must Share the Story of the Movement

Art at left ©Julie Lonneman

¶ Closing hymn. “There ain’t no grave can hold my body down.” —Johnny Cash

¶ Benediction. “As Tashi Johnson [in Alice Walker's novel Possessing the Secret of Joy] goes to the firing squad, punishment for fighting the edicts of history, her sisters unfurl a banner before the soldiers can stop them. ‘Resistance is the secret of joy,’ it says in huge block letters. 'There is a roar as if the world cracked open and I flew inside,' says Tashi upon seeing the banner. ‘I am no more. And [am] satisfied.’” —Rose Berger, “Pursuing the Secret of Joy,” Sojourners magazine

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Featured this week on the prayer&politiks site:

• “Easter’s Aftermath,” a poem
• “Raucous,” a new poem, for when piety gets wearisome
• “Bounty and abundance,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 116
• “No Resurrection by Proxy: Open Letter to My Daughter,” Eastertide 1992, during the Gulf War

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Language not otherwise indicated above is that of the editor. Don’t let the “copyright” notice keep you from circulating material you find here (and elsewhere in this site). Reprint permission is hereby granted in advance for noncommercial purposes.

Your comments are always welcomed. If you have news, views, notes or quotes to add to the list above, please do. If you like what you read, pass this along to your friends.

19 March 2015  •  No. 14

¶ Invocation. “Why, when God's world is so big, did you fall asleep in a prison of all places?” —Rumi

¶ Remarkable news. “South Africa may be one of just 10 countries in the world to permit same-sex marriage—not to mention the only country in Africa—but it is also a place where the assault, rape and murder of lesbians remains a troublingly common issue. At the same time, however, a brave effort is taking shape to counter this hatred and violence. Among the groups leading the charge is Luleki Sizwe, founded in 2005 by Ndumie Funda. The group’s main objective is to put an end to corrective rape—a phenomenon where men rape lesbian women with the belief that it will somehow correct them of their sexuality.” —Ray Mwareya-Mhondera, “South Africa’s brave struggle against lesbian hate crimes”

¶ Good news you likely didn’t hear. An interfaith crowd of more than 1,000 surrounded Oslo, Norway’s main synagogue on Saturday 21 February, chanting “No to anti-Semitism, no to Islamophobia.” The event, organized by Muslim youth in the city, was done in solidarity with Norway’s Jewish community on the heels of the murder of two people outside the synagogue the previous week.
        One of the event organizers, 17-year-old Hajrad Arshad, explained that the intention was to make a clear statement that Muslims don’t support anti-Semitism. “We think that after the terrorist attacks in Copenhagen, it is the perfect time for us Muslims to distance ourselves from the harassment of Jews that is happening,” Arshad told the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. She noted that the group aimed to “extinguish the prejudices people have against Jews and against Muslims.” [Photo credit: Reuters]

¶ Confession. “Like many people concerned about ‘humanity,’ [European novelist Arthur Koestler] was contemptuous of actual humans. —description of Koestler by Christopher Caldwell, in a review of Michael Scammel’s Koestler: The Literary and Political Odyssey of a Twentieth-Century Skeptic, New York Times Book Review

¶ Words of assurance. “If we were terrified of God as an inexorable judge, we would not confidently await God's mercy, or approach God trustfully in prayer. Our peace, our joy in Lent are a guarantee of grace.” —Thomas Merton, Seasons of Celebration

Art at left ©Miranda Hassett.

¶ Prayers of intercession. “Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, falsehoods. The liturgical movement must become a revolutionary movement, seeking to overthrow the forces that continue to destroy the promise, the hope, the vision.”  —Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

¶ Congratulations! This year is the 25th anniversary of the historic American With Disabilities Act of 1990—though churches were exempted from its provisions. A coalition of faith groups is seeking 2,500 faith communities to formally pledge (prior to 26 July) their commitment to full implementation of the Act’s provisions. Consider putting this initiative to your congregation. Even if you’re already in compliance, there is pastoral value in having this conversation. You can find the pledge here. Among the campaign’s co-sponsors are:
        •The Collaborative on Faith and Disability, a clearinghouse for ongoing projects, best practices, upcoming events and other resources addressing topics at the intersection of disability, spirituality and faith communities.
        • The Interfaith Disability Advocacy Coalition, a program of the American Association of People with Disabilities, has produced church resources to raise awareness about ways to expand employment opportunities for people with disabilities.
        •The ADA National Network has a Facebook page for idea sharing, questions, activities and other resources including links to faith and disability program websites. —information from Baptist News Global Today

¶ Americans With Disabilities Act meets Women’s History Month: The Helen Keller you never knew. Helen Keller is most often depicted simply as a courageous individual who overcame the severe phyisical obstacles of being deaf and blind. But that’s not half the story.
       Newspaper photo (right) of Helen Keller joining the actors’ strike picket line at the premiere of the silent film “Deliverance,” about her own life.
       “Helen Keller worked throughout her long life to achieve social justice; she was an integral part of many social movements in the 20th century,” writes Ruth Shagoury in “Who Stole Helen Keller?”  But she was also an activist and author, writing frequently on disability and class, socialism, women, and war.
        “On August 18th, 1919, Helen Keller took part in a strike called by Actor’s Equity—joining the picket line against the debut of the silent film Deliverance, about her own life. Not only did she join in the picket line, she spoke at the union’s strike meetings in support of their dispute with management regarding their wages. She declared she would 'rather have the film fail than aid the managers in their contest with the players.' (The New York Call also was the first newspaper to publish Keller’s article, “How I Became a Socialist,” in 1912.)"

¶ Disabilities of a different sort. “In response to a racist chant by a group of fraternity brothers the president of Oklahoma University acted quickly to denounce their actions. That was good. There absolutely needed to be accountability for using hateful and horrific language.
        “But then the predictable pattern fell into place. It was the same old triple crown of punishment for a failing. Blame ‘em, shame ‘em and shun ‘em.
        “What if the OU president had said, ‘What happened is deplorable. There are consequences. We will not tolerate any language that denigrates or disrespects anyone, regardless of race, religion, gender or class. Yet we are aware that we all suffer from living within a racist and biased culture of prejudices. We are in this together. The students will remain on campus so that we can learn together. Together we will learn about the paralyzing systems of injustice that bind and constrict us. Together we will seek to discover a mercy that unites us and strengthens us to change for the common good.’” —Nancy Hastings Sehested in last Sunday's sermon, “Astounded by Forgiveness”

¶ It is painful, but I do believe we need to hear the un-bleeped video version of that fraternity pep rally-like chant (sung to a tune eerily similar to “If You’re Happy and You Know It Clap Your Hands”). And I do believe we need to read the uncensored lyrics: “There will never be a nigger SAE [Sigma Alpha Epsilon] / There will never be a nigger SAE / You can hang ‘em from a tree, but it will never start with me / There will never be a nigger SAE.”

¶ Can't make this %#!@ up. Thankfully, social media outrage prompted retailer T.J. Maxx to pull these "hang loose noose" t-shirts.

¶ Hymn of petition. Mercy Now  by Mary Gauthier. This version uses photos from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, whose 10th anniversary is this August, a “natural” disaster which exposed—as much as anything else to that point—the “unnatural” divisions of race and class in our nation.

¶ Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror documents Equal Justice Initiative’s multi-year investigation into lynching in twelve Southern states during the period between Reconstruction and World War II. EJI researchers documented 3959 racial terror lynchings of African Americans between 1877 and 1950—at least 700 more lynchings of black people in these states than previously reported in the most comprehensive work done on lynching to date.

¶ In a recent speech, Equal Justice Initiative founder Bryan Stevenson said:
        • “I don’t think slavery ended. I believe it just evolved.”
        • “Injustice prevails where hopelessness persists.”
        •Some 10,000 children are housed in adult jails and prisons, where they are at least five times more likely to be sexually assaulted than if they were in juvenile facilities.

¶ Here’s an “extended” interview with Stevenson by Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show.”  (It’s worth enduring the open ad.)

¶ Two books that bring to the surface the structural racism of our nation’s criminal justice system. Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, is the go-to book documenting Bryan Stevenson comment (above) that “slavery didn’t end, it just evolved.” According to the New York Times Book Review, Alexander's “book marshals pages of statistics and legal citations to argue that the get-tough approach to crime that began in the Nixon administration and intensified with Ronald Reagan’s declaration of the war on drugs has devastated black America."
        Where Alexander’s book provides a rigorous analysis of how “slavery has evolved” (as Stevenson says), Stevenson’s Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption tells concrete stories. The Washington Post says Stevenson “surely has done as much as any other living American to vindicate the innocent and temper justice with mercy for the guilty.”

¶ Here’s an interview of Alexander by Stephen Colbert on “The Colbert Report.”

¶ Some words are worth a thousand pictures. “Nothing sucks more about prison than missing the people who own beach front property in your heart.” —JEG, prison inmate, in a letter to a former prison chaplain

¶ Some basic facts on prison and race from the American Civil Liberty Union
        •From 1980 to 2008, the number of people incarcerated in America quadrupled-from roughly 500,000 to 2.3 million people.
        •The US is 5% of the World population and has 25% of world prisoners.
        •African Americans now constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated population.
        •African Americans are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites.
        •Together, African American and Hispanics comprised 58% of all prisoners in 2008, even though African Americans and Hispanics make up approximately one quarter of the US population.
        •About 14 million Whites and 2.6 million African Americans report using an illicit drug.
        •Although five times as many Whites are using drugs as African Americans, yet African Americans are sent to prison for drug offenses at 10 times the rate of Whites.

¶ McAfee School of Theology student Jordan Yeager (pictured at left, photo by David Garber) has been an advocate on behalf of Georgia death row inmate Kelly Gissendaner whose execution was postponed last week. David Garber, McAfee associate professor of Old Testament and Hebrew and the faculty advisor for the Certificate in Theological Studies for women at the Arrendale State Prison, said “Many students have written eloquent papers on capital punishment and on restorative justice” during the run-up and aftermath to Gissendale’s scheduled execution. —Baptist News Global Today

¶ The good news is that out-of-control prison costs have forced conservatives and liberals to agree on commonsensical alternatives. And Texas is leading the way. It began with Texas attorney Marc Levin, who has become one of the nation's leading advocates of conservative criminal-justice reform. “How is it 'conservative' to spend vast amounts of taxpayer money on a strategy without asking whether it is providing taxpayers with the best public safety return on their investment?" In 2007 Texas legislators voted to spend an eighth of a proposed $2 billion prison budget increase on drug courts and rehabilitative programs for addicts and mentally ill prisoners. Since then the state’s incarceration rate has fallen by 20% and crime rate is at its lowest since 1968.

¶ Prisons are to crime what greenhouses are to plants. —Harry Whittington, former member of the Texas Board of Corrections and the bonding authority that builds prisons.

¶ Every pastoral agent—clergy and lay leaders alike—should become familiar with the phrase “restorative justice.” For a start, get a copy of Howard Zehr’s The Little Book of Restorative Justice ($4.95) and bookmark the Zehr Institute for Restorative Justice site.
       Retributive justice asks “What law has been broken? Who broke it? How should they be punished?” Restorative justice asks “What harm has been done? What needs to be done to repair the harm? Who is responsible for repairing the harm?” (For more, see “If You Do Well,” Ken Sehested’s sermon on restorative justice.)

¶ Lection for Sunday next. “Jesus entered Jerusalem, then entered the Temple. He looked around, taking it all in. But by now it was late. . . . —Mark 11:11, The Message. The lectionary editors stop short of the rest of the (“I’ll be back”) story.

¶ Preach it. Writing 25 years ago, as if a seer of current headlines, Vincent Harding wrote: “On the harshest national level we saw again that race is like a bone stuck in our throat, refusing both digestion and expulsion, endangering our life. . . . “ This news testifies “to the unmistakable need and desire of our nation to deal with its terrifying and compelling history, to exorcise the demons of our racial past and present, perhaps even to discover the healing possibilities that reside in our many-hued and wounded variations on the human theme.” —Hope and History: Why We Must Share the Story of the Movement

¶ Altar call. “In order to change the world, you sometimes have to choose to do uncomfortable things. You have to choose to be in places that are uncomfortable,” which he calls the “power of proximity.” —Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption

¶ Benediction. “Yes, the Pope, who beat Edward Snowden for Time magazine’s [2013] ‘Person of the Year,’ is astonishing. I must admit that even as a secular Jew, this pope fills me with awe. He sneaks out at night to feed the homeless; invites homeless people to celebrate his birthday in the Vatican; washes the feet of young prisoners; says he is not one to judge gay people; calls on the church to get beyond its fixation on reproduction and sexual morality; debunks trickle-down economics and questions the morality of capitalism; lives simply and loves to take public transportation. What a cool guy!” —Medea Benjamin, director of CODEPINK

Featured this week on prayer&politiks:
• “Astounded by Forgiveness,” a sermon by Nancy Hastings Sehested
• “The Palm and the Passion,” a litany for Palm Sunday
• “Confrontation in Jerusalem,” a Palm Sunday sermon
• “If You Do Well,” a sermon on restorative justice
• “Blessed unrest,” a litany for worship

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Language not otherwise indicated above is that of the editor. Don’t let the “copyright” notice keep you from circulating material you find here (and elsewhere in this site). Reprint permission is hereby granted in advance for noncommercial purposes.

Your comments are always welcomed. If you have news, views, notes or quotes to add to the list above, please do. If you like what you read, pass this along to your friends.

12 March 2015 • No. 13

¶ Invocation. “Be humble for you are made of earth.” —Serbian proverb

¶ Southern Appalachian mountaintops are now a bit safer. “After five years of action by Earth Quaker Action Team, PNC Bank announced a shift in its policy on March 2 that will effectively cease its financing of mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia.
        “This marks a major turnaround for the nation’s seventh largest bank, which for years refused to budge on this issue. After more than 125 actions, their desire to continue business as usual proved no match for Earth Quaker Action Team, or EQAT, and our allies.
        “As more and more banks stop financing mountaintop removal, we expect the coal companies to have more trouble over the next few years securing financing for extreme extraction.” —“How a small Quaker group forced PNC Bank to stop financing mountaintop removal,” George Lakey

¶ According to a report by the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting, the state’s Department of Environmental Protection employees have since 2011 been banned from using terms like “climate change,” “sustainability,” and “global warming.”

¶ Hymn of praise. If you haven’t heard it, or need to hear it again (and maybe again and again), listen to “Glory,” by Common and John Legend, from the move “Selma,” which won the 2015 Best Original Song at the 87th Academy Awards and the 72nd Golden Globe Award.

¶ Awesome. When eight-year-old Girl Scout Lily DeRosia, of Rochester, New York, heard the news that workers at a cookie factory in Louisville, Kentucky, which makes Girl Scout cookies, were being mistreated, she got her troop members and leader to sign a letter to Kellogg brand CEO John Bryant, saying “We want to sell cookies made by a company that cares about there (sic) workers.”

¶ “If you think you're too small to be effective, you've never been in bed with a mosquito.” —anonymous

¶ Hard to say if this is funny or sad. “Parody of ‘contemporary’ church” (thanks, Abigail)

¶ Intercession. Shortly after this photo was taken, RJ, a member of my congregation (at right), now serving with Christian Peacemaker Teams, was taken into custody along with several others by Israeli Border Police in Hebron, Palestine, for interfering with police work (i.e., taking photos of police interaction with Palestinian citizens). All were released after an hour; but such detainments are becoming more common. That photo inspired a new poem, “For RJ: The One who shields from detainment’s constant threat.”  See this site for more information about CPT's work.

¶ Women’s History Month is an annual recognition highlighting the contributions of women in history and contemporary society. It is commemorated in March in the US, the United Kingdom and Australia, corresponding with International Women’s Day on 8 March. In Canada the commemoration is in October, corresponding with “Persons Day” on 18 October, marking the anniversary of a pivotal constitutional case in 1929 decision making it legal for women to be elected to the country’s Senate.

¶ I can’t help but remember when, some years ago, my wife preached in a Baptist seminary chapel service on the school’s “Women in Ministry” day. She began by expressing thanks for the occasion but also looking forward to the day when the seminary established a “Men in Ministry” day.

¶ Last week the US Postal Service issued a new “Forever” stamp featuring the portrait of Maya Angelou and a quote from the first volume of her autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

¶ The first “International Women’s Day” was in 1911. In 1980 US President Jimmy Carter issued the first presidential proclamation declaring the week of 8 March as Women’s History Week, saying “I urge libraries, schools, and community organizations to focus their observances on the leaders who struggled for equality—Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Lucy Stone, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriet Tubman, and Alice Paul.”

¶ It’s hard to imagine anything like this happening now in Congress. In August 1981 a bipartisan Joint Congressional Resolution co-sponsored by Sentator Orin Hatch (R-Utah) and Representative Barbara Milulski (D-Maryland), authorized (Public Law 97-28) and requested the President to proclaim the week beginning 7 March 1982 as “Women’s History Week.” In 1987 Congress approved Public Law 100-9 designating March as Women’s History Month.

¶ Tenth anniversary of Dorothy Stang’s martyrdom. Sister Dorothy Stang,  a member of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, was an American-born woman who first went to Brazil in 1966, later becoming a Brazilian citizen. Over the next 40 years she built schools, established child nutrition programs, and worked with poor farmers in the Anapu region of the Amazon Forest, actively resisting illegal loggers and ranchers in their attempts to displace local communities. On 12 February 2005, while walking a dirt road on the way to a community meeting, two men assassinated her. The Roman Catholic Church later declared her a martyr.
       Following Sister Dorothy's death, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio da Silva put nearly 20,000 of the Amazon's 1.6 million square miles in the Anapu region under federal environmental protection. Brazil’s Human Rights Minister, Nilmario Miranda described her as “a legend, a person considered a symbol of the fight for human rights in [the Brazilian state of] Para.” Sister Dorothy (“Dot” to the people with whom she worked) was often pictured wearing a t-shirt with the slogan: “A Morte de floresta é o fim da nossa vida,” which is Portuguese for “The Death of the forest is the end of our life.”

¶ In 2011 the Obama administration released a report, “Women in America: Indicators of Social and Economic Well-Being,”  the first comprehensive federal report on women since the report produced by the Commission on the Status of Women in 1963.

¶ Former President Jimmy Carter, in his 2014 book,  A Call to Action: Women, Violence, and Power, argues that the world’s discrimination and violence against women and girls is the most serious, pervasive, and ignored violation of basic human rights.

¶ The National Women’s History Project’s 2015 theme is “Weaving the Stories of Women’s Lives.”

¶ Ain’t I a Woman? Here’s an inspiring 3-minute reenactment by Kerry Washington of Sojourner Truth’s extemporaneous speech at the May 1851 Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio.

¶ Confession. “Violence against women hurts everyone, including men. We invite our brothers to take up this cause, and be free from the limiting strictures of our modern definition of masculinity!” —Eve Ensler. Watch Tony Stroebel’s 2-minute video, “ManRise,” using Ensler’s text.

¶ Words of assurance. "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world." —Marianne Williamson, A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles.

¶ Look for it. “The Hunting Ground,” an Academy Award-nominated film about sexual assault on US college campuses, is now in release in selected cities.

¶ On Monday the United Nations issued a report saying that violence against women around the world “persists at alarmingly high levels in many forms.” Among its findings is the reality that 35% of women around the world have experienced either sexual or physical violence.

¶ Preach it. “She [the woman pursued by the dragon in Revelation 12] is a woman of power. If she were not, the dragon would not have bothered. But he persists. Her power is a threat to all that he stands for. But her trust in a God of life and love saves and sustains her. God bears her up on wings. A dance that God began with Eve continues through time.” —Joyce Hollyday, Clothed With the Sun: Biblical Women, Social Justice & Us—still the best book of reflections on women in the Bible

¶ Lection for Sunday next. “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. . . . No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me.” —Jeremiah 31:33-34

¶ O Lord, I’ve made you a place in my heart, and I hope that you leave it alone.  —Greg Brown

¶ For more on “heart religion,” see Ken Sehested’s sermon, “Religion of the Heart”  and a litany for worship, “Heart Religion."

¶ “She marched, so I can vote. I will never not vote again.” —Krystall Leek, student at Berea College, speaking about Ann Beard Grundy who, as a Berea freshman in 1965, had participated in the 1965 march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. Grundy, originally from Birmingham, was a member of 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham when it was bombed in 1963. The two were part of a group of Berea students and alumni who participated in the recent 50th anniversary march. Among the stories Grundy told of the 1965 trip to Selma was that their bus driver got so frightened about driving into the tense Selma atmosphere that he stopped 40 miles from the city and refused to continue, doing so only after the Berea students refused to pay him if he didn’t complete the journey. Story by Aamer Madhani, “50 year later, Selma still inspiring,” USA Today.

¶ “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” —legendary anthropologist Margaret Mead

¶ “There is Kayla Mueller’s America and there is Chris Kyle’s America and we can’t identify with both. There is Kayla Mueller’s Christianity and Chris Kyle’s Christianity and the two religions have little in common. Kyle or Kayla; who’s your hero?” —by Alan Bean, one of my favorite commentators on questions of faith and justice.

¶ Altar call. “The test of sincerity of one’s prayer is the willingness to labor on its behalf.” —St. John Chrysostom

¶ Benediction. “Live long and prosper” were the parting words of Mr. Spock, on “Star Wars,” played by Leonard Nimoy, with hand raised, two fingers apart, forming a “V.” Nimoy himself said the idea for this salute came from his Orthodox Jewish childhood.
        This shape of the Hebrew letter “shin,” Nimoy said in a 2013 interview as he made the famous “V” gesture, is the first letter in several Hebrew words, including “Shaddai” (a name for God), “shalom” (meaning “peace” and still a common word for saying hello or goodbye), and “Shekhinah” (the shining presence of God, often thought of as a feminine presence). The hand sign—using both hands—has been used by rabbis for hundreds of years for the ritual of Priestly Blessings, performed on various Jewish holidays and other special events.

Featured this week on prayer&politiks:
•A new poem, “For RJ: Freedom from detainment’s threat,”  following her detainment by Israeli police in Hebron, Palestine
•“Religion of the Heart,”  a sermon based on Jeremiah 31:31-34, lection for 22 March
•“Heart Religion,” a litany for worship, inspired by Jeremiah 31:33-34
• “The Cost of freedom entails moral accountability: The need for truthtelling about the CIA’s torturing practices,” a newspaper op-ed

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