Recent

First, let’s look at a few profiles of individuals in our “cloud of witnesses.”

¶ This coming Saturday, 31 January, is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Thomas Merton, OCSO (Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance), the Roman Catholic community to which he was admitted on 13 December 1941 as a postulant at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky. Few if any figures in Christian history have more effectively rewoven the torn fabric of faith segregating personal from public, salvation from liberation, prayer from politiks. It remains a supreme irony that a monk—especially one vowed to an order known for its discipline of silence—would become at mid-20th century in the US among the most articulate commentators on a host of social concerns, as well as an enduring spiritual guide to generations since, here and elsewhere, among a wildly diverse group of Christians and other people of faith.
       •My singular favorite biography of Merton is Jim Forest’s Living With Wisdom: A Life of Thomas Merton (revised 2008), especially for his three-dimensional depiction of Merton.
       •Merton’s Trappist superiors refused to allow publication of his extensive correspondence around the Cuba missile crisis and the ongoing threats of nuclear war. In 2006 Orbis Books published the edited collection, titled Cold War Letters (by Christine M. Bochen, foreword by James Douglas). The book is available online in pdf format.
       •For a brief summary of Merton’s influence, see James Martin, SJ, “7 Ways Thomas Merton Changed the World.”

¶ Read Ken Sehested’s profile of Tom Fox, "Keep to Jesus." Fox was the Christian Peacemaker Teams staff member who was kidnapped and eventually executed by jihadists in Iraq in 2006. (While you’re at the ReadTheSpirit website, browse through Dan Buttry’s “Interfaith Peacemaker” collection of stories. These are great popular education tools for interfaith understanding.

¶ Many forget that Christian Peacemaker Teams was “the first to publicly denounce the torture of the Iraqi people at the hands of US forces,” long before Seymour Hersh’s groundbreaking expose in 2004 of the torture at Iraq’s infamous Abu Ghraib prison. —Amy Goodman, “Democracy Now!” radio broadcast, March 2006

¶ Speaking of Goodman, in her report of Tom Fox’s death, she described Christian Peacemaker Teams as “a non-missionary organization that has been documenting the abuse of Iraqi detainees,” clearly an indication of how warped the notion of Christian “mission” has become.

¶ February is Black History Month in the US. “Unbought and Unbossed. That was the slogan of maverick politician Shirley Chisholm (D-NY), who shattered barriers, spoke her mind, stood up for the disadvantaged, and in 1968 became the first black woman ever elected to Congress. After her election to Congress, Chisholm scored another historic first in 1972 when she declared her candidacy for the Democratic nomination for President.” —US Postal Service, on the issuance of a commemorative stamp in Chisholm’s honor

¶ Romero. On 7 January the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints ruled that former Archbishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador, El Salvador, is to be considered a martyr, murdered in odium fidei (Latin for “hatred of faith). This step pushes forward an 18-year process to have Romero named a saint. Romero was assassinated by right-wing death squads while celebrating Mass in March 1980, one day after his radio broadcast sermon calling for soldiers to lay down their guns and end the repressive government’s rule. The Plough Publishing House published The Violence of Love, a marvelous collection of Romero quotes. They also offer a free ebook download and audio book.

¶ Quotable. “I was terrified. But I also knew that if I did not embrace this fear, it would one day own me.” —Lynda Blackmon Lowery, the youngest person on the 1965 Selma-Montgomery march, recently interviewed on National Public Radio about her book, On the Road to Freedom: My Story of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights March

¶ The kind of progressivism which guts prophetic speech. “I’m a secular person. I’m not against religion. I think religion is good. But it has its place—inside the chapel.” —doctoral candidate at Duke University, founded by Methodists and Quakers in North Carolina in 1938, who was grateful the private school reversed its original decision allowing the Muslim call to prayer to be broadcast each Friday from the Duke Chapel’s tower

¶ #UseMeInstead. Recently the North Miami Beach police department was exposed for using mug shots of black men at their target shooting range. After an Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Facebook group took up a conversation about this news, a group of ELCA pastors began sending their own photos, in clerical garb, to the police department with the message “Use me instead.”

¶ “Blaming ‘religion’ for violence is like blaming ‘water’ for thunderstorms.” —Patton Dodd, “The Problem with Calling Terrorism ‘Religious,’” FaithStreet.com

¶ The fun stuff. “Automakers cast off the shambling, apologetic approach to auto shows and hit the big Detroit exhibition with high-risk, go-fast, eye-popping, whimsical cars and trucks that recall the pre-recession heyday. . . . ‘Happy days are here again,’ says Michelle Krebs, senior analyst, Autorader.com. ‘Performance cars, luxury cars, convertibles—the fun stuff.’” —James R. Healey, “Detroit puts pedal to metal,” USA Today, 13 January 2015

¶ Multicultural bumper stickers (same car). On the left side: “God Is Still Speaking,” United Church of Christ publicity slogan; and on the right, “Carolina Roller Girls: All-Girl, Flat Track Roller Derby.”

¶ Can you say flagitious? NBC announced 28 January it had sold all available ad spaces for Sunday’s Super Bowl broadcast. No surprise here: Cost for a 30-second ad reached a record $4.5 million. USAToday reports that niche rental companies offer luxury homes in easy driving distance to this year’s game venue in Arizona for $250,000 for the week (though chartered jet and limo transport, chefs and butlers could nearly double that tab). Tickets for this year's game have sold on StubHub for $937 to $11,500.
      Who am I rooting for? The the nuns at Our Lady of Guadalupe Benedictine Monastery in Phoenix, who are renting rooms to Super Bowl tourists for $300 per night and channeling the money directly into their community ministry budget. You go, girls!

¶ “The great novelist E.L. Doctorow once said that writing a novel is like driving at night with the headlights on. You can see only a little way in front of you, but you can make the whole journey this way. It is the truest of all things, the only way to write a book, raise a child, save the world.” —Anne Lamott, “A Call to Arms”

¶ “Call me foolish, but I'm guessing God would trade a little suffering piety in favor of more belly laughs." —Scott Pomfret, talking about his new book, "Since My Last Confession: A Gay Catholic Memoir,” National Catholic Reporter

¶ GUNS, GOD, GRITS, and GRAVY. That’s the title of a new book by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee who may again join the Republican presidential nominee parade. (The more common version of that traditional aphorism is “Guns, God, and Guts and sometimes Glory.”)

¶ In the two years since the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut (fatalities included 20 children, 6 adult school staff, 20-year-old shooter Adam Lanza’s mother beforehand, finally turning the gun on himself, ending a long, untreated battle with mental illness) there have been at least 95 school shootings in the US, including 23 in which at least one person was killed.

¶ Every day in the US, on average:
      •32 are murdered with guns and 140 are treated for a gun assault in an emergency room.
      •51 people kill themselves with a firearm, and 45 people are shot or killed in an accident with a gun.
      The US firearm homicide rate is 20 times higher than the combined rates of 22 other industrialized countries.
      A gun in the home is 22 times more likely to be used to kill or injure in a domestic homicide, suicide, or unintentional shooting than to be used in self-defense. —bradycampaign.org

¶ The US Constitution’s second amendment reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." It takes little grammatical expertise to conclude that the second half is governed by the first. In other words, the right to bear arms is in service to “a well regulated militia” functioning as a state-supervised security force. We no longer have militias. The closest parallel is the National Guard. It wasn’t until 2012 that the Supreme Court ruled this right to individuals. This is the same Court that declared corporations—in “Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission”—to be “persons.”

At right: “Non-Violence (a.k.a. “The Knotted Gun”) sculpture at the United Nations. When the Swedish artist Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd learned his friend John Lennon had been murdered, he immediately began work on this sculpture, which was purchased by Luxembourg and donated in 1988 to the United Nations.

¶ In James Madison's initial proposal (8 June 1789) for a constitutional bill of rights, the wording related to the “keep and bear arms” provision was the following: “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.”

¶ Founded by Union veterans shortly after the Civil War, the National Rifle Association (NRA) for most of its existence has catered to hunters and marksmanship competitions. That began to change in the racially-charged atmosphere of the ‘60s, and in 1977 the group began focusing on limiting Congressional oversight of gun control. Many consider the NRA the most powerful lobby in Washington, DC.

¶ “[I]f you are an American, you are statistically in less danger of dying from a terrorist attack in this country than from a toddler shooting you. And by the way, you’re 2,059 times more likely to die by your own hand with a weapon of your choosing than in a terrorist attack anywhere on Earth.” —Tom Engelhardt, “(Over)Bearing Arms in America"

¶ Must-see TV. PBS’ recent “Frontline” program focused on the National Rifle Association’s super-sized influence on legislators at every level. Local congregations’ discipleship training should include watching and discussing this 54-minute program.

¶ Hunters and shootists: You must be the vanguard of any movement to undermine the NRA’s chokehold on Congress, in order to get commonsensical firearm legislation.

¶ Disheartment. Most in the West are just now hearing about the suicide of Zainab al-Mahdi, a well-known 23 year-old Egyptian activist, who hanged herself last November, sending shockwaves through the dissident community. Mahdi marched in Tahrir Square in 2011 against the dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak (whose government, at the time, received 25 percent of all US foreign aid). A member of the Muslim Brotherhood, she renounced the party’s corruption after its president, Mohamed Morsi, came to power in 2012 following the country’s first democratic election. Then, in July 2013, the Egyptian military overthrew Morsi. (Listen to Ahmad Amar’s haunting “Requiem for Zainab Mahdi”.)
      A friend, recalling Mahdi’s political frustration, quoted her as saying “there is no justice—we're lying to ourselves just to live.” Which is why our hearts need to hear the following pastoral word as a benediction in the face of our own frustrations. . . .

¶ Benediction. “To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.” —Howard Zinn, You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train

©Ken Sehested, prayerandpolitiks.org. Language not otherwise indicated above is that of the editor.

¶ WE NEED A PRIMER ON TERRORISM. This is not it, but it is a start.

You are encouraged to add your own comments, or offer a favorite quote, in the “reader comments” at bottom.

¶ Hundreds, probably thousands, of editors and commentary writers worked late into the night last week, scouring a thesaurus in search of uncommon adjectives sufficient to the task of communicating the heinous killings in and around Paris, France, beginning with the 7 January jihadist attack that killed a dozen in the editorial office of Charlie Hebdo magazine.

¶ Swallowed in global attention to this horror was the bombing, a day before, at the NAACP office in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The Southern Poverty Law Center currently tracks 939 “hate groups” operating in 49 of the 50 states in the US, in addition to Washington, DC. These groups “have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.”

¶ My personal grief is not mitigated by my distaste for Charlie Hebdo’s style of humor, which the creative artist Josh Healey describes as  “such a problematic hero. Since the attacks, the American media has taken to calling the French publication a ‘satirical’ magazine. . . .  It is closer to the bastard lovechild of Bill Maher and Rush Limbaugh, with all of their nastiness and even worse jokes. . . . In a country [France] and an era (post-9/11) where Muslims face rampant discrimination and often violent exclusion, Charlie Hebdo's cheap shots at Islam added fuel to the racist fire. I understand the desire to make fun of organized religion in all its absurdities, but it's possible to do that without graphic cartoons of Muhammad being sodomized.” —Josh Healey, “I Will Grieve. I Will Laugh. But I Am Not Charlie

¶ Though if I were in France I would have been among the 4 million marchers last Sunday, publicly declaring “not afraid,” for principles are not bound by personal preferences.

¶ My local paper was among those who printed passionate and articulate perspectives on these atrocities. Though one sentence fairly took my breath away: “Even amid today’s tolerance in the US the occasional rogue Christian such as Timothy McVeigh will commit an act of terror.” In 1995, McVeigh, together with Terry Nichols, exploded a bomb at the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people.

¶ Are our “rogues” limited to “occasional Christians” of recent memory? Does “today’s tolerance” not admit (among others) the history of Ku Klux Klan reigns of terror?

¶ Speaking of McVeigh: He confessed that he almost didn’t go through with the Murrah Federal Building bombing when he learned there was a daycare center in the building. But he decided that was unavoidable “collateral damage.” McVeigh was a veteran of the earlier 1991 Gulf War, and afterwards wrote in a letter to his aunt: “Killing Iraqis was hard at first, but after a while it got easier.”

¶ “Between 1880 and 1940, white Christians lynched nearly five thousand black men and women,” in virtually every state in the US mainland. The satirist Mark Twain referred to our nation as “the United States of Lyncherdom.” African American Baptist leader Nannie Helen Burroughs wrote a century ago that the US “is the most lawless and desperately wicked nation on the globe,” and that lynching “was no superficial things . . . it is in the blood of the nation.” —quoted in James Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree, which I would say is a must read

¶ When I was in seminary in New York I learned that the largest Ku Klux Klan organization in the US at the time was based in Connecticut.

¶ View the flash movie of “Without Sanctuary,” by James Allen, to view a catalogue with commentary of lynching photographs, many of which were made into postcards. (These are painful images; but I fear if we refuse to look, we may never grasp this backdrop of terror which impinges on us still.) In 1908 sending postcards with photos of lynching victims (some with the caption “Wish you were here”) became so common that the US Postmaster banned the cards.

¶ Terrorism has punctuated our history since the earliest days of undocumented European immigrants in North America. William Bradford, governor of the early Plymouth Colony, wrote of his Pilgrim community’s battle with the Pequot Indians at Mystic River, beginning with the torching of the Pequot village: “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.”

¶ There isn’t a legal consensus on the definition of terrorism. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation defines terrorism as “the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.” The first problem with this statement is the adjective “unlawful,” which implies that governments can’t be charged with terrorism. And then there’s the fact that more than a few actions by colonists fighting loyalists to overthrow British rule of the American colonies were terroristic.

¶ I have stood at the Canadian monument in the Saint John, New Brunswick harbor commemorating the British loyalists who fled there from the American colonies during the US Revolutionary War after persecution—some instances of which would be judged war crimes by the International Criminal Court—at the hands of pro-independence insurgents.

¶ To fight terrorism by military means . . . is like hitting a fully grown dandelion with a golf club. —John Paul Lederach

¶ In Errol Morris’s Oscar-winning 2003 documentary, The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara, the former US Secretary of Defense—remembered as the chief architect of the war in Vietnam and later combating global poverty as head of the World Bank—is portrayed as “a figure at one moment horrifying and at the next startlingly human,” writes Chris Herlinger in a Religious News Service story.
      “The horror comes as McNamara reflects on his role as a military aide to General Curtis E. LeMay in the firebombing of Japan in World War II. McNamara practically leaps into Morris’s camera and loudly declares: ‘On [a] single night, we burned to death 100,000 Japanese civilians in Tokyo—men, women and children.’
      “The human, even vulnerable, moment comes with the candid acknowledgment that LeMay had later told the young McNamara, ‘If we’d lost the war, we’d all have been prosecuted as war criminals.’ ‘And I think he’s right [McNamara said]. . . . What makes it immoral if you lose, and not immoral if you win?’” —"McNamara’s Conflicts on War, Peace, Morals, Ethics," Christian Century

¶ Drone terror. “‘Drones [which can hover for hours, even days, over a potential target] may kill relatively few, but they terrify many more,’ Malik Jalal, a tribal leader in North Waziristan, told me. They turned the people into psychiatric patients. The F-16s might be less accurate, but they come and go.” The sound made by Predator and Reaper drones can be heard from the ground like a flat buzzing noise. —Steve Coll, “The Unblinking Stare: The drone war in Pakistan, The New Yorker

At left, ©Julie Lonneman, used with permission.

¶ One of the earliest records of a suicide attack is the story of Samson in Hebrew Scripture: “Then Samson said, ‘Let me die with the Philistines.’ He strained with all his might; and the house fell on the lords and all the people who were in it. So those he killed at his death were more than those he had killed during his life” (Judges 16:30).

¶ The Roman senator and historian Tacitus, quoting the words of the Caledonia, Calgacus, describing the Roman imperium:  “Robbery, butchery, rapine, the liars call Empire; they create a desolation and call it peace.”

¶ We forget that Menachem Begin, former Prime Minister of Israel who in 1979 famously signed the Camp David Accord peace treaty with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat (both of whom shared the Nobel Peace Prize for this diplomatic breakthrough), was the commander in 1946 of Irgun, a Jewish paramilitary group (freedom fighters? terrorists?) in Palestine, which bombed the Jerusalem’s King David Hotel in Jerusalem, killing 91 people, and in 1948 massacred over 100 Palestinian Arabs in the village of Deir Yassin.

¶ We forget that the requirement of Jews to wear round, yellow “Jew badges” did not originate with the Nazis. It was the church’s Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 who set this standard.

¶ The contemporary use of the term “terrorism” can be traced to the French Revolution (1789-1799). After its initial honeymoon with humanitarian values—“liberty, equality, fraternity”—political infighting turned into a bloodbath (la Terreur–the Terror): 16,594 executed by guillotine, another 25,000 by other forms of executions.

¶  “In Iraq, when we first started, the question was, ‘Where is the enemy?’ That was the intelligence question. As we got smarter, we started to ask, ‘Who is the enemy?’ And we thought we were pretty clever. And then we realized that wasn't the right question, and we asked, ‘What's the enemy doing or trying to do?’ And it wasn't until we got further along that we said, ‘Why are they the enemy?’” —General Stanley McChrystal (ret.), former head of US forces in Afghanistan, in “Generation Kill,” interviewed by Gideon Rose in Foreign Affairs

¶ Arguably the first terrorist threat came from Lamech, sixth generation descendent of Cain (who committed the first murder recorded in Hebrew Scripture): Lamech said to his wives: "Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say: I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain is avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold" (Genesis 4:23-24). Do you see how violence easily becomes a self-perpetuating cycle?

¶ “No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up!” —Lily Tomlin

¶ “In the Bible, there is really only one story: that of a people struggling to leave empire behind and set out to follow God.” —Wes Howard-Brook and Anthony Gwyther, Unveiling Empire: Reading Revelation Then and Now

¶ Lee Griffith’s The War on Terrorism and the Terror of God (2002) is on my top-ten list of the most important books I’ve read in my lifetime. It’s far and away the best book I know combining historical recollection, social analysis, biblical insights and theological reflection. (Presciently, his finished manuscript was at the publisher on 11 September 2001—so they asked him to add a postscript.)
      Below are a few quotes from the book.

¶ “The actions of a European power in invading and colonizing another nation is not terrorism because it is an action by a state, but any violent objections from colonized people are now grist for study as ‘terrorism.’” —Lee Griffith, The War on Terrorism

¶  “It was not ‘Muslim extremists’ who brought horror to Rwanda; it was Christians killing other Christians. It was not some ‘demonic’ cult group who planted bombs in Northern Ireland; it was Christians trading brutality with other Christians. It was not ‘atheistic communists’ who instituted a reign of terror to enforce apartheid in South Africa; it was Christians kidnapping and torturing and murdering other Christians.” —Lee Griffith, The War on Terrorism

¶ Whatever human natural inhibitors to aggression, “these are totally subverted by the distance modern weaponry places between the attacker and the victim. So, perfectly good natured people who would not dream of spanking a child can drop incendiary bombs which maim and kill dozens of children.” —Lee Griffith, The War on Terrorism
Art at right ©Julie Lonneman, used with permission.

¶ Or Hellfire missiles launched from Predator drones. It’s estimated that 200 children have been collaterally damaged (i.e., killed) by US drone strikes. Does the fact that we don’t see them (unlike video of ISIS’ beheading of 15 people) make this more tolerable?

¶ Benediction: “And above all, take hope in Christ crucified and resurrected. It is the resurrection which is the terror of God to all who believe that death should have the final word. It is the promise of the resurrection which renders null and void the victories of all who shed blood.” —Lee Griffith, The War on Terrorism

Featured in this issue:
    •“Testimony in a Time of Terror,” a litany for worship
    •“Epilogue,” Dreaming God’s Dream: Celebrating the Life and Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

©Ken Sehested, prayerandpolitiks.org. Language not otherwise indicated above is that of the editor.

Special note from the editor: I relinquished my pastoral staff duties with Circle of Mercy Congregation as of this month, to focus on writing and maintenance of this site. In many ways, this is my dream job. Unfortunately, it doesn't come with built-in income. I hope—eventually—to get a modest part-time salary from prayer&politiks readers. I hope—eventually—you will consider this resource worthy of your dollars. Just as much, however, I need visibility for this site. You can provide enormous help by circulating the link, along with your personal recommendation, to friends and acquaintances you think might be interested.

In the immortal words of Guy Clark (Cold Dog Soup):
     There ain't no money in poetry
     That's what keeps the poet free
     I've had all the freedom I can stand.
 

7 January 2015 • No. 5

¶ As of midnight on New Year’s Eve, the US’s longest-ever war, in Afghanistan, officially ended. Only . . . not quite:

      •Nearly 11,000 US troops remain in Afghanistan and are cleared for certain combat missions. A “status of forces” agreement with the Afghan government is good through 2024.
      •2014 was the deadliest year of the war for Afghans. The UN reports 3,200 civilians have been killed, a 20 percent rise from 2013. More than 4,600 Afghan military and police died.
      •The US has spent some $1 trillion in waging this war. (For perspective: A million seconds is 12 days. A billion seconds is not quite 32 years. A trillion seconds is 31,688 years.)
      •Since the war began in 2001, some 3,500 NATO-led soldiers have died, more than 2,300 of them US soldiers; 3,200 US contractors have died. Anti-government fatalities are estimated between 15,000-25,000. Estimates for civilian deaths start at 20,000.
      •Today Afghanistan produces twice as much opium as it did in 2000 (equaling 90 percent of the world’s opium crop).

¶ “[A]fter 2001, the US, in its quest for vengeance against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, partnered with the very warlords whose criminality and human rights abuses had created the conditions that led to the rise of the Taliban in the first place. . . . When they were backed by the CIA and Pakistan’s military, they became involved in heroin trafficking and opium production. So, the reason that opium has flourished in Afghanistan is because we have brought in, supported, tolerated figures who are involved in very grave criminality and in human rights abuses and in torture. And we’ve done this because it’s been deemed militarily expedient.” —Matt Aikins, interview with Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! Aikins is a journalist based in Kabul, Afghanistan, and author of the recent Rolling Stone magazine story, “Afghanistan: The Making of a Narco State.”

¶ “Edward W. Brooke III, who in 1966 became the first African-American elected to the United States Senate by popular vote, winning as a Republican in overwhelmingly Democratic Massachusetts, died on Saturday at his home in Coral Gables, Fla. He was 95.” So read the opening lines of numerous media accounts on 3 January 2015. A member of that endangered species known as “liberal Republication,” he was the first Congressional Republican to call for former President Richard Nixon’s resignation. Further down in the reports was a comment providing context for a say what? phrase in the opening line, “first elected by popular vote”: The only previous black senators, Blanche K. Bruce and Hiram R. Revels, both Republicans, were elected not by voters but by the Mississippi Legislature in the 1870s.

¶ Most are unaware that, until 1913, US Senators were elected by state legislatures. Or that religious affiliation as a prerequisite for voting wasn’t eliminated until 1810. The original US Constitution restricted voting rights to property-owning white males. Property ownership and tax requirements were not completely eliminated until 1850. In 1870 the 15th Amendment gave formal voting rights to all adult males, but it would be another century before African-Americans were effectively enfranchised.

¶ It wasn’t until 1920 that the 19th Amendment granted suffrage to women; and in 1924 both citizenship and voting rights to Native Americans. Four presidents—John Quincy Adams (1824), Rutherford B. Hayes (1876), Benjamin Harrison (1888) and George W. Bush (2000)—won the popular vote but lost the election. In 1787 less than 1.3 percent of the US population voted in the first presidential election. Barely half do now.
      The US is the only developed democracy in the world where less than half its eligible voters cast ballots when every candidate for one house of its legislature is on the ballot (what we call “midterm elections”). In 2013 only 16 percent of registered voters cast ballots in Los Angeles’ mayoral election.

¶ All of which raises the question: When did the US become a democracy? Or even: Given the unprecedented concentration of wealth in an ever-narrowing segment of the population, do we have one now?

¶ In 1776, John Adams, signer of the Declaration of Independence and later President, wrote: “Depend upon it, Sir, it is dangerous to . . . alter the qualifications of voters; there will be no end to it. New claims will arise; women will demand the vote; . . . and every man who has not a farthing, will demand an equal voice with any other. It tends to confound and destroy all distinctions.”

¶ Trauma healing. John Cummings spent 16 years turning an old plantation in Louisiana into a slavery memorial. On 7 December 2014, the Whitney Plantation, located between New Orleans and Baton Rouge on the west bank of the Mississippi River, opened its doors to the public for the first time in its 262 year history, as the only plantation museum in Louisiana with a focus on slavery. He hired the Senagalese scholar Dr. Ibrahima Seck to trace the lives of slaves at the plantation, and he's commissioned statues and artifacts to make visitors feel the presence of those ghosts, especially the ghosts of the children held captive there. Read more.

¶ Bittersweet news. George Stinney, a 14-year-old African American in Alcolu, SC, was the youngest person to be executed in the US, allegedly for killing two white girls. In 1944 it took an all-white jury 10 minutes to deliberate his case following a three-hour trial in which no witnesses were called in his defense. Stinney was so small he had to sit on a telephone book in the electric chair. The Civil Rights Restorative Justice Project (CRRJ), directed by Northeastern University law professor Margaret Burnham, in cooperation with pro bono lawyers and a SC judge, reopened the case, and on Wednesday 14 December, SC Circuit Judge Carmen Mullins exonated Stinney. CRRJ is working to document every racially motivated killing in the American South between 1930 and 1970. So far, they've documented 350 cases.

¶ Surely one of the most significant theological breakthroughs in the late 20th century is the recovery of the created order—symbolized by “land”—in the vision of God’s redeeming work. In Scripture scholar Ellen F. Davis’ words, “The memory of being landless is central to the biblical story. . . . The voices we hear in the Old Testament bespeak throughout an agrarian mindfulness that land . . . is inseparable from self ‘before God.’. . . In his indispensable study of Israel’s land theology, Christopher Wright [God’s People in God’s Land: Family, Land, and Property in the Old Testament] suggests that the covenant is properly conceived as a triangulated relationship among Israel, the land, and YHWH, ‘all three having the family as the basic focal point at which the conjunction of the three realms issued in ethical responsibilities and imperatives.’” —Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible

¶ Featured this week: 3 litanies for use in worship to commemorate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Search the "litanies and prayers" section of this site for the following:
     •Litany for Martin Luther King Jr. Day
    •People of the Dream
    •We, too, have a dream

¶ In the November 2013 issue of The Atlantic, James Fallows reports on the conclusion of a panel of 12 scientists, entrepreneurs, engineers, historians of technology, and others to assess the innovations that have done the most to shape the nature of modern life. Most of the top 50 breakthroughs were not made by heroic individuals but were “achievements of groups of people who built on one another’s efforts, sometimes over spans of many years.” While “popular culture often lionizes the stars of discovery and innovation” (think Steve Jobs today and the Wright brothers of yesteryear), most breakthroughs can be traced to how such individuals “persuade large groups to work toward a common end.” —“The 50 Greatest Breakthroughs Since the Wheel”

¶ “An independent political fact-checking organization recently lambasted media hype about the Ebola virus in the United States. PolitiFact.com, a Pulitzer Prize-winning nonpartisan site, named Ebola exaggerations by media outlets and politicians the ‘Lie of the Year.' Noting that many more people died in the U.S. this year from the flu than Ebola, PolitiFact mentioned several inaccurate claims made about Ebola and its spread.” —Brian Kaylor, EthicsDaily.com

¶ Here’s a lovely, simple song of benediction our congregation is learning this Sunday: “Go in Peace” by Sam Baker. (Readers in the southern hemisphere, disregard the snowy photos.)

¶ And in anticipation of Black History Month—celebrated in February in the US and in Canada, October in the United Kingdom—live under the authority of the following charge by Harriet Tubman.

©Ken Sehested, prayerandpolitiks.org. Language not otherwise indicated above is that of the editor.

¶ “Been a hard Advent for me spiritually, between the police misconduct & deaths, the massacre in Peshawar, and the details about our torturing people. I think we should require that every nativity scene should have a Herod in it, don’t you?” North Carolina pastor Michael Usey wrote this to Dr. Bill Leonard, church history professor at Wake Forest Divinity School, who expanded the commentary: “Inserting [Herod] into every nativity scene might restrain our sentimentalized, ‘the little Lord Jesus no crying he makes’ rendering of the Christmas story, and compel an annual reflection on the ‘slaughter of the innocents,’ then and now, in ancient Scripture and on contemporary social networks. Indeed, the Times’ ‘Year in Pictures’ for Dec. 28 included a photo of sobbing Pakistani women ‘refusing consolation’ at the coffin of Mohammed Ali Khan, a 15-year-old Peshawar victim. —“Epiphanic moments,” Baptist News Global Today

Pictured at right: Feast of the Holy Innocents. The Massacre of the Innocents by Lucas Cranach the Elder (c. 1515), National Museum in Warsaw.

¶ In case there’s still a question. The gulf between rich and poor people in America has hit a new record. An analysis released 18 December by Pew Research Center finds that the wealth gap between the top 21 percent of families and everyone else is the widest since the Federal Reserve began collecting such income data 30 years ago. Last year, the median wealth of upper-income families ($639,400) was almost seven times that of middle-income families and nearly 70 times that of lower-income families.
     The findings follow another Pew analysis published last week which finds that U.S. wealth inequalities along racial lines have dramatically worsened since the Great Recession, with the gap between white and black people at its highest in 25 years. According to that study, which also looks at Federal Reserve data, in 2013 white household wealth was 13 times that of black households and 10 times that of Hispanic households. —Wealth Gap Between Rich and Poor Americans Highest on Record, Sarah Lazare, Common Dreams

¶ 2014 has been a gob-smack to a nation thinking substantial progress was being made on racial and gender justice—mostly, I suspect, because we still don’t understand the difference between personal bigotry and structural injustice. Civil discourse is rarely punctuated by use of the “N” word for African Americans or the “B” word for women. Yet sexual assaults against women have crowded news headlines, and we’ve learned that some 400,000 “rape kits”—collections of DNA evidence from victims—are waiting, sometimes for many years, to be processed. In my home county, the Humane Society (God bless them) operates on an annual budget of $1.8 million. The women’s shelter, providing refuge for victims of domestic abuse (and their children), has a budget less than half that amount. On black-white structural disparity, see the statistics above.

¶ Not so fast. When the US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) formally lowered its flag in Afghanistan on 28 December, US President Barack Obama issued a statement declaring “a milestone for our country,” adding “the longest war in American history is coming to a responsible conclusion.” Back in the spring, Obama announced in his West Point commencement speech that “You are the first class to graduate since 9/11 who may not be sent into combat in Iraq or Afghanistan.” But more than 10,000 US troops will remain in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future. US troop levels in Iraq are being doubled; and air strikes have been taking place against ISIS forces in northern Iraq and Syria.

¶ Syria has become the fourteenth country in the Islamic world that US forces have invaded or occupied or bombed since 1980 (not counting a predominantly Muslim region of the Philippines): Iran (1980, 1987-1988), Libya (1981, 1986, 1989, 2011), Lebanon (1983), Kuwait (1991), Iraq (1991-2011, 2014-), Somalia (1992-1993, 2007-), Bosnia (1995), Saudi Arabia (1991, 1996), Afghanistan (1998, 2001-), Sudan (1998), Kosovo (1999), Yemen (2000, 2002-), Pakistan (2004-) and now Syria. —Andrew J. Bacevich, retired US Army colonel, “Even if we defeat the Islamic State, we’ll still lose the bigger war,” The Washington Post

¶ “I have wanted to give Iraq a lesson in democracy — because we’re experienced with it, you know. And, in democracy, after a hundred years, you have to let your slaves go. And, after a hundred and fifty years, you have to let your women vote. And, at the beginning of democracy, a bit of genocide and ethnic cleansing is quite okay. And that’s what’s going on now. “ —Novelist Kurt Vonnegut, The Daily Show interview by Jon Stewart

¶ “I think we’re looking at kind of a 30-year war.” —President Obama’s former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, in an October 2014 USAToday interview shortly before the release of his new book, Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace

¶ “The American people and the governing class have accepted that war has become a permanent condition.”  —Andrew J. Bacevich, retired US Army colonel, who’s own son was killed in Iraq in 2007, The Washington Post

¶ “Good grief!” Why nations do the thing they do, writ small. Prophecy from “Peanuts” cartoon characters: Charlie Brown comes in to find his sister Sally carrying her clothes into his room. “What’s going on here?” he asks.
      “Big Brother!” she responds. I thought you went to camp.”
      “I only went over to the mall. I’m gone for thirty minutes, and you start moving your stuff into my room?!”
     “That’s my new philosophy,” Sally says. ‘If you see a room you like, move into it.’”

¶ Bitter news. A mom shopping at a Walmart store in Idaho was killed when her toddler, sitting in the shopping cart, reached into her mom’s purse and accidentally pulled the trigger of a handgun.
      This story is especially vivid for personal reasons. When I was four, visiting my sharecropper grandparents’ farm, I curiously wandered into a bedroom, then into a closet, spied a rifle in the corner, cocked the hammer and pulled the trigger. The bullet ricocheted off the ceiling and grazed the leg of my Aunt Wilma who was napping on the bed.

¶ Better news. “In December Governor Cuomo banned fracking in New York state, citing hazards to health, drinking water, and climate stability.” —see Yes! Magazine’s “10 Ways Human Rights and Democracy Won in 2014” for more hopeful news

¶ There’s a pattern here. “The world needs to know the plight of the little people who are walked upon like grass.” —James Foley, freelance journalist, to his pastor, Rev. Paul Gousse, prior to returning to the Middle East in 2012.  Kidnapped in northern Syria in November 2012, ISIS released a video of his beheading on 19 August 2014

• “Isn’t there anything you understand? It’s from the ash heap God is seen. Always! Always from the ashes.” —Archibald MacLeish in Job

• “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

• "I want to stay as close to the edge as I can. . . . Out on the edge, you can see all kinds of things you can't see from the center." —Ed Finnerty, character in Kurt Vonnegut’s novel, Piano Player

¶ Language abuse. “WORLD PEACE IS GOOD.” [text projected over photo of earth from space; then, below, comes the next line] “Finding a stock at 5 that goes to 200 is better.” —ad for stock brokerage firm

¶ Ethicist Willis Jenkins “believes we stand little chance of significantly addressing a problem like climate change by simply being the moral voice or trying to change someone’s worldview. He writes in The Future of Ethics that we need instead a ‘view of culture in which morality is learned in bodies, carried by practices, and formed into repertories that teach agents how to see and solve problems.’ There is more hope, then, in our liturgies, our songs and our works of charity than in any finger-wagging or attempts at the moral conversion of oil company executives.” —Ragan Sutterfield, “Prayers with feet: Faith and hope at the People’s Climate March,” Christian Century

¶  “I heard Gus Speth, the dean of forestry at Yale, say to a group of religious leaders, ‘I used to think the top environmental problems facing the world were global warming, environmental degradation and eco-system collapse, and that we scientists could fix those problems with enough science,’ Wilson recalls. ‘But I was wrong. The real problem is not those three items, but greed, selfishness and apathy. And for that we need a spiritual and cultural transformation. And we scientists don’t know how to do that. We need your help.’” —Rev. Ken Wilson, Vineyard Church, Ann Arbor, MI

¶ Speaking of transformation. The older he got, and the deeper his analysis became on the structural roots of “the giant triplets of racism, militarism and materialism,” the more frequently Martin Luther King Jr. returned to confessional language about the need to “be born again.”

¶ Benediction. Watch this brief “Prayer for the New Year” video using Ken Sehested’s poem, “Benedicere”: http://livingthequestionsonline.com/tag/ken-sehested/ (Search the “other poems” section of this site for the full version of the poem.)

©Ken Sehested, prayerandpolitiks.org. Language not otherwise identified above is that of the editor.

¶ 17th century colonial Christmas culture war. “The Puritans of New England frowned upon the celebration of Christmas and outlawed it for more than half a century. They believed it was necessary, as Christians pursuing pious living, to separate themselves from the sinful behavior associated with the way the holiday was celebrated in jolly old England. And since few of these Christian American forefathers had anything good to say about materialism or commercialism, it is likely they would have similar feelings about the way we celebrate Christmas today.” —John Fea, “Was There a Golden Age of Christmas in America,” Pacific Standard, December 2013

¶ Christological kleptomaniacs. Turns out, America is experiencing a rash of burglaries from nativity scenes, according to Religion Dispatches. “Thieves steel their nerves on the periphery of parks, churchyards, manicured lawns and other public places where the Holy Family resides. And then, sometime between dark and dawn, they rush in and steal the Baby Jesus. But that’s not all. Some Christological kleptomaniacs even burgle the Babe from store shelves. For example, shoppers who want to buy a manger at Scheels Home & Hardware in Fargo, N.D., will discover a sign that tells them: ‘Please ask for Baby Jesus.’ Redeemer robbers didn’t start heisting the Holy One this Christmas season. Awhile back, I reported on the BrickHouse security firm, which created the ‘Saving Jesus’ program. BrickHouse will provide crèche owners a free GPS device they can hide on or imbed in the Jesus figure. An owner of a stolen Savior receives a text or an email, reporting the nativity nabbing. Then the system enables the owner or police to track the robbers and retrieve the Christ Child.” —Marv Knox, “Will the Christ be stolen from you this Christmas?” The Baptist Standard, December 19, 2014

¶ Francis’ Christmas takedown. Instead of cozy sentiments amid bubbly cheer, Pope Francis “turned the heartwarming exchange of Christmas greetings into a public dressing down of the Curia, the central administration of the Holy See which governs the 1.2-billion strong Catholic Church.” One by one he enumerated 15 “ailments of the Curia,” saying too many cardinals, bishops and priests are living “hypocritical” lives devoted to advancing their own careers over service to God. And he called on the more ancient Advent tradition of calling to repentance. “This speech is without historic precedent,” judged church historian Alberto Melloni. Of course, Francis has a history of broaching the bounds of papal etiquette. No prelate before has performed the annual Holy Thursday ritual of washing feet other than those of priests—Vatican ecclesial rules stipulate that only “adult males” are to have their feet washed at the Mass of the Last Supper. Last year he washed the feet of two women and two Muslims at a juvenile detention center. This year it was the feet of frail and disabled persons of various religious professions. —Associated Press

 ¶ “Cuba seems to have the same effect on U.S. administrations as the full moon once had on werewolves,” said Dr. Wayne Smith, former director of the US Interest Section in Havana, Cuba, currently senior fellow at the Center for International Policy’s Cuba program.

¶ Thirty-five interesting facts about Cuba and its US relations. To commemorate US President Barack Obama’s stunning announcement on 17 December 2014 of executive action reestablishing formal diplomatic relations with Cuba, here are a few facts that might surprise. See Ken Sehested’s “Thirty-five interesting facts about Cuba and its US relations” in the “articles and sermons” section of this site. Also see guest commentator Stan Hastey’s “Reflections on Changes in U.S.-Cuba Relations (Part 1)” in the “blog” section.

¶ “Public” gains ground. “Despite plummeting gas prices, public transportation ridership in the U.S. hit a record high. According to a new report by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), 2.7 billion trips were taken on public transit systems in the third quarter of 2014. That marks a 1.8 percent increase from the same period last year, and makes it the third quarter with the highest ridership since 1974. It continues a trend, as 12 of the last 15 quarters have shown increased public transportation use.  The industry group also reported earlier this year that transit ridership in 2013 was the highest it had been in 57 years.”  —Andrea Germanos, “Take That, Car Culture: Public Transportation Ridership Up,” CommonDreams

¶ Language abuse. “Fewer ‘nasty’ cases fuel Kumbaya spirit” was the subtitle of an article noting that a record number of Supreme Court cases have been decided unanimously in the 2013-2014 terms. Since when did the cry of the anguished—Come by here, my Lord—become a synonym for passive behavior?

¶ Best news you didn’t hear about. For years a small, dedicated group of advocates for low-income housing have been trying to pressure the Federal Housing Finance Agency to end its embargo of contributions to the Housing Trust Fund (HTF) begun in November 2008. The HTF is a federal fund designed to support states in building and preserving affordable housing for very low-income families. US Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), coauthor of the bill that created the trust fund, said, “In the richest country in the world, it is unconscionable that there are 7.1 million households for whom safe and decent housing is neither affordable nor available.” Perseverance matters: Getting the HTF established took eight years, then another six to get it funded. (Thanks, Marty.)

¶ Less good news. “The world is not any safer now. Job security looks good.” —Marine officer interviewed on NPR the day (27 October 2014) remaining US and British troops left the Helmand province, the largest theatre of operation in the 13 year occupation of Afghanistan

¶ More like a fantasy. A recent USAToday analysis of income in the country shows that a family of four needs an annual income of $130,357 to enjoy “the American Dream.” Meanwhile, the median family income is about $51,000. Only one in eight households are currently living the Dream.

¶ Hard pill to swallow. US Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsay Graham (R-SC) are considered among the weightiest of critics of the Obama Administration. But both jumped the Republican script and concurred with the Senate Intelligence Committee’s release of a searing report condemning the Central Intelligence Agency’s use of torture against suspected terrorists. “Our enemies act without conscience,” McCain said in a Senate floor speech. “We must not. The truth is sometimes a hard pill to swallow.” McCain himself was tortured by his Vietnamese captors during the War in Vietnam. “I believe we can and must fight this war within our values,” said Graham, a member of the Armed Services Committee. “I supported the investigation of the CIA as the problems of interrogation policies were obvious to me.”

¶ More language abuse. When the Central Intelligence Agency’s original building was erected in 1959, a verse from John’s Gospel (8:32) was inscribed on a wall in its lobby: And ye shall know the truth and the truth will make you free.

¶ Missing from our caroling. The original third stanza of Edmund H. Sears’ popular Christmas song (written in the years leading up to the US Civil War) is missing from most of our hymnals. It reads: “But with the woes of sin and strife / The world has suffered long; / Beneath the angel-strain have rolled / Two thousand years of wrong; / And man, at war with man, hears not / The love-song, which they bring: / O hush the noise, ye men of strife, / And hear the angels sing!”

¶ Opening monologue, in the HBO miniseries “The Pacific,” by a Marine commander to a group of non-commissioned officers shortly before Christmas 1941: “Those of you who are lucky enough to get home for Christmas, hold your loved ones dearly. Join them in prayers for peace on earth and good will toward all men. And then report back here ready to sail across God’s vast ocean, where we will meet our enemy and kill them all. Merry Christmas.”

¶ Be not afraid. To counter the grisly news from the year’s headlines, and to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the “Christmas Truce of 1914” during World War I, watch the seventeen and a half minute speech by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai at the United Nations: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-23291897. Then, at one of your holiday feasts, read aloud as a table blessing the “Work of Christmas” mandate from Howard Thurman (left).

¶ A “New Year Resolution Litany” is in the “litanies and prayers” section of this site.

¶ Reader comments are encouraged! However, this site’s software is linked to Facebook’s authentication process—it helps keep away trollers. If you’re not on Facebook, you can register without putting up any content . . . and then post your thoughts here.

¶ Benediction.

©Ken Sehested, prayerandpolitiks.org. Language not otherwise identified above is that of the author.

Featured elsewhere in prayer&politiks:
•"Thirty-five interesting facts about Cuba and its US relations," by Ken Sehested, in the "articles and sermons" section
•"Reflections on Changes in US-Cuba Relations," by guest columnist and veteran Cuba traveler Stan Hastey, in the "blog" section

8 December 2014, No. 2

¶ Correspondence. It’s gratifying to get words of encouragement from prayer&politiks readers. And also instructive. One friend  (thanks, Dave) wrote to say love your stuff, but added will you include some positive notes in “signs of the times”? It’s among the most common of human tendencies, to highlight the hard news and skirt the hopeful. Our letters to editors tend to be complaints more than compliments. We all tend to begrudge red lights more than we appreciate the green. Providentially, the same day I got the one note, another friend (thanks, Marty) sent a story of note (below).

¶ Indigenous groups in Guatemala won a rare victory against corporate encroachment when the country’s legislature voted 4 September 2014 to repeal the “Monsanto Law” which would “have given the transnational chemical and seed producer intellectual property rights to crop seeds. . . . The law put in place stiff penalties for any farmer that was caught selling seed to another farmer without the proper permits.” You can find the full story at http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/guatemala-indigenous-communities-prevail-monsanto/ 

¶ There was a different age. After Dr. Jonas Salk developed the polio vaccine in 1955, he was asked by reporter Edward R. Murrow: "Who owns the patent on this vaccine?" Responded Salk, "Well, the people, I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?" —Paul Buchheit, “The Carnage of Capitalism”

¶ Another reader exchange was equally illuminating. In response to a note of thanks for “Chaos or community: Which way? Advent commentary on grand jury findings” (see the “blog” section of this site), I concluded a response with “There is agony in the air, and we must listen for the sounds of angel wings.” He wrote back immediately: “Nor, alas, dare we ignore the flailing of devils’ tails.” No truer word. (Thanks, Ed.)

¶ Church-lawn Christmas manger scenes routinely censor the presence of Herod’s assassins. To my knowledge, the only Christmas carol reference to the “slaughter of the innocents” story in Matthew 2 is the “Coventry Carol,” performed in Coventry, England, author unknown, dating from the 16th century, which concludes:
            Herod, the king, in his raging, / Charged he hath this day / His men of might, in his owne sight, / All young children to slay. / That woe is me, poor Child for Thee! / And ever mourn and sigh, / For thy parting neither say nor sing, / Bye, bye, lully, lullay.
            The song was featured in a Christmas 1940 BBC broadcast from the bombed-out ruins of the city’s Cathedral, which was later rebuilt and dedicated to the ministry of reconciliation. (See the fascinating story of this ministry at: http://www.coventrycathedral.org.uk/about-us/our-reconciliation-ministry.php)

[New lyrics  lyrics to “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”]

¶ AWEsome. To mark the first anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s passing, Yes! magazine posted a grocery-store flash mob video honoring the occasion in music. This is three minutes of ecstasy: http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/video-remembering-nelson-mandela-and-his-reconciliation-process

¶ “This is not Sunday school. This is interrogation. This is rough stuff.” So said former US Senator Trent Lott in a 2004 news conference responding to reporters question about abuse depicted in photos from the Abu Graib prison in Iraq. Any day now the long-awaited 500-page “executive summary” of the Senate’s 6,000-page report on torture practiced by the Central Intelligence Agency is scheduled for release. Critics of the anticipated release, like Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Michigan), chair of the House Intelligence Committee, say releasing the report on violence and deaths “will cause violence and deaths.” Senator Mark Udall (D-Colorado), on the other hand, said in an Esquire magazine interview, “People will abhor what they read. They’re gonna be disgusted. They’re gonna be appalled. They’re gonna be shocked at what we did.”

¶ White privilege. This week one of our best syndicated columnists, Leonard Pitts, wrote a piece with the most succinct accounting of white privilege I’ve ever seen, contrasting two viral videos.
         First, “play the video of Joseph Houseman, a 63-year-old white man who, back in May, stood with a rifle on a street in Kalamazoo, Michigan. When police arrived, he refused to identify himself, grabbed his crotch, flipped them the bird and cursed. They talked him down in an encounter that lasted 40 minutes. Houseman was not arrested. The next day, he got his gun back.”
         Then “play the video of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old black boy who, last month, was playing with a realistic-looking toy gun in a Cleveland park. When police arrived, an officer jumped out of the car and shot him at point-blank range. There was no talking him down. Indeed, the entire encounter, from arrival to mortal wounds, took about two seconds.”

¶ Youth ministers. Starting preparing for Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday anniversary. There are many videos of his 18-minute “I Have a Dream” speech on the web. But then tack past the “dreamy” piety that has tamed King’s vision. One idea: The A.J. Muste Memorial Institute <ajmuste.org/litlist.htm> has attractively published pamphlets containing three of Dr. King’s most famous sermons: “Loving Your Enemies,” “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” and “Declaration of Independence from the War in Vietnam.” Order enough for each of your youth. Maybe partner with a youth group from another congregation whose racial makeup is different from yours. Plan a discussion of these sermons sometime around the holiday.

[Worship planners: Search for “Martin Luther King” in the litanies section of this site for several items appropriate for a service commemorating Dr. King.]

¶ The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s 2014 annual report documented what’s been true for decades: On average, US citizens give about 3 percent of their income to charitable organizations. And the trend of lowering rates among the wealthy accelerated: Between 2006-2012, those earning $200,000 or more annually reduced their charitable gifts by 4.6 percent. Those earning less than $100,000 increased their giving by 4.5 percent, despite the fact that they earn less in 2012 than they did six years earlier. The poorest—those who took home $25,000 or less—increased their giving by nearly 17 percent.
            In the Washington Post, Philip Bump wrote: “One would expect that, as the effects of the recession increased, charitable giving would likely drop. As The Chronicle pointed out, though, that's not what happened. . . . States that saw lower poverty increases versus the national average were more likely to see declines. States that saw high poverty increases versus the national average—that is, more poor people—were more likely to see increases.”

¶ Language abuse. “There’s something soothing, spiritual” about our home, speaking of their 7,000 square foot home (whose living room décor is changed with the season) on a 60-acre site, a horse barn of similar size, and an outdoor pool with its own recreation room pool house. —homeowners featured in the “Home of the Week” section of the Asheville Citizen-Times newspaper

¶ Is there a teacher in the house? Kentucky Republican state Senator Brandon Smith, who happens to own a coal mine, offered the following comment during the lawmakers’ discussion of new federal carbon emissions regulations: “I’ll simply point out that I think in academia we all agree that the temperature of Mars is exactly as it is here. Nobody will dispute that. Yet there are no coal mines on Mars.” Turns out, the average Martian temperature is minus-81°. (That’s just short of -63° for Celsius readers.)

¶ OMG. “Christian Jewelry: Ancient Symbols Of Faith Are Hot New Styles: The true heart of Christianity lives within us all. With Christian jewelry we are able to elegantly express the faith of our hearts. The ancient symbols and crosses of Christianity are the perfect way for us all to show our faith in an elegant and personal fashion. Perhaps this is why the ancient symbols of faith are the hottest new styles.” —web surf

¶ “Isn't it just a little nuts that ‘Baptist Pastor wants to emphasize God's Love of All People’ gets a headline?” —Rev. Stan Wilson, pastor, Northside Baptist Church, Clinton, Mississippi, whose public support of the Human Rights Campaign’s work on behalf of the lgbt community in Mississippi was widely publicized in newspapers and other media sources. Reported by LeDayne McLeese Polaski, Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America.

¶ Incarnation. “Holy persons draw to themselves all that is earthly.” —Hildegard of Bingen

¶ In these darkening days, it’s good to recall Emily Dickinson: “Valor in the dark is my Maker’s code.”

¶ Benediction

©Ken Sehested, prayerandpolitiks.org. Language not otherwise identified above is that of the editor.