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Easter resurrection is never as assured
as the arrival of Easter bunnies.

Clothiers and chocolate-makers alike yearn
for the season no less than every cleric.

And yet, in my experience, the Spirit
rarely blows according to the calendar,
much less on demand.

We live with ears open, eyes peeled,
hands and feet nimble, ready for
jolting news and a dash to one tomb
or another.

And this, apparently, is the purpose
of wakeful attention during the transition
     from Good Friday’s darkness
           to Sunday sunrise:
training in the art of vigilance,
as maidens with well-trimmed wicks.*

One empty tomb poses no threat
to present entanglements,
     any more than annual and
           specially-adorned sanctuary
crowds encroach on Easter morn.

It’s Easter’s aftermath
     resurrectus contagio,
           contagious resurrection
that threatens entombing empires
with breached sovereignty.

The Lamb Slain sings
of tribulation annulled,
     of death undone,
           of heaven reraveling the
sinews of soil and soul.

Humus and human alike,
“the earth and all that dwell therein,”
     inherit the promise intoned
           on that first dawn.
Breath on truculent waves:
                              be still, be still.
Wind on Emmaen travelers:**
                              Fear not, fear not.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Holy Week 2002.
*cf. Matt 25:1-13. **cf. Luke 24:13-35

No, I do not feign from
speaking of Jesus as Lord.
For who else can mobilize
hearts and hands in opposition
to the lords of enmity,
their names being legion?

The conflict is ensued. No
turning back, nor sidelines
for spectators whose loyalties,
despite denials, are already
secured and cheaply so.

Speaking thusly implies no
resistance to others’ honor of
another Name. I trust Heaven’s Intent
more than the words of my lips
or the beat of my heart. G-d is
at work in Ways I do not
(and may never) comprehend.

The Day of Deliverance is not up
to me, my or mine. The copyright
securing authorship of the
new heaven, new earth, is
not for we, us or our adjudication.
We testify only to what we have
seen and heard:

•That life’s abundance was meant to be shared.

•That a revolt of menacing, miserly forces now
           dominates Creation’s realms.

•But also that those deadly days are numbered.

As for me, I see Heaven’s Intent
sketched in the Galilean’s scars.
Those scars announce the coming collapse
of any and every kind of lording. They
invite my avowal of the Way of the Cross.
Those scars signal the coming closure
of every wound, the drying of every tear,
the Advent of a Promise outlasting every lie.

Whisper to me another Name
similarly configured and
I shall bow, giving thanks. And
we shall eat and ache
and sing and march together.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Written while volunteering as an overnight host for a homeless women’s shelter.

If we fill our lives with things, and again with things,

If we consider ourselves so important that we must fill every moment with movement and plans and calculations

When will we have the time to greet Messengers under oak trees, as did Abram? Or overhear improbable news, like Sarah?

When will we have time to take the long, slow journey across the burning desert as did the magi in search of the heaven’s own Embodied Rule?

Or sit and watch the stars as did the shepherds; or brood over the coming of the Child as did Mary?

For each of us there is improbable news to hear; for each, births to brave; for each, deserts to travel and stars to pursue in dark silence.

Extravagance characterizes all caught up in the Promise of the coming New Heaven and New Earth. When you work, do it as if you don’t need the money; love like you’ve never been hurt; dance like no one’s watching.

Yet don’t forget, as well, to give yourself to extravagant slowness: the best food, the best fun and the best faith are never fast-paced affairs. Let the slow times roll!

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. With lines dapting a poem (author unknown) and by quotes from professional baseball player and philosopher Satchel Page.

Oh, Blessed One, Beloved Abba, whose womb
squeezed forth all that is, humus and human alike,
animate and inanimate together,
sun and moon and galaxies without end.

Oh, Sweet Deliverer, fruit of Mary’s annunciation,
troubler of worlds and troubadour of heaven’s fidelity,
whose call to the table gathers the lame and binds
every shame with the promise of feast for the lost,
for the least, for the last, and all willing
to sing the angels’ insurrectionary song.

Oh, Wisdom of Days, breath of life in lungs of clay,
pregnant promise to Sarai and Abram, flaming
visage to Moses, whisperer to prophets and
confounder of priests. Answer to Hannah’s lament
and Elizabeth’s regret, tongue of fire on the
seer’s lips and Pentecost morning’s dazzling display.
Light from darkling sky that surrounds and
protects our way, even in death, sowing
Redemption’s harvest with each martyr’s blood.

Blessed be Your Name, that christening which
cannot be spoken or tamed but only proclaimed
in the risk of deliverance from the river of vengeance.

We gather at this portal of praise to lift our hands in
adoration: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you,
for the aroma of baking bread, the jubilance of wine,
the kindliness of friend and stranger and lover alike;
for the sufficiency of grace and the warrant
of ransom ’mid the wreckage of wrath.

Yet we find ourselves, too, collapsed in the dust of
distress: Help me. Help me. Help me,
for the flesh we inhabit is shaken and shattered
by fearful threat and the agonized cries of
soil and soul who serve as fodder for the cannons
of discontent with your economy of manna.

As Isaiah foresaw: “The envoys of peace weep
bitterly; the land mourns.”* So now arise, as you
promised by the Prophet’s scorched tongue,
and guide us to the safety and salvation for which
we long, earth and earthling in concert.

Make us rapturous lovers in this rupturing season.
Deepen the capacity for reverence, sufficient to
sustain the risk of Jordan’s baptismal oath.
Oh, Shepherd of fearless night, awaken in us the
assurance that one day, in the crumbling of empire,
mercy will trump vengeance—that one day, the
Manger’s reach will exceed Herod’s grasp and
every child shall rest fretless at your breast.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org
*cf. Isaiah 33

This is one of those
old-fashioned, free-range,
leap-of-faith callings.
Just when you thought
our climate-controlled,
pension-secured culture
had squeezed all the
chutzpah out of the
believing community –
no more burning bushes,
flaming tongues-of-fire,
scary angelic appearances,
even still-small voices—
the Spirit erupts again.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Blessing for friends prior to their year working with churches in Cuba.

Sisters and Brothers,
bend an ear
to the singing of angels.

Not that of seasonal
carolers who pause
at lace-curtained windows:
offering familiar and favorite
tunes in delicious harmony
and frosted breath;
providing splendid distraction
from the agonized arias of the innocent.

But for angels, who,
in the midst of
Caesar’s endless census,
erupt from darkest eclipse
with unnerving news,
startling keepers of every flock,
unsettling every sanction
with the overture
of swaddling-wrapped revolt:
Behold the light
for those who dwell
in the shadow of death!

Those for whom
this “world” is “home”
will take offense
at the herald announcing
this manger marquee.
As with the shepherds,
they will “wonder” at your tale.

But fear not, for
these are glad tidings.
Blend your voices
with the heavenly chorus,
singing glory, and peace,
to God, and for the earth.

Sisters and Brothers,
Rejoice! For
unto us a child. . . .

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Advent 1995.

The dawn creeps forward,
hesitantly, modestly,
as a shy lover to the beloved,
hidden sun
lobbing warmth and light
over the horizon
through layers of mist
in noiseless drifts,
proceeding effortlessly as
from sleep to wakefulness.

Here in the most ancient of hills
of Southern Appalachia
languid snow falls with measured pace,
neither rushed nor ambitious.
Unlike the televised revelers
from Sydney to San Francisco
during last eve’s revolving
midnight watch,
the turn of time feels
especially fraught with
meaning, moment or emotion.
“Zero” to “one”—the language
of machines, not flesh.
Bands play, parades prance,
but who would know it
short of electronic signals received
from distant satellites
brought to life, byte by byte,
via modernity’s pervasive purveyor
of desire
(in “real” time, no less)?
Amazing. Simply amazing.

What time is it, really?

The calendar turns again,
only this time in multiple ways:
day, month, year, century,
millennium.
Zero-one, zero-one, zero-one:
a once-in-a-millennium event.
Ten cycles of ten-by-tens of years
have transpired since ol’ Gregory
posited his new time-keeping calculus
(with Christian bias built on
Roman presumptions—by itself
a parable disclosing the dilemma
of culture-captive believers
of every sort).
Those of more ancient bias
are unimpressed.
For Jews, the year is 5761.
In the far reaches of the Orient
the Chinese mark year 4699
though even the religiously-hostile
People’s Republic function
under the Pope’s chronology.
At least with this year’s claim to
millennium fame (the “Christian”
timetable skipped from 1 B.C.
to 1 A.D. in a single bound)
the Y2K apocalypticists,
along with their religious counterparts,
have been silenced.
Amazing. Simply amazing.

What time is it, really?

By lunar or solar computation?
Do we reckon according to
Babylonian or Balinese or
Bahai regimen?
The Hindu or the Islamic Hirji
or the Himba people of Namibia,
who simply mark the new year
by the coming of rain (the two words
being the same in their language)?
Some forty time-telling calendars
are still in use, and not even Christians
can agree on their own,
with Gregory’s calculation splitting
East from West.
Amazing. Simply amazing.

So, what time is it, really?

A rabbi once asked his pupils
how they could tell when the
night had ended and
the day had begun.
“Could it be,” asked one
of the students, “when you
can see an animal in the distance
and tell whether it is a sheep or a dog?”
“No,” answered the rabbi.
Another responded, “Is it when
you can look at a tree in the distance
and tell whether it is a
fig tree or a peach tree?”
“No,” answered the rabbi.
“Then when is it?” the pupils demanded.
“It is when you can look on the face
of any man or woman and see
that it is your brother or sister.
Because if you cannot see this,
it is still night.”

The time is now.
The day has come.
The light still shines.
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. New year’s meditation, 1999.

Joseph
Obscured brother
consigned to the margins
of Incarnation narrative.
Carpentry-calloused hands
now shield the shame
of sagging face, drooping, disgraced.
Chiseled lines prematurely sculpting
age in youthful countenance.
Thoughts of Mary smudge the heart
as tears smear the face.
Mary. Beloved. Betrothed. Betrayed?
Mary. With child. Whose? How, and why?
Joseph, companion in confusion
over God’s intention.
No multi-colored coat for you as for
your scoundrel namesake of old.
But who dares answer, much less complain?

Joseph
Made redundant by the very breath of God.
What became of you?
Obedient to heaven’s outrageous instructions
amid Caesar’s assessment.
Unable to provide more than squalid accommodation
in your beloved’s night of travail.
Enduring embarrassed encounters
with wild-eyed shepherds and
strangely-clothed pilgrims
from obscure and distant lands,
each with incredulous stories of starry encounters.
Then hurtling toward Egypt—a land still haunted
by chained voices of ancestral slaves
—only steps ahead of Herod’s rage, the
Ramah-voice of Rachel weeping in the wind.

Joseph
Did compliance with heaven’s intrigue
cause your undoing?
Was it more than your pride could endure?
Or did Rome nail you to one of its trees,
anonymously, sharing the sentence
of countless other Palestinian fathers,
left hanging in imperial ambition
years before the similar fate
of Mary’s fetal promise?
Did you map that road
for him as he did for us?

Joseph
Loving Mary more than posterity itself.
A future eclipsed by divine drama,
a fate unrecorded, left to the imagination
of bath-robed youngsters in seasonal pageants.
But not forgotten in the heart of God
or, even to this day, in the prayers
of shipwrecked sailors
and abandoned children.

St. Joseph
Consort of Mary,
accomplice of God.
Chaperon the prayers of all
who disappear from history.
Supporting cast in the
larger story of redemption,
leaving no trace other than the faint
moisture of tears on some beloved’s face.
Vouchsafe the memory of such shadowed faces,
anonymous names, ’til their inscription in
the Lamb’s Book of Life.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Inspired by Matthew 1:18-25.

Zechariah—
hillbilly priest of the
Abijarian house of Aaron,
himself the brother and mouthpiece
for “slow-tongued” Moses—
What lesion confounds your speech?

With Elizabeth—
cousin of Mary, spiritual heir of
Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Hannah—
barren and bereft, seedless and sorrowful,
pledged to you, a priest of impotent prayer.
A union with no yield but malignant shame.
What boundary of belief constricts your credulity?

Afflicted with aphasia by Gabriel’s reproach
’mid the cloud of incense.
The Holy of Holies,
designed to regulate the presence of
(the unspoken name of) YHWH, now
overwhelmed with dumbfounding Presence.

From your seed (and Elizabeth’s
fallow soil) shall spring
       John—whose conception prompts
Judean astonishment: “What then will this child be?”

Speechless Zechariah,
befuddled cleric,
schooled in the theory of divine history
but unacquainted with its Advent.
For us, too, encountering the One
who promises the impossible
is a confusing, confounding prospect.
New life issues with a scream,
but is forged in the ordeal
of muted mouth.

Yet after a sojourn in the
wilderness of that bewilderment
even the silence gives way
to benedictus, to blessing.
The promise of perplexity
(for those up to the risk)
is praise and wombs leaping in joy.

Only by this unraveling
is the darkness dispelled,
is life re-raveled, is the boundary to
benedictus transgressed and the
tongue loosened for laudation.

      John—Naziritic preamble
to Mary’s manifesto, whose very
name transcends ancestral boundary—
will reside in his own wilderness
until the time of harvest vocation:
              to turn
the hearts of parents to their children
              to give
light to those who sit in the shadow of death
              to guide
our feet to the way of peace.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Inspired by Luke 1:5–24, 57–80.  Advent 1997.

The Blessed One does not stand in need of our praise;
nor sits impatiently, impudently, awaiting our
genuflection; nor strides restively, demandingly,
threateningly, toward our cowering pose.

No, none of this. There is no protection to be warranted by
proper groveling, calculated flattery, sustained applause,
pleading curtsies or bargaining bows.

It is, rather, we who need to praise. By it we transcend
self-serving ways. By it beggarly egos loosen their grip;
anxious trembling and toil, stilled and rested; fury, calmed;
moans, soothed; regrets, unknotted.

The Holy One of Heaven doesn’t do booster clubs or
sign autographs or make grand entrances at charity balls—
or acknowledge the sky-pointed, victory-claiming index
fingers of star athletes at moments of triumph.

God is not Number One. God is not an integer. God can
no more be counted than the eye can see its optic nerve.

It is by ebullient praise that we become transparent. By it
we send our presumptuousness packing. From it we readily
marshal every asset and place them under the command of
Another—Another, we discover, who is not alien to us, is
not other-than, but is in us, through us, above, under and
around us, who is with us as breath-to-lungs, blood-to-heart.

What feels at first like submission, we come to recognize,
finally, as being at home, where we are welcomed and
prized progeny to be feted, feasted, and royally attired.

In that union all that was broken is mended, all that was
stained is cleansed, all that was doubted rests confident,
all that was down-hearted finds its hallelujah. We become
as lovers to the Beloved. The weighty worries that previously
occupied us, even terrorized us, are disclosed as so much falderal.

Personally, praise is like Pilates for the soul, countering the
constriction of tendons and rusty joints, allowing freedom of
movement and off-road adventures.

Publicly, praise is prelude to undoing
     every slaver’s chain,
     every gallow’s threat,
     every monopoly’s reign.

The work of praise in the tent of meeting—worship, where
questions of worth are determined and competing claims of power
decided—begins in the labor of lament.

How long, O Lord (the psalmist’s persistent introit),
     will soul and soil be anguished and troubled?
      the wicked prosper?
      injustice stalk its prey?!

Glory to God, announced the angels, and on earth, peace.
Mother Mary then magnified the Lord for scattering the
proud and lifting the lowly.

All praise is due to Allah,
says the ancient crier (peace and blessings be upon him),
who delivered us from the unjust people.

Praise to Heaven portending peace for the earth.

Praise is equally personal and public. It grows rote and rank
when privatized for self-stimulation or adherence to pious rigor.
It grows toxic when utilized as a tool for social coherence.
Fully-blossomed, it loses all instrumental intent and rises
“as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space.”*

The work of praise is both promise and provocation. By it we
are simultaneously lifted to the ecstasy of beatific vision and
launched into a world which fears doxology above all else.

Sing praise, all ye people.
Clap your hands, ye meadows,
      mountains, forests and fountains.
Magnify, ye birds and bees,
      creatures of seas, every lion and lamb—
                  even you, Uncle Sam.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org.
*Phrase from Kahlil Gibran, “On Giving”