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We all knew it would come.
     Someday. Always later.
            Mañana.
It comes for us all. Sure.
           Of course.
     We know that. Someday.
            Mañana.

But when someday draws near
     for someone you love
           whose silenced breath sears
                 your lungs with flames of grief
           and sobs so immense
     you wonder:
How dare the sun ascend?
     The stars to shine?
     Even the yeast to rise!

Who authorized the earth to turn another inch?
    Gravity itself should be suspended,
and the new moon halt in midair
     with its ghostly light exposing
           every predator’s stare.

All words—every syllable—fail and flail about
     as if comfort answers to incantation,
           as if death leaves no bruise,
     as if sorrow can be shhushhed away like
                 crows from the cornfield.

Only flesh on flesh can convey
     the pledge, to shivering hands and quivering hearts,
                 the implausible news that dust is not the end.
     Only cheek to cheek,
           and mingled tears,
                       chase back fears
     to their perditious haunt.

For the soul come undone,
                 let skin speak to skin, with hands’
           gentle brace of countenance consumed
     in doleful, woeful recoil.
The dirge will
     have its day,
           the sigh will have its say.
     But not more, not a minute
                 more, than its allotted time.

For the day lies in wait
                 when fear will be trumped,
     every tear sated, every
mournful lament yielding the floor
           to the sound of angels clogging,
                 feet pounding parquet
     in rhythmic cadence,
           whirling and twirling,
                 with shouts of delight
     and volleys of glee
           harmonized
                       by fiddle and banjo and bass.

The Caller of that dance
     has been known
           to raise
                 the dead.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. On the fifth anniversary of his grandson’s birth and to commemorate the passing of a deep-souled friend.

And now
and now
in this house of meeting
as daylight ends
and darkness descends
prepare your hearts for God’s greeting

Though hearts ache by night
joyful blaze will ignite
with the radiance of Love
that will not let you go

Will not let you go
Will not
Will not
Will not let you go

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. A chanted worship benediction.

It’s a good thing
that hearts are hardy.
Fiercely resilient.
Expanding and contracting
in rhythm to breath,
breath of joy and of grief.
Hardy enough, even, to rumble on
in sleep and occasional boredom.
But there is a limit,
a border, a time,
which often ignores
the calculus of science or human affection.

Commonplace rain, and sorrow’s reign,
fall inexplicably on
the just and unjust.
And we are sometimes left
to sigh in the night
with nothing but tears
for food.

So it is with you, most intensely,
but also to countless others
whose hearts knew delight
in Larry’s presence.
Such hearts—
your hearts,
our hearts—
very nearly faint at the failure of his,
at the absence of one who lived large,
laughed often
and loved well.

No doubt if he could
he would gently chide
our grief
and say:
Life is not undone
by halted ventricles and collapsed atriums.
He would say:
Grief, however potent, has no
permanent grip on life.
Grief, too, has a limit,
a border,
a time,
and we lean toward its end.

He would say, quoting his favorite author:
Let not your hearts be troubled.
He would say:
Live large,
laugh often,
love well.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Celebrating the life of a friend and mourning his final breath.

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.