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From the turbulent bowels of darkest deep, our roiling souls cry to you, oh God!

Close not your ears to the sound of our afflictions!

Draw us to the Still Point of love’s tranquil refrain, to the melody of restful hearts:

“Be still and know, still and know, know that I am God.”

In our watching and waiting, on the boundary of bedlam and the squalling, the brawling, the frivolous noise, shield us from the Confusor’s snare.

Remind us again that Heaven’s Provision will yet outlast earth’s squalid distress.

Oh, people of mercy, of promise and pardon, lean into the One who alone shall abide.

“Be still and know, still and know, know that I am God.”

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Inspired by Psalm 46 and Psalm 130.

There are many images in Scripture which express Heaven’s purpose, but none more concise than this phrase from Jesus, the one we herald as the pioneer and perfecter of our faith:

      The meek shall inherit the earth.

The powers that rule—and sometimes overtake our own hearts—consider the Way of Jesus a foolish option:

      The last shall be first, and the first will be last.

The Spirit now calls us to worship.
The worship of God involves a declaration of worth.
So let us declare again the things that are worthy:

            You have heard it said,
     You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemies.
           But I say to you, love your enemies.

Day by endless day the world insists that you are what you make; that your value equals what you earn; that your worth accumulates according to your ability to hoard.
Day by endless day the world insists that only the strong will survive. But Jesus said:

      Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth.

Day by endless day the world insists that ultimate
     power flows through the barrel of a gun;
           that mercy impairs strength;
that policies of dominance will ensure a life of prosperity.

But we believe the meek shall inherit the earth;
     that the last shall be first;
           that the way to peace involves
the risk—yes, even this, beloveds—of loving enemies.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Inspired by Matthew 5:5, 20:16, 5:44 & 6:19, 24.

Who among you believe that grieving and lamentation are symptoms of despair?

Not so!

Only the hopeless are silent in the face of calamity—

Silenced because they no longer aspire even to be heard, much less heeded.

The labor of lament, on the other hand, is premised on the expectation that grief’s rule will be bound by the Advent of Another.

The liturgy of grief transforms the pain of lament into passion for an outcome forged in justice and tempered in mercy.

Such an outcome is not ours to impose by strength of will

Or accomplished by force of threat;

Yet it does demand of us relentless struggle and steadfast resolve.

Come, you whose beds are awash in weeping,

You whose portion is tear-mingled wine and bread of mourning.

Come, come to the mountain of Refuge.

There the Spirit, as with Jesus before, kneels ready to bathe your feet with her tears.

Hear this Word of assurance, you of wavering endurance:

The moment nears when those sowing in tears will reap shouts of extravagant joy.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Inspired by Psalm 6:6; 42:3; 80:5; 102:9; Luke 7:38; Psalm 126:5. For an ecumenical “Service of Lament and Healing” following the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.

We are free to act boldly because we are safe.

We are safe because we are at rest.

We are at rest because we have been forgiven.

We are forgiven because we have come to know that the Spirit meets us in our weakness, not our strength.

And in the strength of our weakness we find our security; fear’s fierce grip loosens, freeing us to act boldly.

Such is the journey, ever onward. By the Clothier’s hand are we fitted with garments apropos for the Fiesta to come!

So rise up, you pilgrims, whether hale and hearty or flustered and weary. Be clothed with the sun and with power from on high, robed in righteousness, shod in the Gospel of Peace.

Round up your rowdy friends, but especially the lame and all with no claim on the Bountiful Table.

The Banquet beckons.

Your Host awaits.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Inspired by Revelation 12:1; Luke 14:13, 24:49; Psalm 139:2, Ephesians 6:15.

History says, Don't hope on this side of the grave.
It is too much to ask for mere mortals such as us.
     Yet we say, Noli timere. Do not be afraid.

Hope is not beyond your reach. It is not in the highest
     region of heaven, or out beyond the farthest sea.
Hope need not be the exclusive province of heroic figures.
     Noli timere. Do not be afraid.

Hope is in your mouth, ready to be savored; it is in your
heart, awaiting love’s harness. Noli timere. Noli timidus.

Do not be afraid, brothers. Do not be timid, sisters.

The time will come when the longed-for tidal wave of
justice will rise up, when hope and history shall rhyme.*
     Noli timere. Do not be afraid.

So then, live toward that great sea-change on the far side
of revenge. Believe that a further shore is reachable from
     here.* Noli timere. Noli timidus.

Do not be afraid, mothers. Do not be timid, fathers.
Believe in miracles and cures and healing wells.
     Noli timere!

Behold, the Beloved summons heaven and earth to
     witness our resolve: blessings and life in the face of
     curses and death. Choose life, and rejoice evermore.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Deuteronomist: One who accounts history to elicit response in the hearer. Written on the eve of a U.S. Congressional debate over attacking Syria, with lines selected and adapted from Deut 31. *From Irish poet and playwright Seamus Heaney’s play “The Cure at Troy: After Philoctetes by Sophocles.” “Noli timere—fear not” were Heaney’s final words to his wife before he died 30 August 2013.

A life in Christ is
           an invitation
to live according to a different rhythm.

It stimulates the courage to
           move forward
even when the path seems to crumble
beneath our feet, when every way forward
                       is shrouded in threat.

The Love of Christ is that embrace which
           untangles the anxious heart
           and calms the fretful hand
where fears are overruled by confidence and
           trembling is tempered
with pardon and permission.

It is the still, deep stream amid
Every tempest that knows
           nothing, nothing,
can separate us from the
           length and breadth
                 of Heaven’s reach.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Written as a beloved’s funeral benediction.

From the turbulent bowels of darkest deep,
     our roiling souls cry to you, O God!

Close not your ears to the sound of our
     afflictions! Remind us again that Heaven’s
Provision will yet outlast earth’s squalid distress.

Draw us to the Still Point of love’s tranquil refrain,
     to the melody of restful hearts:

“Be still and know, still and know, know that I am God.”

In our watching and waiting, on the
     Boundary of bedlam and the squalling,
                 the brawling, the frivolous noise,
shield us from the Confusor’s snare.

“Be still and know, still and know, know that I am God.”

O people of Mercy,
     of promise and pardon,
           lean into the One
                 who alone shall abide.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Inspired by Psalm 130 & Psalm 46.

Listen close, God.
When we get together and sing
“Down By the Riverside,” we mean it.

But outside this sanctuary,
the urge to study war jumps up again.
     We all want peace, but we can’t seem
           to get what we want without war.

It’s not so much al-Qaeda
     [or, insert name of current national enemy]
that bothers us. It’s our neighbors, co-workers,
family members, or that friggin’ Lexus
     that just cut us off in traffic.

So burn this chorus in our memory.
           Keep humming it in our ears.

I ain’t gonna study war no more. . . .

I really don’t wanna / gonna study war no more. . . .

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org.

Our nation is at war, and our hearts are torn. The seeds of fear are planted in terror and harvested in violence.

How long, O Lord, how long?

The dream of a new order birthed in justice and baptized in mercy has been ruptured by the nightmare of bloody enmity.

But we still have our dreams, hard-won dreams, purchased with a price, beckoning us forward.

The time is coming, says Sister Hannah, when “The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble gird on strength. The Lord raises up the poor from the dust; God lifts the needy from the ash heap, to inherit a seat of honor.” (1 Samuel 2: 1-8)

May it be so with us, according to your word.

One day, says Brother Isaiah, “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”  (Isaiah 11:3-9)

We long for the day when “every boot of the trampling warrior in battle tumult and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire.”  (Isaiah 9:6, 7)

Lean into the age, says the Beloved, when nations “shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” (Micah 4:3-4)

On that day the lame shall be restored, the outcast will be gathered, and God will change their shame into praise.  (Zephaniah 3:19)

Our hearts ache for that future—as Jesus declared—when the People of God will again be anointed with the power to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind,

. . . to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.  (Luke 4:18-19)

We testify to the coming “new heaven and new earth,” when God “will wipe away every tear, and death shall be no more.” (Revelation 21:1-4)

Oh Promised Hope of Heaven, today we stand ready to be instruments of your peace: in our homes and in the streets, with all fleshly bodies and with the earth itself.

And now may the One whose presence is promised through every siege and trial and darkest night cause you to rejoice and be glad.

Alleluia! Thanks be to God!

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org.

John’s Gospel begins with a dizzying set of Jesus tales. It begins in metaphysics:

“In the beginning was the Word . . . without him not a thing was made.”

Then, chapter two has him as the impromptu wine maître d’ for a wedding feast, intervening to spare the host’s embarrassment by turning water to wine—and such fine wine it was! Then the scene switches to the temple where Jesus makes a holy mess of things, rousting the loan sharks and stampeding their wares.

Ground of Being? Party patron? Temple bouncer? Which portrait of Jesus will do?

It was during Passover, the Hebrews’ annual festival celebrating liberation from Egypt’s slaveyard. Passover was Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day, Veterans’ Day, Flag Day, and Fourth of July all rolled into one.

Which Jesus fits you best: Philosophical First Cause? Winebibber. Incarnation’s Agitation?

Rome always sent extra troops to town when Passover rolled around, and I swear I heard Pete Seeger singing “Which Side Are You On?”

Peddlers depend on temples of one sort or another—any spire will do, but a mall will, too—to traffick the soul’s deep longing.

Hawking access to the holy, preying ever on the lowly.

Yet soon shall the Word arise and unleash the earth from its bondage, its bridle, and it’s breach.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Inspired by John 2:13-22