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Labor Day

Quotes, quick-facts, extracts

by Ken Sehested

Introduction

This collection of material is especially designed for use in planning a Labor Day observance—but also more: on work in general, both the productive and destructive varieties; on sabbath-keeping, which is so much more than blue laws; on discerning vocations and callings; on the terrorizing disconnect between commerce and the flourishing of every living thing; on the increasingly barbarous treatment of immigrants and refugees.

On this Labor Day, make a commitment that, in the coming year, you will strike up conversations (maybe even friendships) with people who work with their hands. The greatest failure of progressive movements—churched and unchurched alike—is our cultural alienation from working class folk. There can never be a sustained movement for fundamental change until this failure is admitted, renounced, and rectified.

[Additional material: “Resources for a Labor Day observance,” including a litany for worship, sermon, sabbath keeping meditations and more.]

If all the cars in the United States were placed end to end, it would probably be Labor Day Weekend. —Doug Larson

¶ “Don't mistake activity with achievement.” ― John Wooden

¶ “No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There is too much work to do.” —Dorothy Day

¶ “Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.” —Pirkei Avot, The Talmud

For a brief history of Labor Day, see the “Labor Day 2019.”

¶ “This weekend we mark another Labor Day holiday, both here and in Canada (excepting Quebec). At least 80 other countries celebrate the first of May as a workers’ holiday. Jamaica has the most interesting Labour Day tradition. For most of its colonial history the country observed “Empire Day” on 24 May in honor of British Queen Victoria’s birthday and her emancipation of slaves in 1938. But in 1961 Empire Day was supplanted by Labour Day, on 23 May, to commemorate the 1938 labor rebellion which led to independence.” —continue reading “Labor in the Shadow of Sabbath,” a sermon for Labor Day

Left: First Labor Day parade, 5 September 1882, New York City

Agitation for the eight-hour day began after the Civil War. Congress passed an eight-hour law on June 25, 1868, but it was largely ignored. In the 1880s the issue was revived. The eight-hour workday was not effectively established until 1938 with the passage of the “Wage and Hour Law.”

Forgotten Labor Day history. “The U.S. Department of Labor’s page on the history of Labor Day notes the holiday “is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers.” It doesn’t mention the Pullman Strike of 1894, which President Grover Cleveland suppressed with federal troops, leading to dozens of deaths. The federal enactment of a Labor Day observance was in direct response to the Pullman Strike.

 ¶ “In 2018, just 10.5% of American workers were members of unions. That’s is the lowest rate of membership since the bureau began collecting statistics in the early 1980s. Most analyses of pre-1980s union membership suggest it was close to 30% in the 1940s and 1950s.
        “Recent economic research suggests the decline of unions is one of main reasons income inequality has risen over the past several decades. A 2018 study by economists at Princeton and Columbia found that since the 1930s, unionized workers have made about 15-20% more than similarly educated workers.” —Dan Kopf, Quartz

¶ “If work were a good thing, the rich would have grabbed it a long time ago." —Haitian proverb

¶ “There are buoyant powers of healing at work in the world that do not depend on us, that we need not finance or keep functioning and that are not at our disposal. —Walter Brueggemann

Right: Art by Ricardo Levins Morales, ©RLM Art Studio

¶ “There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist fighting for peace by non-violent methods most easily succumbs: activism and over-work.  The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence.  To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help every one in everything is to succumb to violence.” —Thomas Merton

¶ “World's 26 richest people own as much as poorest 50%.” —Larry Elliott, Guardian

The US is now an “oligarchy” in which “unlimited political bribery” has created “a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors.” Both Democrats and Republicans, [former US President Jimmy] Carter said, “look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves.” —Jon Schwarz, The Intercept

In Christian mysticism, the Latin phrase Ora et Labora reads in full: Ora et labora, Deus adest son has (“Pray and work, God is there,” i.e., God helps without delay.) The “pray and work” refers to the monastic practice of working and praying, generally associated with its use in the Rule of St. Benedict.

Left: Art by Ade Bethune, ©Ade Bethune Collection, St. Catherine University, St. Paul, MN.

¶ “I want to be with people who submerge / in the task, who go into the fields to harvest / and work in a row and pass the bags along, / who stand in the line and haul in their places, / who are not parlor generals and field deserters / but move in a common rhythm / when the food must come in or the fire be put out.” —Marge Piercy

¶ “Like craftsmen working on a great cathedral, we have each been given instructions about the particular stone we are to spend our lives carving, without knowing or being able to guess where it will take its place within the grand design.” ­—N.T. Wright

¶ “The secret of wealth is that workers are systematically underpaid.” ―Julie Rivkin, Literary Theory: An Anthology

¶ If you’ve enjoyed any of these—eight-hour day, 40-hour work week, a living wage, child labor laws, health and/or retirement benefits—thank the unions. —for more see “Eight Reasons to Thanks Unions”

In 1968 the minimum wage was $1.60. If adjusted for inflation, the minimum wage would today be $11.76. —Louis Jacobson, Politifact

¶ “We mean to make things over, / We are tired of toil for naught  / With but bare enough to live upon / And ne'er an hour for thought. / We want to feel the sunshine / And we want to smell the flow'rs / We are sure that God has willed it / And we mean to have eight hours; / We're summoning our forces / From the shipyard, shop and mill / Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest / Eight hours for what we will.” —“Eight Hours,” lyrics by I. G. Blanchard, music by the Reverend Jesse H. Jones, 1878

In our endless quest to eliminate work, to find effortless fulfillment and the grail of One E-Z Step, we deny the ultimate value of the grind. —Owen Edwards

Gonna be needing bigger barns.
         • “You don't want to dally too much, because some Labor Day sales are there and gone in a flash. Nearly 23% of them lasted 24 hours or less in 2018. If you see a can't-miss deal, jump on it, because it could vanish tomorrow.” —Elizabeth Harper, “What to Expect From Labor Day Sales in 2019”
         • “Follow these do’s and don’ts to maximize your money-saving potential this holiday weekend. Do: Buy luxury items. Big sale events, like Labor Day, are a good opportunity to splurge on expensive purchases without having to pay full price. Use the weekend’s percent-off promotions to snag that fancy tote or glitzy necklace you’ve had your heart set on.” —Courtney Jespersen, US News

¶ "Imagination is better than a sharp instrument. To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work." —Mary Oliver

¶ “This is the true joy of life, the being used up for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. Life is no “brief candle” to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for a moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.” —George Bernard Shaw

¶ “Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.” —Abraham Lincoln

¶ “The supreme accomplishment is to blur the lines between work and play.” —Arnold J. Toynbee

¶ “I slept and dreamt that life was joy; / I awoke and saw that life was service; / I acted and, behold, service was joy.” —Rabindranath Tagore

¶ “Whatever you want to do, if you want to be great at it, you have to love it and be able to make sacrifices for it.” —Maya Angelou

¶ “Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy.” —Psalm 126:5

¶ “Go in all simplicity; do not be anxious to win a quiet mind, and it will be all the quieter. Do not examine so closely into the progress of your soul. Do not crave too much to be perfect, but let your spiritual life be formed by your duties, and by the actions which are called forth by circumstances.” —St. Francis de Sales

¶ "The concentration of privilege that exists today results far more from the institutional relationships that distribute power and wealth inequitably than from differences in talent or lack of desire for work.  These institutional patterns must be examined and revised if we are to meet the demands of basic justice." —US Catholic Bishops' pastoral, "Economic Justice for All: Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy," 1986

¶ “A spirituality of work is based on a heightened sense of sacramentality, of the idea that everything that is, is holy and that our hands consecrate it to the service of God. When we grow radishes in a small container in a city apartment, we participate in creation. When we sweep the street in front of a house in the dirtiest city in the country, we bring new order to the universe. When we repair what has been broken or give away what we have earned that is above and beyond our own sustenance, we stoop down and scoop up the earth and breathe into it new life again, as God did one morning in time only to watch it unfold and unfold and unfold through the ages.” —Joan Chittister, OSB

"Shortly after graduating from seminary and started looking for jobs, Nancy and I paid a visit to Will Campbell, who gave us sturdy advice: 'Don’t confuse your job with your vocation.' Mic drop. Full stop." —Ken Sehested

"A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving." —Albert Einstein

¶ “He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist.” ―Francis of Assisi

¶ "A vision without a task is but a dream, a task without a vision is drudgery, a vision with a task is the hope of the world." —Church inscription, Sussex, England (1730)

¶ “She'd been in labor for nineteen hours; I completely understood why she wanted to pass the buck. ‘You are so beautiful,’ her husband crooned, holding up her shoulders.
        “‘You are so full of shit,’ Lila snarled, but as a contraction settled over her like a net, she bore down and pushed.”  ―Jodi Picoult, “Handle with Care”

¶ “Our merchants and masters complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price and lessening the sale of goods. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people.” ― Adam Smith, Scottish economist and philosopher whose book, "The Wealth of Nations," is considered the “bible of capitalism”

¶ “The few own the many because they possess the means of livelihood of all. . . . The country is governed for the richest, for the corporations, the bankers, the land speculators, and for the exploiters of labor. “ —Helen Keller

¶ “First comes the sweat; then comes the beauty.” —George Balanchine

¶ “It need not be said that a culture which leaves unsatisfied and drives to rebelliousness so large a number of its members neither has a prospect of continued existence, nor deserves it.” ―Sigmund Freud, "The Future of an Illusion"

¶ “Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, and his upper rooms by injustice; who makes his neighbors work for nothing, and does not give them their wages.” —Jeremiah 22:13

¶ “The economics of industrialized countries would collapse if women didn't do the work they do for free: According to economist Marilyn Waring, throughout the West it generates between 25%–40% of the gross national product.” ―Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth

¶ “What Would Happen if Trump Actually Deported Millions of Immigrants?: There could be food shortages within days.” —León Krauze, Slate

¶ “I know it’s good work when I finish, look at the clock, and say ‘Where did the time go?’” —Anonymous

¶ “Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience, and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level. That’s the way the system works. And since we know that the system will not change the rules, we are going to have to change the system.” —Martin Luther King Jr.

 ¶ "Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work, which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished." —Mary Oliver

¶ “Can anything be imagined more abhorrent to every sentiment of generosity and justice, than the law which arms the rich with the legal right to fix, by assize [judicial ruling], the wages of the poor? If this is not slavery, we have forgotten its definition. Strike the right of associating for the sale of labor from the privileges of a freeman, and you may as well bind him to a master, or ascribe him to the soil.” ―William Cullen Bryant

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

¶ “Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.” —James 5:4

¶ “We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with God. God walks everywhere incognito. And the incognito is not always hard to penetrate. The real labor is to remember, to attend. In fact, to come awake. Still more, to remain awake.” —C.S. Lewis

¶ “Can one be passionate about the just, the / ideal, the sublime, and the holy, and yet commit / to no labor in its cause? I don't think so. . . . / Be ignited, or be gone.” —Mary Oliver

¶ "Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his hands. . . .” The Apostle’s admonition to work was not from private virtue but for the common good, for he added, “so that he may be able to give to those in need." —Ephesians 4:28

¶ “The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.” —Thomas Jefferson

¶ “There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium, and be lost. The world will not have it.
        “It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours, clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urge that motivates you.” —Martha Graham, legendary modern dancer and choreographer

¶ “If God had so willed, He would have created you one community, but [He has not done so] that He may test you in what He has given you; so compete with one another in good works. To God you shall all return and He will tell you the truth about that which you have been disputing.” —Qur’an 5:48

¶ “Worrying is less work than doing something to fix the worry. Everybody wants to save the earth; nobody wants to help Mom with the dishes.” —P.J. O'Rourke

¶ “The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to the point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism—ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any controlling private power.” —President Franklin D. Roosevelt

¶ “We need more images of a patient God who loves the world so much that She gives her people time and resources like history and culture, human friends and animal companions, work and play, mountains and water, food and music, memory and reason, imagination and talents, and prayer and worship, and as many chances as we in our fear may need to come to our senses."  —Carter Heyward

The combined wealth of the three wealthiest individuals in the US—Bill Gates of Microsoft, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, and Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway—is greater than the bottom 50% of US citizens. —presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, confirmed by Snopes

¶ “No work is insignificant. All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.”  —Martin Luther King, Jr

¶ “I've always resented the smug statements of politicians, media commentators, corporate executives, who talked of how, in America, if you worked hard, you would become rich. The meaning of that was, if you were poor, it was because you hadn't worked hard enough. I knew this was a lie—about my father, and millions of others: men and women who worked harder than anyone.” ―Howard Zinn

¶ “Hobgoblin nor foul fiend / can daught his spirit; / He knows in the end / Shall life inherit. / Then, fancies, fly away, / He’ll not fear what others say; / He’ll labor night and day / to be a pilgrim.” —John Bunyan, “Pilgrim”

¶ “We will have many visions of what a just and equitable democracy will look like, and we will have even more ideas on how to get there. But we must begin to work together, to compromise, and to listen to each other in order to realize our visions. Working together will be the hardest challenge we will face. Much harder than facing the opposition or working alone. But it is the only way we will win. It is the only way to create revolutionary change.” —Linda Stout, “Bridging the Class Divide and other Lessons for Grassroots Organizing”

¶ “A Brother asked one of the elders: What good thing shall I do and have life thereby?  The old man replied: God alone knows what is good. However, I have heard it is said that someone inquired of Father Abbot Nisteros the great, the friend of Abbot Anthony, asking: What good work shall I do? and that he replied: Not all works are alike. For Scripture says that Abraham was hospitable and God was with him. Elias loved solitary prayer, and God was with him. And David was humble, and God was with him.  Therefore, whatever you see your soul to desire according to God. Do that thing, and you shall keep your heart safe.” —quoted in Thomas Merton, “The Wisdom of the Desert”

¶ “At the center of our pain, we glimpse a fairer world and hear a call. When we are able to keep company with our own fears and sorrows, we are shown the way to go, our parched lives are watered, and the earth becomes a greener place. Hope begins to grow, and we are summoned to the work that will give us a feeling of wellness and make possible that which we envision.” —Elizabeth O'Connor, “Cry Pain, Cry Hope”

¶ “We must love God, but let it be in the work of our bodies, in the sweat of our brows. For very often many acts of love for God, of kindness, of good will, and other similar inclinations and interior practices of a tender heart, although good and very desirable, are yet very suspect when they do not lead to the practice of effective love.” —St. Vincent de Paul

¶ “It's pulling a piano across a plowed field.” —Jesuit Fr. Daniel Berrigan, assessing his controversial, against-the-grain life and work

¶ “The beauty, the splendor of God, is visible in all those who prepare God's way. The Messianic work of liberation awaits us. God entrusts us with preparing the way of the Messiah. God does not say to anyone, ‘You are just a simple housewife or a mere employee and understand nothing of complicated necessities.’ Prepare the way of God, comfort the people in their weakness, make them into street workers on God's way.” —Dorothee Sölle, “Theology for Skeptics”

An old farmer once commented to his pastor, “I miss my mules.” Puzzled, the pastor asked, “Why do you want to go back to farming with mules?” He explained that his mules could work hard plowing the fields for about six days, but they needed the seventh day to rest. When the mules got their rest, they worked hard all week. When they did not get their rest, they did not work well the next week. “My mules reminded me that I need to rest, too. My machines cannot do that for me.” —Jim Strickland, in a publicity brochure for Sabbath House, a retreat center in Western North Carolina

¶ “Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones. And when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.” —Victor Hugo

¶ “We can be so overwhelmed by the extent of the world's problems that the obvious need before us can be missed.  For the most of us, it is in the minute particular that we give ourselves to the eternal order of things; in our own living rooms, in our own streets, in our own cities, in the way we live and love and care, minute by minute; in the chance encounters of every day, as well as in the planned work which we do.” —Dorothy Steere

"Their land is filled with silver and gold: / and there is no end to their treasures. / Their land is filled with horses: / And there is no end to their chariots. / Their land is filled with idols, / they bow down to the work of their hands: / to what their own fingers have made. / So people are humbled, / and everyone is brought low." —Isaiah 2:7-9

¶ “To hope is a duty, not a luxury. To hope is not a dream, but to turn dream into reality. Happy are those who dream dreams, and are ready to pay the price to make them come true. —Cardinal Leo Suenens

¶ “Sabbath is not simply the pause that refreshes. It is the pause that transforms. . . . It is an occasion for reimagining all of social life away from coercion and competition to compassionate solidarity. . . . Those who participate in [sabbath keeping] break the anxiety cycle. They are invited to awareness that life does not consist in frantic production and consumption that reduces everyone else to threat and competition.” —Walter Brueggemann, "Sabbath as Resistance"

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©ken sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Reprint permission is hereby granted in advance for noncommercial purposes.

Labor Day

Quotes, quick-facts, extracts

by Ken Sehested

Introduction

This collection of material is especially designed for use in planning a Labor Day observance—but also more: on work in general, both the productive and destructive varieties; on sabbath-keeping, which is so much more than blue laws; on discerning vocations and callings; on the terrorizing disconnect between commerce and the flourishing of every living thing; on the increasingly barbarous treatment of immigrants and refugees.

On this Labor Day, make a commitment that, in the coming year, you will strike up conversations (maybe even friendships) with people who work with their hands. The greatest failure of progressive movements—churched and unchurched alike—is our cultural alienation from working class folk. There can never be a sustained movement for fundamental change until this failure is admitted, renounced, and rectified.

[Additional material: “Resources for a Labor Day observance,” including a litany for worship, sermon, sabbath keeping meditations and more.]

If all the cars in the United States were placed end to end, it would probably be Labor Day Weekend. —Doug Larson

¶ “Don't mistake activity with achievement.” ― John Wooden

¶ “No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There is too much work to do.” —Dorothy Day

¶ “Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.” —Pirkei Avot, The Talmud

For a brief history of Labor Day, see the “Labor Day 2019.”

¶ “This weekend we mark another Labor Day holiday, both here and in Canada (excepting Quebec). At least 80 other countries celebrate the first of May as a workers’ holiday. Jamaica has the most interesting Labour Day tradition. For most of its colonial history the country observed “Empire Day” on 24 May in honor of British Queen Victoria’s birthday and her emancipation of slaves in 1938. But in 1961 Empire Day was supplanted by Labour Day, on 23 May, to commemorate the 1938 labor rebellion which led to independence.” —continue reading “Labor in the Shadow of Sabbath,” a sermon for Labor Day

Left: First Labor Day parade, 5 September 1882, New York City

Agitation for the eight-hour day began after the Civil War. Congress passed an eight-hour law on June 25, 1868, but it was largely ignored. In the 1880s the issue was revived. The eight-hour workday was not effectively established until 1938 with the passage of the “Wage and Hour Law.”

Forgotten Labor Day history. “The U.S. Department of Labor’s page on the history of Labor Day notes the holiday “is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers.” It doesn’t mention the Pullman Strike of 1894, which President Grover Cleveland suppressed with federal troops, leading to dozens of deaths. The federal enactment of a Labor Day observance was in direct response to the Pullman Strike.

 ¶ “In 2018, just 10.5% of American workers were members of unions. That’s is the lowest rate of membership since the bureau began collecting statistics in the early 1980s. Most analyses of pre-1980s union membership suggest it was close to 30% in the 1940s and 1950s.
        “Recent economic research suggests the decline of unions is one of main reasons income inequality has risen over the past several decades. A 2018 study by economists at Princeton and Columbia found that since the 1930s, unionized workers have made about 15-20% more than similarly educated workers.” —Dan Kopf, Quartz

¶ “If work were a good thing, the rich would have grabbed it a long time ago." —Haitian proverb

¶ “There are buoyant powers of healing at work in the world that do not depend on us, that we need not finance or keep functioning and that are not at our disposal. —Walter Brueggemann

Right: Art by Ricardo Levins Morales, ©RLM Art Studio

¶ “There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist fighting for peace by non-violent methods most easily succumbs: activism and over-work.  The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence.  To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help every one in everything is to succumb to violence.” —Thomas Merton

¶ “World's 26 richest people own as much as poorest 50%.” —Larry Elliott, Guardian

The US is now an “oligarchy” in which “unlimited political bribery” has created “a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors.” Both Democrats and Republicans, [former US President Jimmy] Carter said, “look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves.” —Jon Schwarz, The Intercept

In Christian mysticism, the Latin phrase Ora et Labora reads in full: Ora et labora, Deus adest son has (“Pray and work, God is there,” i.e., God helps without delay.) The “pray and work” refers to the monastic practice of working and praying, generally associated with its use in the Rule of St. Benedict.

Left: Art by Ade Bethune, ©Ade Bethune Collection, St. Catherine University, St. Paul, MN.

¶ “I want to be with people who submerge / in the task, who go into the fields to harvest / and work in a row and pass the bags along, / who stand in the line and haul in their places, / who are not parlor generals and field deserters / but move in a common rhythm / when the food must come in or the fire be put out.” —Marge Piercy

¶ “Like craftsmen working on a great cathedral, we have each been given instructions about the particular stone we are to spend our lives carving, without knowing or being able to guess where it will take its place within the grand design.” ­—N.T. Wright

¶ “The secret of wealth is that workers are systematically underpaid.” ―Julie Rivkin, Literary Theory: An Anthology

¶ If you’ve enjoyed any of these—eight-hour day, 40-hour work week, a living wage, child labor laws, health and/or retirement benefits—thank the unions. —for more see “Eight Reasons to Thanks Unions”

In 1968 the minimum wage was $1.60. If adjusted for inflation, the minimum wage would today be $11.76. —Louis Jacobson, Politifact

¶ “We mean to make things over, / We are tired of toil for naught  / With but bare enough to live upon / And ne'er an hour for thought. / We want to feel the sunshine / And we want to smell the flow'rs / We are sure that God has willed it / And we mean to have eight hours; / We're summoning our forces / From the shipyard, shop and mill / Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest / Eight hours for what we will.” —“Eight Hours,” lyrics by I. G. Blanchard, music by the Reverend Jesse H. Jones, 1878

In our endless quest to eliminate work, to find effortless fulfillment and the grail of One E-Z Step, we deny the ultimate value of the grind. —Owen Edwards

Gonna be needing bigger barns.
         • “You don't want to dally too much, because some Labor Day sales are there and gone in a flash. Nearly 23% of them lasted 24 hours or less in 2018. If you see a can't-miss deal, jump on it, because it could vanish tomorrow.” —Elizabeth Harper, “What to Expect From Labor Day Sales in 2019”
         • “Follow these do’s and don’ts to maximize your money-saving potential this holiday weekend. Do: Buy luxury items. Big sale events, like Labor Day, are a good opportunity to splurge on expensive purchases without having to pay full price. Use the weekend’s percent-off promotions to snag that fancy tote or glitzy necklace you’ve had your heart set on.” —Courtney Jespersen, US News

¶ "Imagination is better than a sharp instrument. To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work." —Mary Oliver

¶ “This is the true joy of life, the being used up for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. Life is no “brief candle” to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for a moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.” —George Bernard Shaw

¶ “Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.” —Abraham Lincoln

¶ “The supreme accomplishment is to blur the lines between work and play.” —Arnold J. Toynbee

¶ “I slept and dreamt that life was joy; / I awoke and saw that life was service; / I acted and, behold, service was joy.” —Rabindranath Tagore

¶ “Whatever you want to do, if you want to be great at it, you have to love it and be able to make sacrifices for it.” —Maya Angelou

¶ “Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy.” —Psalm 126:5

¶ “Go in all simplicity; do not be anxious to win a quiet mind, and it will be all the quieter. Do not examine so closely into the progress of your soul. Do not crave too much to be perfect, but let your spiritual life be formed by your duties, and by the actions which are called forth by circumstances.” —St. Francis de Sales

¶ "The concentration of privilege that exists today results far more from the institutional relationships that distribute power and wealth inequitably than from differences in talent or lack of desire for work.  These institutional patterns must be examined and revised if we are to meet the demands of basic justice." —US Catholic Bishops' pastoral, "Economic Justice for All: Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy," 1986

¶ “A spirituality of work is based on a heightened sense of sacramentality, of the idea that everything that is, is holy and that our hands consecrate it to the service of God. When we grow radishes in a small container in a city apartment, we participate in creation. When we sweep the street in front of a house in the dirtiest city in the country, we bring new order to the universe. When we repair what has been broken or give away what we have earned that is above and beyond our own sustenance, we stoop down and scoop up the earth and breathe into it new life again, as God did one morning in time only to watch it unfold and unfold and unfold through the ages.” —Joan Chittister, OSB

"Shortly after graduating from seminary and started looking for jobs, Nancy and I paid a visit to Will Campbell, who gave us sturdy advice: 'Don’t confuse your job with your vocation.' Mic drop. Full stop." —Ken Sehested

"A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving." —Albert Einstein

¶ “He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist.” ―Francis of Assisi

¶ "A vision without a task is but a dream, a task without a vision is drudgery, a vision with a task is the hope of the world." —Church inscription, Sussex, England (1730)

¶ “She'd been in labor for nineteen hours; I completely understood why she wanted to pass the buck. ‘You are so beautiful,’ her husband crooned, holding up her shoulders.
        “‘You are so full of shit,’ Lila snarled, but as a contraction settled over her like a net, she bore down and pushed.”  ―Jodi Picoult, “Handle with Care”

¶ “Our merchants and masters complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price and lessening the sale of goods. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people.” ― Adam Smith, Scottish economist and philosopher whose book, "The Wealth of Nations," is considered the “bible of capitalism”

¶ “The few own the many because they possess the means of livelihood of all. . . . The country is governed for the richest, for the corporations, the bankers, the land speculators, and for the exploiters of labor. “ —Helen Keller

¶ “First comes the sweat; then comes the beauty.” —George Balanchine

¶ “It need not be said that a culture which leaves unsatisfied and drives to rebelliousness so large a number of its members neither has a prospect of continued existence, nor deserves it.” ―Sigmund Freud, "The Future of an Illusion"

¶ “Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, and his upper rooms by injustice; who makes his neighbors work for nothing, and does not give them their wages.” —Jeremiah 22:13

¶ “The economics of industrialized countries would collapse if women didn't do the work they do for free: According to economist Marilyn Waring, throughout the West it generates between 25%–40% of the gross national product.” ―Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth

¶ “What Would Happen if Trump Actually Deported Millions of Immigrants?: There could be food shortages within days.” —León Krauze, Slate

¶ “I know it’s good work when I finish, look at the clock, and say ‘Where did the time go?’” —Anonymous

¶ “Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience, and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level. That’s the way the system works. And since we know that the system will not change the rules, we are going to have to change the system.” —Martin Luther King Jr.

 ¶ "Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work, which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished." —Mary Oliver

¶ “Can anything be imagined more abhorrent to every sentiment of generosity and justice, than the law which arms the rich with the legal right to fix, by assize [judicial ruling], the wages of the poor? If this is not slavery, we have forgotten its definition. Strike the right of associating for the sale of labor from the privileges of a freeman, and you may as well bind him to a master, or ascribe him to the soil.” ―William Cullen Bryant

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

¶ “Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.” —James 5:4

¶ “We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with God. God walks everywhere incognito. And the incognito is not always hard to penetrate. The real labor is to remember, to attend. In fact, to come awake. Still more, to remain awake.” —C.S. Lewis

¶ “Can one be passionate about the just, the / ideal, the sublime, and the holy, and yet commit / to no labor in its cause? I don't think so. . . . / Be ignited, or be gone.” —Mary Oliver

¶ "Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his hands. . . .” The Apostle’s admonition to work was not from private virtue but for the common good, for he added, “so that he may be able to give to those in need." —Ephesians 4:28

¶ “The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.” —Thomas Jefferson

¶ “There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium, and be lost. The world will not have it.
        “It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours, clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urge that motivates you.” —Martha Graham, legendary modern dancer and choreographer

¶ “If God had so willed, He would have created you one community, but [He has not done so] that He may test you in what He has given you; so compete with one another in good works. To God you shall all return and He will tell you the truth about that which you have been disputing.” —Qur’an 5:48

¶ “Worrying is less work than doing something to fix the worry. Everybody wants to save the earth; nobody wants to help Mom with the dishes.” —P.J. O'Rourke

¶ “The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to the point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism—ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any controlling private power.” —President Franklin D. Roosevelt

¶ “We need more images of a patient God who loves the world so much that She gives her people time and resources like history and culture, human friends and animal companions, work and play, mountains and water, food and music, memory and reason, imagination and talents, and prayer and worship, and as many chances as we in our fear may need to come to our senses."  —Carter Heyward

The combined wealth of the three wealthiest individuals in the US—Bill Gates of Microsoft, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, and Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway—is greater than the bottom 50% of US citizens. —presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, confirmed by Snopes

¶ “No work is insignificant. All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.”  —Martin Luther King, Jr

¶ “I've always resented the smug statements of politicians, media commentators, corporate executives, who talked of how, in America, if you worked hard, you would become rich. The meaning of that was, if you were poor, it was because you hadn't worked hard enough. I knew this was a lie—about my father, and millions of others: men and women who worked harder than anyone.” ―Howard Zinn

¶ “Hobgoblin nor foul fiend / can daught his spirit; / He knows in the end / Shall life inherit. / Then, fancies, fly away, / He’ll not fear what others say; / He’ll labor night and day / to be a pilgrim.” —John Bunyan, “Pilgrim”

¶ “We will have many visions of what a just and equitable democracy will look like, and we will have even more ideas on how to get there. But we must begin to work together, to compromise, and to listen to each other in order to realize our visions. Working together will be the hardest challenge we will face. Much harder than facing the opposition or working alone. But it is the only way we will win. It is the only way to create revolutionary change.” —Linda Stout, “Bridging the Class Divide and other Lessons for Grassroots Organizing”

¶ “A Brother asked one of the elders: What good thing shall I do and have life thereby?  The old man replied: God alone knows what is good. However, I have heard it is said that someone inquired of Father Abbot Nisteros the great, the friend of Abbot Anthony, asking: What good work shall I do? and that he replied: Not all works are alike. For Scripture says that Abraham was hospitable and God was with him. Elias loved solitary prayer, and God was with him. And David was humble, and God was with him.  Therefore, whatever you see your soul to desire according to God. Do that thing, and you shall keep your heart safe.” —quoted in Thomas Merton, “The Wisdom of the Desert”

¶ “At the center of our pain, we glimpse a fairer world and hear a call. When we are able to keep company with our own fears and sorrows, we are shown the way to go, our parched lives are watered, and the earth becomes a greener place. Hope begins to grow, and we are summoned to the work that will give us a feeling of wellness and make possible that which we envision.” —Elizabeth O'Connor, “Cry Pain, Cry Hope”

¶ “We must love God, but let it be in the work of our bodies, in the sweat of our brows. For very often many acts of love for God, of kindness, of good will, and other similar inclinations and interior practices of a tender heart, although good and very desirable, are yet very suspect when they do not lead to the practice of effective love.” —St. Vincent de Paul

¶ “It's pulling a piano across a plowed field.” —Jesuit Fr. Daniel Berrigan, assessing his controversial, against-the-grain life and work

¶ “The beauty, the splendor of God, is visible in all those who prepare God's way. The Messianic work of liberation awaits us. God entrusts us with preparing the way of the Messiah. God does not say to anyone, ‘You are just a simple housewife or a mere employee and understand nothing of complicated necessities.’ Prepare the way of God, comfort the people in their weakness, make them into street workers on God's way.” —Dorothee Sölle, “Theology for Skeptics”

An old farmer once commented to his pastor, “I miss my mules.” Puzzled, the pastor asked, “Why do you want to go back to farming with mules?” He explained that his mules could work hard plowing the fields for about six days, but they needed the seventh day to rest. When the mules got their rest, they worked hard all week. When they did not get their rest, they did not work well the next week. “My mules reminded me that I need to rest, too. My machines cannot do that for me.” —Jim Strickland, in a publicity brochure for Sabbath House, a retreat center in Western North Carolina

¶ “Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones. And when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.” —Victor Hugo

¶ “We can be so overwhelmed by the extent of the world's problems that the obvious need before us can be missed.  For the most of us, it is in the minute particular that we give ourselves to the eternal order of things; in our own living rooms, in our own streets, in our own cities, in the way we live and love and care, minute by minute; in the chance encounters of every day, as well as in the planned work which we do.” —Dorothy Steere

"Their land is filled with silver and gold: / and there is no end to their treasures. / Their land is filled with horses: / And there is no end to their chariots. / Their land is filled with idols, / they bow down to the work of their hands: / to what their own fingers have made. / So people are humbled, / and everyone is brought low." —Isaiah 2:7-9

¶ “To hope is a duty, not a luxury. To hope is not a dream, but to turn dream into reality. Happy are those who dream dreams, and are ready to pay the price to make them come true. —Cardinal Leo Suenens

¶ “Sabbath is not simply the pause that refreshes. It is the pause that transforms. . . . It is an occasion for reimagining all of social life away from coercion and competition to compassionate solidarity. . . . Those who participate in [sabbath keeping] break the anxiety cycle. They are invited to awareness that life does not consist in frantic production and consumption that reduces everyone else to threat and competition.” —Walter Brueggemann, "Sabbath as Resistance"

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©ken sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Reprint permission is hereby granted in advance for noncommercial purposes.

News, views, notes, and quotes

Signs of the Times  •  23 August 2019 •  No. 200

¶ Processional. "Circle Song,” Bobby McFerrin & the Kuumba Singers.

Special issue
WHITE SUPREMACY
Part one

Introduction

When I prepare each issue of “Signs of the Times,” I go to the file of excerpted quotes from articles read and selected from a wide variety of media to find (1) the most timely and (2) the most relevant to a particular topic of focus for the week. I never have too little material and, given my self-imposed limit, have to make difficult decisions about what to exclude. On this topic, however, I had three times as much material as I could use.

        So for the first time I’ve decided to do consecutive columns on the same topic. This week’s edition focuses on the historic roots of racism. Next week we’ll look at the current landscape.

 

Preface

“No one cops to their own ingrained white supremacy, even though white supremacy
is the water and we are the fish, and it’s unlikely that we are not at least a little bit wet.”
—Timothy B. Tyson

        In recent years it feels like we have been drenched with news of a plague most thought was laid to rest with the successes of the Civil Rights Movement: festering white supremacy and white nationalism.

        An explosion of violent extremism, both here in the US and abroad. Mass shootings rooted in racial animus. A president who stirs hostility to immigrants, spews race-laced tweets, and fosters friendships with some of the world’s worst dictators (and, now, claims divine authority for trade wars).

        I’m remembering the response I got in the mid-‘80s to a grant request submitted to a faith-based foundation supporting justice, peace, and human rights advocacy. The request was for the production of material for use in local congregations on matters related to racial justice.

        I don’t recall the exact wording in their letter declining the request; but it was brief, something like “We already did that.” —continue reading “Preface to special issue on white supremacy (Part 1)”

Invocation. “Prayer infuses the air of a time yet to be into the suffocating atmosphere of the present.” —Walter Wink

Call to worship. “In my vision, Heaven’s Voice made the mountains shake and the meadows rumble. And I said, ‘I am not worthy to see such things! My lips cannot speak such wonder. My hands cannot hold it. I am only a little girl.’ But the One who breathes every breath said to me: Do not say ‘I am only a little girl.’” —continue reading “Send me,” a litany for worship inspired by Jeremiah 1:7-9 and Isaiah 6:1-8

Good news.  Justin Normand (below), who identifies himself as a Presbyterian, recently stood vigil for several hours outside a mosque in Irving, Texas, in a show of support to his Muslim neighbors. Read why he did this, posted at Sojourners.

Hymn of praise. “Alleluia,” Alejandro Consolacion II, performed by the Ansan City Choir at St. Olaf College, Minnesota. (Thanks Wade.)

In the 1850s the US threatened war against Japan unless they opened its ports to US commerce. “The missionary Samuel Wells Williams wrote, ‘I have a full conviction that the seclusion policy of the nations of Eastern Asia is not according to God’s plan of mercy to these peoples, and their government must change them through fear or force.

      “In 1852, the secretary of the Navy, John Kennedy wrote that Japan must recognize ‘its Christian obligation to join the family of Christendom.’

      Echoing similar arguments made early about Native American gold mines, the secretary of state, Daniel Webster, argued that Japan had ‘no right’ to refuse the US Navy’s ‘reasonable’ request to commandeer Japanese sovereign soil for its coaling stations because the coal at issue was ‘but a gift from Providence, deposited, by the Creator of all things . . . for the benefit of the human family.’

      “Commodore Matthew Perry, whose gunboats forcibly opened the Japanese market, said in a speech, ‘The people of America will extend their dominion and their power, until they shall have brought with their mighty embrace the island of the great Pacific, and placed the Saxon race upon the eastern shores of Asia.’” —quotes from James Bradley, “The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War”

Professing our faith.

• “[W]e are concerned about a persistent threat to both our religious communities and our democracy—Christian nationalism. Christian nationalism seeks to merge Christian and American identities, distorting both the Christian faith and America’s constitutional democracy. Christian nationalism demands Christianity be privileged by the State and implies that to be a good American, one must be Christian. It often overlaps with and provides cover for white supremacy and racial subjugation. We reject this damaging political ideology and invite our Christian brothers and sisters to join us in opposing this threat to our faith and to our nation.” —"Christians Against Christian Nationalism”

• Again we watch as fellow Christians weigh whether to fuse their faith with nationalist and ethno-nationalist politics in order to strengthen their cultural footing. Again ethnic majorities confuse their political bloc with Christianity itself. In this chaotic time Christian leaders of all stripes must help the church discern the boundaries of legitimate political alliances. This is especially true in the face of a rising racism in America, where non-whites are the targets of abominable acts of violence like the mass shooting in El Paso.” —read the full statement, "Open Letter: Against the New Nationalism: An Appeal to Our Fellow Christians," at Commonweal magazine

Confession. “History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.” —Maya Angelou

The mention of “papal bulls” would cause most Americans to think about Pamplona and the annual running of the bulls. Not quite. A papal “bull” is essentially a Pope’s official acknowledgement of a land grant. Several in the late 15th century together framed a church “doctrine of discovery” to Spain’s and Portugal’s respective conquests, conveying the Pope’s blessing “to capture, vanquish, and subdue the Saracens, pagans, and other enemies of Christ and put them into perpetual slavery and to take all their possession and their property.” —Vinnie Rotondaro, “Doctrine of Discovery: A scandal in plain sight”

        Several court cases in the US have cited this “doctrine of discovery” in justifying land grabs from indigenous peoples, mostly recently in a 2005 Supreme Court case: City of Sherrill, NY vs. Oneida Nation, which reads in part:

        “Under the ‘doctrine of discovery. . .” fee title (ownership) to the lands occupied by Indians when the colonists arrived became vested in the sovereign—first the discovering European nation and later the original states and the United States.” —For more see Katerina Friesen, “The Doctrine of Discovery and Watershed Conquest,” Radical Discipleship (Thanks Rose.) and “Discovery Doctrine,” Wikipedia  To read a primary source, see “The Doctrine of Discovery, 1493, issued by Pope Alexander VI.”

Hymn of supplication. "Manufactured truth is easy to sell / When you own the factory / And you own the hearts of the clientele / Can you really blame me? / Built on a system where some must fail / So that you can break through if you've got the right skin or you're born in the right country." —River Whyless, “Born in the Right Country” (Thanks Jayme.)

¶ “A year before the arrival of the celebrated Mayflower, 113 years before the birth of George Washington, 244 years before the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, this ship sailed into the harbor at Jamestown, Virginia, and dropped anchor into the muddy waters of history.  It was clear to the men who received this ‘Dutch man of War’ that she was no ordinary vessel.  What seems unusual today is that no one sensed how extraordinary she really was.  For few ships, before or since, have unloaded a more momentous cargo. The history of Black America began.”  —scholar and social historian Lerone Bennett, in his 1962 book, “Before Mayflower,” quoted in Nibs Stroupe, “Remembering 400 Years”

¶ “In order to achieve and sustain union among the 13 jealous colonies after the shooting started [US Revolutionary War], patriot leaders elaborated upon the ‘common cause’ argument: all Americans should resist British tyranny because imperial officials were inciting the enslaved, Indians, and foreign mercenaries to destroy them. Spreading these ideas through weekly newspaper articles, patriot leaders (especially Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, and Washington) made the “common cause” about racial exclusion.” —Robert Parkinson, author of “The Common Cause: Creating Race and Nation in the American Revolution, in an interview with John Fea" 

Words of assurance. "You cannot swim for new horizons until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore." —William Faulkner (Thanks Joe.)

Hymn of resolution. “Think I want to cry a little bit longer. / Think I want to pray a little bit deeper. / I want to break down from the fever. / But I can’t give up, and I won’t get back. / I’m not giving up the fight.” —Ruthie Foster, “The Fight” (Thanks Mike.)

Short story. “I used to teach an introduction to Afro-American history every semester to 200 or so undergraduates at the University of Wisconsin. One thing that was standard issue among a huge swath of the students was they could not believe they had not learned any of this in high school. Just jawdropping astonishment at the facts of the matter, at our actual history. I also noticed a kind of cycle: There’s this astonishment and confusion, and then there's guilt. White students feel guilty, as if this somehow could possibly be their fault. But guilt very quickly sours into resentment.” —Timothy B. Tyson, quoted in an interview with Will Jarvis, Chronicle of Higher Education

¶ On 5 May a group of white supremacists (photo at left) interrupted a Holocaust memorial event in Russellville, Arkansas, chanting “six million more,” a reference to the number of Jews who died during the Holocaust. —photo by Jasmin Joy Elma Lyon, Snopes

Word. “The question, ‘Why do children suffer?’ has no answer, unless it’s simply, ‘To break our hearts.’ Once our hearts get broken, they never fully heal. They always ache. But perhaps a broken heart is a more loving instrument. Perhaps only after our hearts have cracked wide open, have finally and totally unclenched, can we truly know love without boundaries.” —Fred Epstein, “If I Get to Five”

Preach it. “Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies / are not starving someplace, they are starving / somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils. / But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants. / We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure, / but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have / the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless / furnace of this world. To make injustice the only / measure of our attention is to praise the Devil. . . . / We stand at the prow again of a small ship / anchored late at night in the tiny port. . . . / To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat / comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth / all the years of sorrow that are to come.” —read the entire poem by Jack Gilbert, “A Brief for the Defense” 

Can’t makes this sh*t up. In his Wednesday morning tweets, Trump quoted [conservative radio host Allyn] Root saying, “President Trump is the King of Israel. . . . he is the second coming of God.” Later, in responding to reporters’ questions, Trump turned his head to the sky while saying “I am the chosen one” to handle trade relations with China.

Call to the table. “‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,'—that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know / That is all.” —John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”

The state of our disunion. “New Trump Policy Would Permit Indefinite Detention Of Migrant Families, Children.” —Brian Naylor, NPR

Best one-liner. “Forgive yourself for not knowing what you didn’t know before you learned it.” —Maya Angelou

Useful tools. Teaching Tolerance has developed a series of short videos devoted to “Teaching Hard History” on “slavery’s impact on the lives of enslaved people in what is now the United States and the nation’s development around the institution” and “how enslaved people influenced the nation, its culture and its history.”

For the beauty of the earth. Time-lapse video (2:50) of saguaro cactus blooming.  Saguaros are native to the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, the Mexican State of Sonora, and the Whipple Mountains and Imperial County areas of California. These plants can live up to 150 years.

Altar call. "The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate for the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise to the occasion. As our case is new, we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country." —Abraham Lincoln

Benediction. “Therefore, let us continue to praise God, to heed the Spirit’s call to playful embrace of Creation’s goodness. For by so doing, the impulse to hoarding and holding will be exhausted, and our capacity for hoping and healing will ever be renewed.” —continue reading “Let mutual love continue,” a litany for worship inspired by Hebrews 13

Recessional. “Adigio (Albinoni),” Hauser (cello) and the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra.

Lectionary for this Sunday. “Mercy’s requite,” a litany for worship inspired by Jeremiah 1:7-9 and Psalm 71

Lectionary for Sunday next. “Just got back from speaking to the Baptist Student Union. They wanted me to talk about ‘seeking God.’ As one student told me, ‘We just want to seek God's face and worship him.’

      “So I spoke from Hebrews 12 [vv. 18-29], where it recounts that Moses sought God on the mountain and the mountain shook. There was darkness and gloom, fire and smoke, and Moses said, ‘I tremble with fear.’ The text ends with, ‘for our God is a consuming fire.’

        “I told the students if they seek God, great; but they had better be careful. I've seen this God make sophomores sick, cause otherwise subdued English majors to lose control. I've seen senior marketing majors all set to graduate and pull down some big bucks meet this God and end up going to work the homeless and hungry. I've seen ROTC members meet this God and begin to question whether you can follow Jesus and be prepared to use violence at the same time. I've seen it!" —Kyle Childress

Just for fun. “Bye, Bye, Bye,” a back-to-school parody—which parents will understand. (3:25. Thanks Erica.)

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Featured this week on prayer&politiks

• "Labor in the shadow of sabbath," a Labor Day sermon

• “Send me,” a litany for worship inspired by Jeremiah 1:7-9 and Isaiah 6:1-8

• “Mercy’s requite,” a litany for worship inspired by Jeremiah 1:7-9 and Psalm 71

• “Let mutual love continue,” a litany for worship inspired by Hebrews 13

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

Feel free to copy and post any original art on this site. (The ones with “prayerandpolitiks.org” at the bottom.) As well as other information you find helpful.

Your comments are always welcomed. If you have news, views, notes or quotes to add to the list above, please do. If you like what you read, pass this along to your friends. You can reach me directly at kensehested@prayerandpolitiks.org.

 

Preface to special issue on white supremacy

Part 1

by Ken Sehested

“No one cops to their own ingrained white supremacy, even though white supremacy is the water
and we are the fish, and it’s unlikely that we are not at least a little bit wet.”
—Timothy B. Tyson

        In recent years it feels like we have been drenched with news of a plague most thought was laid to rest with the successes of the Civil Rights Movement: festering white supremacy and white nationalism.

        An explosion of violent extremism, both here in the US and abroad. Mass shootings rooted in racial animus. A president who stirs hostility to immigrants, spews race-laced tweets, and fosters friendships with some of the world’s worst dictators (and, now, claims divine authority for trade wars).

        I’m remembering the response I got in the mid-‘80s to a grant request submitted to a faith-based foundation supporting justice, peace, and human rights advocacy. The request was for the production of material for use in local congregations on matters related to racial justice.

        I don’t recall the exact wording in their letter declining the request; but it was brief, something like “We already did that.”

        You probably remember talk of a “post-racial society” after President Obama was elected. “Whitelash” (Van Jones) largely gave us Trump.

        There are innumerable connections to be made regarding the rise of white supremacy. Immigration is front and center. Awareness is rising of the largely hidden legacies of Jim Crow and lynching and mass incarceration in the US, and the displacement of indigenous populations throughout the Americas. Religious discrimination is blossoming here and abroad. Overt expressions of a multitude of white nationalist, neo-Nazi, and other rightwing groups—many with violent tendencies, some claiming Christian inspiration—are flourishing. Exploding levels of economic inequality have a strong racial component, domestically and internationally. On and on.

        For people of faith, one element of white nationalism is especially egregious: the emergence of white supremacy bathed in religious—mostly, Christian—sentiment. Many are learning, for the first time, of the history of the German church’s seduction by Make-Germany-Great-Again politics in the 1930s—and what the resistance, the “Confessing Church” movement, did in response.

        Thankfully, there are several initiatives by people of faith to counter this narrative. Two recent open letters, noted below, are circulating and collecting signatures. I urge you to read them both and be on the lookout for similar efforts, giving support in whatever way you can.

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©ken sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

 

Conflicting memorials

The Lord’s Table of remembrance vs. the nation’s vow of preeminence

Violence is evangelism for the Devil

by Ken Sehested

            My earliest memory of Memorial Day is of my Dad, puttering in his garage shop (he was a mechanic and jack-of-all-trades fixer-upper) on a rare day off from work, listing to the Indianapolis 500 car race on a portable radio. On one of those occasions I remember using a hammer, and the concrete garage floor, helping him straighten nails for reuse.

            Both my parents were children of the Depression. Thrift was a primal virtue even when it was no longer a necessity.

            I have no doubt Dad would silently recall some of his war-time experience while enduring the monotony of listening to race cars doing 200 laps around an oval track at speeds in excess of 200 mph. He managed to survive being in the first wave of troops landing at Omaha Beach in the 1944 D-Day invasion of Europe, though I can remember only once in my life when he talked about those days. I was an adult before I knew he carried a bit of 88mm German artillery shrapnel, bone-embedded, behind his right ear.

            There’s no doubt he suffered what we now call post-traumatic stress syndrome. Though an uncommonly a kind, generous man, I grew up learning to anticipate circumstances that could provoke inexplicable outbursts of rage.

            I inherited two memorable treasures from Dad’s days as a combat engineer. One is a “Shield” New Testament—which literally has a metal front cover engraved with the phrase “May this keep your life from harm,” given to him by one of his sisters before he shipped overseas. The other was a P-38 German officer’s pistol, which looks very much like the more famous “Lugar” model. I sold the latter to a gun dealer to help fund a mission project in Cuba.

            Along with the Indy car race, no Memorial Day weekend would be complete without a glut of retail sales, car excursions (over 39 million will drive at least 50 miles this year), and grilled meat (60 million pounds, according to one estimate) to accompany patriotic parades and flower adorning of graves of those who died in our nation’s wars.

            The latter moves further from the spotlight each year. Not because the casualties have ceased but because the makeup of our nation’s military is drawn from an increasingly smaller percentage of the population—the majority being refugees from a market economy which siphons wealth from the bottom to the top. Given this circumstance, the reliable pay of military service looks more attractive.

            Maybe it gets harder to maintain a Memorial Day focus simply because we have so many of such occasions. Altogether each year we have 14 commemorations which reference our nation’s military prowess.[1]

            Nevertheless, with all our fellow citizens, we stand in honor of such sacrifice and in acknowledgment of the grief borne by many.

            At the same time, though, the believing community needs to ponder the conflicting memorials which roll around nearly as often as the church gathers around The Lord’s Table, many of which bear the carved inscription featuring King James’ rendition: “This do in remembrance of me.”

            Whose remembrance takes center stage?

§  §  §

            “Greater love has none than this,” Jesus says in John’s Gospel, “than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (15:13).

            Yet with Jesus’ “greater love” affirmation, this question lingers: To what end is life righteously surrendered for the common good? Indeed, there are countless causes powerful enough to inspire martyrdom. Creating mayhem is a popular goal.

            We should be forever suspicious of those who praise the greater good and studiously avoid consideration of the common good—and by extension, for people of faith, of the Commonwealth of God.

§  §  §

            Among the many locales that lay claim to Memorial Day’s origins[2] is Columbus, Mississippi, where on 25 April 1866 four women processed from the city to Friendship Cemetery. One of them suggested that flowers be laid on the graves of all Civil War veterans—Confederate and Union alike—of which there were plenty, since the city had been a hospital town to which trainloads of the wounded and dead from both armies were transported after the massively brutal Battle of Shiloh in western Tennessee.[3]

            This, I dare say, is the only proper function of memorial days: to mark the grievous tragedy and squander of war, rather than to glorify its victims, exalt its agents, and indemnify its ongoing execution.

            The enduring scandal of the Gospel—even in a land like ours, purportedly “under God” and crowded with spires and steeples—is Jesus’ rejection of redemptive violence. As if God needs a little bloody shove to guarantee Heaven’s saving purpose. The arrogance of such a claim, disguised by the assertion of holy justice, is breathtaking in its design and pursuit.

            The community of faith’s claim is not to a higher moral purity than the soldier. In fact, the church should be jealous of the military’s ability to inspire young men and women to be trained for the day when going into harm’s way, for the sake of something larger than personal safety and private profit, is called for.

            The claim made by those rejecting sanctified violence is to a different mandate flowing from an alternative theological vision. Everyone wants peace, of course; none but a minuscule number of sociopaths gleefully promote war. But our dilemma is this: We also want what we cannot get without war.

§  §  §

            People of the Way remain committed to a peculiar allegiance and a distinctive conviction: that all violence, of every sort, is a form of evangelism for the Devil. Those who stand by this claim get no extra cookies nor receive special privilege. Pride is excluded from the armor of faith, and boasting is limited to the promise that loving enemies is the only fruitful way to lasting peace, in imitation of the one who refused the option of a militarized angelic rescue from the crucifier’s grisly work. (cf. Matthew 26:53)

            We make this profession of our faith even knowing that we ourselves are not immune from the lust for vengeance. As César Chávez, the great practitioner of nonviolent struggle for justice, said: “I am a violent man learning to be nonviolent.” Indeed, we are given the grace to confess our bloodlust precisely because we stand in merciful submission to the promise of life that is to come.

            The meek are getting ready. And they welcome the company of any with eyes to see and ears to hear Christ’s arising, arousing, and disruptive invitation to join Pentecost’s Resurrection Movement. Now, as much as ever, we are in a “fear not” moment. Wait a week—Pentecostal power, with its assault on earth’s beleaguered condition and seemingly endless walls of hostility, is coming. Babel’s confused tongues, nationalist claims, conflicting cultures, and racial enmity are being reversed.

            Lord, send the old-time pow’r.[4]

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Endnotes

[1] Ken Sehested, “Patriotic holidays in the US: The nation’s liturgical calendar celebrating our militarized history,” prayer&politiks.

[2] For more historical background, see Ken Sehested, “Memorial Day: A historical summary,” prayer&politiks.

[3] See Campbell Robertson, “Birthplace of memorial Day? That Depends Where You’re From,” New York Times.

[4] From the hymn’s refrain, “Pentecostal Power,” by Charles H. Gabriel.

©ken sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

Reversal of fortunes

What if schools enjoyed pork-barrel largesse and the military depended on corporate charity?

by Ken Sehested

     One recent slow morning, in late August, the grocery stores’ circulars in the newspaper caught my attention. I began to wonder how things might be different if certain fortunes were reversed. Instead of “back-to-school” it’s “back-to-basic-training” discount offers.

     Imagine, if you will:

      •At Ingles, earn $1,000 for mops for the Navy, boots for the Army, when you use your Advantage™ Card. And keep your eyes out for our “Box Tops for Top Guns” special deals to ensure cockpit decal maintenance.

      •Harris Teeter’s brand purchases maintain a steady supply of camouflage face grease for our special forces. Don’t forget to re-link for special deals at Lockheed Martin. Soldiers count!

      •Bi-Lo offers tools for troops. Every one of the more than 800 U.S. military bases outside the U.S. have benefited from this unique program, netting more than $9 million in free equipment for every branch of the service.

      Meanwhile, back in Washington, these headlines from major media outlets:

      •Fox News: “Whining base commanders grousing again about the amount of personal money they have to spend decorating barracks.”

   •NBC: “Congressional leaders unable to round up votes necessary to defeat another multi-million dollar ‘supplemental’ educational appropriation. The Speaker of the House claims Department of Education budget already ‘bloated’ with unnecessary pork.”

      •ABC: “Senate Health, Education and Labor Committee hearings underway for alleged corruption in ‘no-bid’ contracts to fulfill ‘No Child Left Behind’ spending.”

Right: Artwork by Dan Trabue.

      •CBS: “Pentagon brass say ‘bake sales no way to adequately fund quality national defense.’”

      •Associated Press: “Investigative reporter uncovers widespread complaints by Marine officers that merit pay is tied to low combat injury reports and exaggerated readiness testing.”

§  §  §

Written with thanksgiving for the teachers and educational administrators who know that knowledge is more than information, that character is not subject to cost analysis, and that learning potential exceeds the boundaries of test results. Don’t just thank a teacher. Argue for a different definition of national security.

#  #  #

Background

• “The emotional stress teachers are dealing with seems to be at an all-time high. In fact, a national survey shows that 58 percent of classroom teachers describe their mental health as ‘not good.’ And another survey confirms that nearly two-thirds feel their jobs are ‘always’ or ‘often’ stressful—roughly double the rates of stress experienced by the general workforce.” —Elizabeth Mulvahill, “Why Teachers Quit”

• “Almost a quarter of the teachers who have qualified since 2011 have already left the profession, according to official figures that have prompted further concerns about the pressures on the profession. Of those who qualified in 2011 alone, 31% had quit within five years of becoming teachers, the figures show.” —Michael Savage, Guardian

• A 2018 Gallup poll revealed “that almost half of teachers (48%) in the U.S. say they are actively looking for a different job now or watching for opportunities.” —Shane McFeely, “Why Your Best Teachers Are Leaving and 4 Ways to Keep Them”

 • "Public School Teachers Quitting at Record Rate: ‘I Had to Quit for My Sanity.’” —Daniel Moritz-Rabson, Newsweek

 • “94 Percent of U.S. Teachers Spend Their Own Money on School Supplies, Survey Finds.” —Niraj Chokshi, New York Times

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

News, views, notes, and quotes

Signs of the Times  •  8 August 2019 •  No. 199

Processional. “Sing, Sing, Sing,” Kyoto Tachibana High School Marching Band. (Thanks Connie.)

Invocation. “O Lord God of hosts, how long will you be angry with your people’s prayers? You have fed them with the bread of tears. . . . Restore us, O God of hosts, let your face shine, that we may be saved.” —Psalm 80:4-5, 7

Call to worship. “In this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard. . . . Love your hands! Love them. Raise them up and kiss them.” —Toni Morrison (18 February 1931 – 5 August 2019) Nobel Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner, rest in peace. Read the entire quote from “Beloved.”

Hymn of praise. “I was dead in the water, nobody wanted me / I was old news, I went cold as cold could be / but I kept throwing on coal try'na make that fire burn / sometimes you gotta get scars to get what you deserve / I kept moving on and now I'm moving up / damn, I'm feeling blessed with all this love / I think I finally found my hallelujah.” —Andy Grammer, and the choir of PS 22 Chorus, “Good to Be Alive”

Good news. “This evening, a group of nearly 20 Baptists [from Kentucky churches, see photo at right] took church to the railroad tracks in Harlan County. We sang, we prayed, and we encouraged the miners [who were blocking a coal train in their bid to get back pay from the bankrupt coal company] to keep pressing for justice." —Rev. Zach Bay, First Baptist Church of Middlesboro, Kentucky. For more info see “Blackjewel Miners Block Railroad To demand Pay From Bankrupt Coal Company,” Sydney Boles.

Hymn of intercession.  “There's a hole in this mountain and it's dark and it's deep / And God only knows all the secrets it keeps / There's a chill in the air only miners can feel / There're ghosts in the tunnels that the company sealed.” —Steve Earle and The Del McCoury Band, “The Mountain” (Thanks Sam.)

Confession. “The Mass Shooting Tracker project defines a mass shooting as ‘an incident where four or more people are shot in a single shooting spree. This may include the gunman himself, or police shootings of civilians around the gunman.’

        As of July 31, 2019, 248 mass shootings have occurred in 2019 that fit the inclusion criteria of this article. This averages out to 1.2 shootings per day. In these shootings, 979 people were shot; of those people, 246 have died.” There have been 9 additional mass shootings from 1-5 August.

Hymn of supplication. “No, no, no, enough praying / many things are needed / to achieve peace.” — English translation of “No Basta Rezar” ("Praying It Not Enough”), Los Guaraguao (Thanks Doug.)

Left: "The Black Madonna of Sacred Activism" by William Hart McNichols

¶ “The word ‘terrorist’ doesn't have a single, universally-accepted definition. The most commonly accepted definition is ‘a person who uses violence to achieve a political end,’ but that label is enormously problematic; by that definition, any people who engage in a war could be accurately described as terrorists.” —“Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters,” tvtropes.org

Professing our faith. “People of faith need to understand that life lived according to the demands of justice and the prerequisites of peace—the two of which are mediated by the ministration of mercy—is not merely an ethical calculation but is adoration, is our true and proper worship, of which we need constant reminding.” —continue reading "Calling terrorism by its true name: blasphemy"

The gunman who massacred 22 people, wounding two dozen more, in El Paso, Texas, published a vile manifesto on the internet shortly before he entered the Walmart with his assault-style rifle. In his manifesto, he spoke of a “Hispanic invasion.” And he also identified with the man who murdered dozens in mosques in New Zealand in March.

        “Since January, Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign has posted more than 2,000 ads on Facebook that include the word ‘invasion’ — part of a barrage of advertising focused on immigration, a dominant theme of his re-election messaging.” —Thomas Kaplan, New York Times

The shooter in Dayton, armed with an assault-style rifle with a 100-round magazine (like the one at right), was able to fire 41 bullets in 30 seconds, killing nine people and injuring 26.

Hymn of assurance. “We could be the healin' / When you're feeling all alone / We could be the reason / To find the strength to carry on / In a world that's so divided / We shall overcome / We could be the healing / We can be the flower in the gun.” —Michael Franti & Victoria Canal, “The Flower”

Short story. “Many years ago, when she was a young associate pastor and I was a younger intern, I watched Nancy Hastings Sehested cry in her sermon. After the sermon someone confronted her saying that she shouldn’t be crying in the pulpit. A few weeks later in another sermon, Nancy said, ‘There are some things worth crying over.’ Indeed there are and mass shootings are at the top of the list. Unlike the line in the movie A League of Their Own, ‘There’s no crying in baseball,’ there is crying in church. At least there should be. So what do we do? We cry, we lament, we weep with those who weep. And we get mad. . . .” Then “we organize.” —Kyle Childress, “What Do We Say?” Alliance of Baptists

Word. “No other nation on earth comes close to experiences the frequency of mass shootings that we see in the United States. No other developed country tolerates the levels of gun violence that we do. . . . We are not helpless here. And until all of us stand up and insist on holding public officials accountable for change our gun laws, these tragedies will keep happening.” —Barack Obama, response to the mass murders in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio

Hymn of resolution. “Some holy ghost keeps me hangin on, hangin on / I feel the hands, but I don't see anyone, anyone / I feel the hands, but I don't see anyone, it's there and gone / Feeds my passion for transcendence / Turns my water into wine / Makes me wish I was empty.” —Mavis Staples, "Holy Ghost"

¶ “If one of the perpetrators of this weekend’s two mass shootings had adhered to the ideology of radical Islam, the resources of the American government and its international allies would mobilize without delay. . . . No American would settle for ‘thoughts and prayers’ as a counterterrorism strategy.” —New York Times editorial

Terrorism as blasphemy

        • “The problem with the person who drove a lorry into a crowded market of Christmas shoppers wasn’t that he was too religious, but that he wasn’t religious enough. It was the action of a half-believer, the sort of thing done by someone who doesn’t so much believe in God—but rather believes in the efficacy of human power exercised on God’s behalf, as if God needed his help.” —Giles Fraser, Anglican priest and journalist in Britain, “How to defeat terrorists? True extremism,” Guardian

        • “For the person who resorts to random killing in order to promote the honour of God, it is clear that God is not to be trusted. God is too weak to look after his own honour and we are the strong ones who must step in to help him. Such is the underlying blasphemy at work.” —former Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams

        • “The point of religious terrorism is to purify the world of corrupting influences. But what lies beneath these views? Over time, I began to see that these grievances mask a deeper kind of angst and a deeper kind of fear. Fear of a godless universe.” —Jessica Stern in "Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill"

        • “The war on terror is the outgrowth of a deeply problematic theology of imperial violence which is a terrible perversion of true Christianity and which is adding to a global cycle of violence.” —Michael Northcott

Preach it. Arguably, the most articulate, passionate, incisive prophetic challenge in the history of US cable news. Every US citizen ought to be required to hear this 2:58 commentary. —Eddie Glaude, chair of the Department of African American Studies and the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, on MSNBC, Tuesday 6 August 2019

Can’t makes this sh*t up. “On a momentous day for Tribal Nations, Congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-WY), the House Republican Conference Chairwoman, stated that the successful litigation by tribes and environmentalists to return the grizzly bear in Greater Yellowstone to the Endangered Species Act ‘was not based on science or facts’ but motivated by plaintiffs ‘intent on destroying our Western way of life.’” —Native News Online  (Thanks Jimmy.)

Call to the table. “Come and remember who you are here  / Do this to remember who I am  / Come and remember you belong here  / All belong here.” —The Many, “All Belong Here”

The state of our disunion. President Trump, laughing after audience member suggests shooting migrants. —Guardian (0:38 video)

Best one-liner. “What a society does to its children, its children will do to society,” a Roman sage once said. —Mary Lou Kownacki, OSB, The Nonviolent Moment: Spirituality for the 21st Century

For the beauty of the earth. For years, these massive underwater sandcastles have been a mystery. Meet their unexpected architect. —Brut (2:06 video.)

Altar call. Watch this brief video (0:22) of an 11-year-old child pleading for her father’s return after ICE arrested some 680 workers at food processing plants in Mississippi.

        “Children finished their first day of school with no parents to go home to tonight. Babies and toddlers remained at daycare with no guardian to pick them up. A child vainly searched a workplace parking lot for missing parents.” —Ashton Pittman, Jackson Free Press

Consider these conclusions about ICE deportations:

        • Cheap migrant labor (authorized or not) is why your chicken is cheap, your produce fresh and affordable, your home and office and hotel inexpensively cleaned.

        • Employers have no excuse for hiring those not authorized to work in the US since the federal government has an E-Verify program to assess a worker’s status.

        • If ICE were serious about enforcement, legislation would be in place to imprison business executives and corporate board members for hiring violations.

        • “Without immigrants, the US economy would be a 'disaster,' experts say.” —Avianne Tan & Serena Marshall, ABC News

        • If every undocumented worker were deported overnight, there would be massive crop losses, because over half of the farm labor force have no authorization to work in the US. One-fourth of all domestic and cleaning workers are undocumented, as is 15% of construction labor. —Gina Creedon, Quora

¶ “Don't name the shooter, name the gun. The shooter wants the attention, the gun doesn't want the blame. Name the gun, and the bullets. Make and model. Manufacturer, address, CEO, board of directors, stock symbol, annual profits, lobbyists.” —Chris Sanders on Facebook

Left: The "Loldiers of Odin" formed in Finland to counter a [white nationalist] citizen patrol called Soldiers of Odin. The clowns danced around the streets the same nights that the patrols went out in the community, bringing acrobat hoops and a hobby horse.

Creative resistance. “Why Nazis are so afraid of these clowns. Clowns have an impressive track record of subverting Nazi ideology, de-escalating rallies and bringing communities together in creative resistance.” —Sarah Freeman-Woolpet, Waging Nonviolence 

Listen to the David Lamotte's "White Flour," recording of an illustrated story of confronting the Ku Klux Klan with humor. (5:42)

Benediction. “Take hope in Christ crucified and resurrected. It is in 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 and the Terror of God”

Recessional. “Amazing Grace,” President Barack Obama, at Mother Emanuel Baptist Church, Charleston, SC, after the 2015 mass shooting.

Lectionary for this Sunday. “Faith is contagious,” a litany for worship inspired by Hebrews 11

Lectionary for Sunday next. For the Lord of hosts “expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteous, but heard a cry!” —Isaiah 5:7

Just for fun. Rockin’ nuns. (Thanks Guilherme.)

SPECIAL NOTE. If you have not added your signature to the “Christians Against Christian Nationalism,” I urge you to do so.

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Featured this week on prayer&politiks

• “Thoughts and prayers, shots and tears: A meditation on mass shootings,” a short meditation

• “We tolerate no scruples: A summary history of 20th century bombing of civilian populations,” a new short essay

• “Calling terrorism by its true name: blasphemy,” a theological meditation

• “Faith is contagious,” a litany for worship inspired by Hebrews 11

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

Feel free to copy and post any original art on this site. (The ones with “prayerandpolitiks.org” at the bottom.) As well as other information you find helpful.

Your comments are always welcomed. If you have news, views, notes or quotes to add to the list above, please do. If you like what you read, pass this along to your friends. You can reach me directly at kensehested@prayerandpolitiks.org.

 

Calling terrorism by its true name: blasphemy

A theological meditation

by Ken Sehested

        In my mind, missing from the public conversation among mass shootings—about the clash between hatred and neighborliness of every sort—is the failure to acknowledge that behavior is always rooted in and propelled by a moral vision. That vision may be formally articulated and reasoned or merely be gut instinct and unreflected rage.

        That moral universe may be as simple as sheer anarchy, the struggle of each against all, but it does have a certain coherence. Our deepest convictions shape our behaviors, which then refine and reinforce (or rearrange or undermine) those core beliefs.

        All moral visions assume conclusions about the nature, intent, and purpose of power and, at least implicitly, the character of life’s destiny itself. Namely, who ultimately will endure; by what provisions; and aligned according to what design?

        I believe that every question of power is, in the end, a question about God: In a treacherous world, whose promises are sturdier? In Babel’s wake, whose words are trustworthy? In a world brimming with claims to authority—where significant commitments presume an outcome which cannot be verified ahead of time—whose covenant terms will endure?

        As St. Augustine said so very long ago, “We imitate whom we adore.”

        The inhabitants of terror’s province believe that death will have the last word. People of the Way, however, believe that the last word will be resurrection, where mourning and tears and pain will be no more; where death itself will be vanquished (Revelation 21:4).

        Therefore, people of faith need to understand that life lived according to the demands of justice and the prerequisites of peace—the two of which are mediated by the ministration of mercy—is not merely an ethical calculation but is adoration, is our true and proper worship, of which we need constant reminding. (Which is why we gather for worship.)

        As the Westminster Confession puts it: (Q) What is the chief end of humankind? (A) To glorify God. Yet all the church's historic creeds typically skip from cradle to cross to “crown of glory” with little reference to the actual mission and mandate of Jesus. When this occurs, redemption is separated from liberation; salvation becomes a divine bookkeeping transaction; and, in the words of Clarence Jordan, admiring Jesus is substituted for following him. Private souls are segregated from history; the Reign of God becomes an ephemeral, disembodied affair; and the Incarnation is emptied of all meaning.

        Adoration of God is not the result of heroic virtue, vigorous piety, or doctrinal rigor. Adoration is the result of being immersed in a beatific vision (and we all require lengthy soaking), a vision which takes concrete shape in the manner of Jesus, sustained and nurtured and interceded by the Holy Spirit. Doxology happens “when righteousness and peace embrace” (Psalm 85:10-13), when the commendation of Heaven is reflected in the restoration of Creation, human and humus alike.

        Adoration, doxology, is manifest in joy which, in the words of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, “is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.” Such presence blossoms into the waging of peace. As the promise in Isaiah discloses, “You shall go out in joy and be led back in peace” (85:12), at which time the hills burst forth in song, the trees in applause. A new heaven and a new earth are joined as one.

        Given these things, it is proper to call terrorism by its true name: blasphemy. It is to call into question the integrity of God’s promise and provision. Even worse, it is denial of the very existence of One capable of either creation or redemption. Given that void (which Scripture personifies as "the Devil"), we are told that we are on our own. Take what you can; keep what you can defend. Violence, thereby, is evangelism for the Devil.

            The vocation of faith is the ongoing work of exorcism.

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©ken sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

Thoughts and prayers, shots and tears

A meditation on mass shootings

by Ken Sehested

Our nation, averaging one mass shooting per day, now has suffered two in the span of 13 hours. Thoughts and prayers. Shots and tears.

Has there ever been a time when the practice of “prayer” has been so debased and its announcement greeted with such cynicism?

Maybe when Jesus compared the piety of the religious establishment to white washed tombs, radiant in the full light of day, yet full of rot and canker (Matthew 23:27).

Maybe when Isaiah scoffed at the priestly class of his day, who make a show of sanctimony and “delight to draw near to God,” yet deliver mischief and oppression and “strike with wicked fists” (58:2-4)?

Is it any wonder that the general public is so disenchanted with, even sickened by, religious ardor?

One could only wish that being swathed in sackcloth and smeared with ashes were enough. It is not.

Kyrie eleison.

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©ken sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

News, views, notes, and quotes

Signs of the Times  •  31 July 2019 •  No. 198

Processional. “Old Time Medley: Down to the River to Pray,” “Modeh Ani,” and “Hallelujah,” Nefesh Mountain.

Above: Photo by Doug Lowry.

Invocation. “Thus says Yahweh, author and anchor of creation,  / to the people of Promise whose memory has failed. . . / From Pharaoh’s deadly bargain I purchased your release.  / Why have you grown tired of my attention? / My heart recoils at the thought of plundering you / in order to pardon you. / Instead, I will woo you. I will wait you out.” —continue reading “Cheek to cheek,” a litany for worship inspired by Hosea 11 & Matthew 7:7–8.

Call to worship. “The Kingdom of God has no flag, no walls, no cages, and one official language: Mercy.” —author unknown

Hymn of praise. “Bless The Lord, O My Soul,” S. Rachmaninoff "All-Night Vigil" / Vespers, op. 37.

Good news. “Irish teenager wins global science award for removing microplastics from water.” —The Journal

Confession. “The Death of Emmett Till,” Bob Dylan.

¶ In August 1955 two white men in rural Mississippi kidnapped, tortured, and murdered 14-year-old Emmett Till, then dumped his body, weighed down by a cotton gill fan, into the Black Bayou near the Tallahatchie River. Till’s murderers were acquitted. This incident is often identified as a pivotal moment in the launching of the modern Civil Rights Movement.

        In 2007 a memorial marker sign (at right) was placed on the bank of the Tallahatchie River where Till’s body was found. It has been vandalized repeatedly. Just this past week three University of Mississippi students were pictured in front the memorial sign, two of them holding weapons.

¶ “[I]t is possible to understand why vandalism sometimes registers as terror. The vandalism is in effect (if not in intent) a forcible reclamation of white space. It turns markers of the black experience into reminders of white supremacy. Much like the burning crosses of the Klan, the bullet-riddled markers visibly announce white supremacy and foreshadow the violence that maintains it.” —Dave Tell, Chicago Tribune

Hymn of lament. “Wayfaring Stranger,” Hayde Bluegrass Orchestra.

 ¶ Centennial marker. “America in the summer of 1919 ran red with blood from racial violence, and yet today, 100 years later, not many people know it even happened.

        “It flowed in small towns like Elaine, Arkansas, in medium-size places such as Annapolis, Maryland, and Syracuse, New York, and in big cities like Washington and Chicago. Hundreds of African American men, women and children were burned alive, shot, hanged or beaten to death by white mobs. Thousands saw their homes and businesses burned to the ground and were driven out, many never to return.

Left: White children cheer after setting fire to an African American home in Chicago during the 1919 “Red Summer” of racial unrest that swept the nation from May through October. Although riots occurred in more than thirty cities throughout the U.S., the bloodiest events were in Chicago, Washington D.C., and Elaine, Arkansas. For more see Femi Lewis, ThoughtCo.

        “It was branded “Red Summer” because of the bloodshed and amounted to some of the worst white-on-black violence in U.S. history. . . .

        “There are no national observances marking Red Summer. History textbooks ignore it, and most museums don’t acknowledge it. The reason: Red Summer contradicts the post-World War I-era notion that America was making the world safe for democracy, historians say. ‘It doesn’t fit into the neat stories we tell ourselves,’ said David Krugler, author of 1919, The Year of Racial Violence: How African Americans Fought Back." —Jesse J. Holland, PBS

Four hundredth anniversary. “While Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell recently called human slavery America’s ‘original sin,’ he dismissed calls for the federal government to pay financial reparations to descendants of slaves. It has been 400 years since ‘20, odd Negroes’ in chains arrived aboard the English ship ‘The White Lion’ in Point Comfort, Virginia, in August 1619. A short time later, a second ship, ‘The Treasurer,’ brought more Africans to be sold to the white Virginia settlers who had arrived in Jamestown a dozen years earlier. . . ." —A. James Rudin, Religion News

Street level courage. “Residents in a suburban Nashville neighborhood (see photo at right) came together to protect an undocumented man as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers attempted to arrest him. After a four-hour attempted arrest — during which time the undocumented man and his young son barricaded themselves inside a van parked in front of their home — ICE agents left, and neighbors and activists on the scene created a human chain to allow the family to get indoors.” —Jasmine Aguilera, Time

Words of assurance. “You are not hidden / There's never been a moment / You were forgotten / You are not hopeless / Though you have been broken / Your innocence stolen / I will send out an army to find you / In the middle of the darkest night / It's true, I will rescue you.” —Lauren Daigle, “Rescue” (Thanks Tami.)

Professing our faith. “What a society does to its children, its children will do to society,” a Roman sage once said. —Mary Lou Kownacki, OSB, The Nonviolent Moment: Spirituality for the 21st Century

Hymn of resolution. “Your labor is not in vain / though the ground underneath you is cursed and stained / Your planting and reaping are never the same / But your labor is not in vain. / For I am with you, I am with you.” —The Porter’s Gate, “Your Labor Is Not in Vain”

¶ “How Border-Crossing Became a Crime in the United States.” —Becky Little, history.com

Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union told a federal judge Tuesday that the Trump administration has taken nearly 1,000 migrant children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border since the judge ordered the United States government to curtail the practice more than a year ago.” —Maria Sacchetti, Washington Post

Hymn of intercession. “I Behold You, Beautiful One.” —Acapellaboratory and Choral Conspiracy

Word. “One doesn’t have to operate with great malice to do great harm. The absence of empathy and understanding are sufficient.” —Charles M. Blow

In September 2017 the New York Times reported that the Department of Health and Human Services conducted a study, at President Trump’s request, estimating the long-term costs of the US Refugee Admissions Program.

        The internal study, which was completed in late July but never publicly released, found that refugees “contributed an estimated $269.1 billion in revenues to all levels of government” between 2005 and 2014 through the payment of federal, state and local taxes. “Overall, this report estimated that the net fiscal impact of refugees was positive over the 10-year period, at $63 billion.” —read more of David Emery’s reporting at Snopes

¶ “New York children read the words of their peers held in US Border Patrol facilities.” —video by Leah Varjacques and Taige Jensen, New York Times (3:29)

The Catholic Day of Action for Immigrant Children gathered over 200 individuals within the Catholic faith, representing 20 national organizations.

        “I was one of 71 Catholics arrested . . . for “crowding, obstructing, or incommoding” while praying the rosary. My prayer was — and is — to end the warehousing of immigrant children in cages — 63,624 of whom have been apprehended by border patrol at the southwestern border between October 2018 and June 2019 and seven of whom have died after being in federal custody since September. More than a dozen Catholic orders and organizations sponsored the event. —Rose Berger, “A Cross of Human Bodies,” Sojourners

All God’s children got shoes: Two very different stories

        • When Carrie Jernigan of Alma, Arkansas took her daughter to get a new pair of shoes at the Payless store (which was going out of business), her fourth-grade daughter, Harper, asked if they could get a pair for one of her friends who needed a new pair. Turns out, Carrie ended up buying that store’s entire inventory, 1,500 pairs of shoes, for kids in need. —Ben Kesslen, NBC (Thanks Loren.)

        • New record for most expensive sneakers. “A pair of 1972 Nike running shoes became the most expensive sneakers ever sold at auction, fetching $475,500 at Sotheby’s.” —CNBC

Preach it. “Interesting how ‘I’d kill for my kids’ is a widely accepted and agreed upon idea among Americans, but somehow ‘I’d illegally cross a border for my kids’ is a big no no.” —author unknown

Can’t makes this sh*t up.

       •“US authorities revoked International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda's entry visa to the United States, her office and the US State Department confirmed Friday.” —Jennifer Hansler, CNN

       • Article II of the US Constitution says “I have to the right to do whatever I want as president.” —President Trump, speaking in July at the Teen Student Action Summit

Call to the table. “Some holy ghost keeps me hangin on, hangin on / I feel the hands, but I don't see anyone, anyone / I feel the hands, but I don't see anyone, it's there and gone / Feeds my passion for transcendence / Turns my water into wine / Makes me wish I was empty.” —Mavis Staples, Holy Ghost

The state of our disunion. “The Trump administration went to court last week to argue that migrant children detained at the United States-Mexico border do not require basic hygiene products like soap and toothbrushes in order to be in held in ‘safe and sanitary’ conditions.” —Nicole Goodkind

Watch this short (3:55) video of Dr. Warren Binford describing the horrid conditions at a immigrant child detention facility in Texas. (Thanks Karen.)

Creative resistance. “Two California professors installed pink seesaws (see photo at left) at the U.S.-Mexico border to allow children in both countries to play with each other. Ronald Rael, an architecture professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and Virginia San Fratello, an assistant professor at San José State University in California, came up with the idea for a ‘Teetertotter Wall’ in 2009.

        “Their idea finally came to life at an event Monday in Sunland Park, New Mexico, when three bright pink seesaws were installed across the giant steel border wall, stretching into Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.

        “‘The wall became a literal fulcrum for U.S.-Mexico relations and children and adults were connected in meaningful ways on both sides with the recognition that the actions that take place on one side have a direct consequence on the other side,’ Rael wrote on Instagram.” —NBC News  (You can also watch a brief (0:19) video.)

Best one-liner. “I keep waiting for someone to tell me, ‘yeah, I was a fruit picker until those illegal immigrants arrived.’” —from the internet (Thanks Glenn.)

For the beauty of the earth. Drone footage of a blue whale and her calf swimming off the coast of San Diego, California. (2:53. Thanks John.)

Altar call. “Be forewarned, you nation of frivolous piety: You who turn the Most High God into a mascot for your charade of innocence while deceitfully invoking the Sovereign’s blessings on your affairs. Let there be no more God bless America, for your hands are full of blood.” —continue reading “Nation of frivolous piety,” a litany for worship inspired by Isaiah 1:15 & Psalm 99

Right: Mother of God: Protectress of the Oppressed, icon by Kelly Latimore

Benediction. “Faith is not belief in spite of the evidence. Faith is life lived in scorn of the consequences. / We catch it by surrounding ourselves with a cloud of witnesses, with the stories of faithful people, both from distant memory and direct experience.” —continue reading “Faith is contagious,” a litany for worship inspired by Hebrews 11

Recessional. “Psalm 23” (“Surely Goodness, Surely Mercy”), Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir. (Thanks Roy.)

Lectionary for this Sunday

• “Cheek to cheek,” a litany for worship inspired by Hosea 11 & Matthew 7:7–8

• “Let gladness swell your heart,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 107

• “Faith is contagious,” a litany for worship inspired by Hebrews 11

Lectionary for Sunday next. On the importance of unfiltered prayer: “I will accept no bull in my house.” —a play on the words of Psalm 50:9

Just for fun. Attack of the cute puppies. (1:00 video)

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Featured this week on prayer&politiks

• “Nation of frivolous piety,” a litany for worship inspired by Isaiah 1:15 & Psalm 99

• “Cheek to cheek,” a litany for worship inspired by Hosea 11 & Matthew 7:7–8

• “Let gladness swell your heart,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 107

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