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More is at work than what passes for the news

Pastoral encouragement for dispirited lovers of justice

by Ken Sehested
(in Pentecost’s wake 2020)

“The riches and beauty of the spiritual landscape are not disclosed to us
in order that we may sit in the sun parlour, be grateful for the
excellent hospitality, and contemplate the glorious view.”
—Evelyn Underhill

Almost every breakthrough begins with a breakdown.

Spiritually forming work is almost always uncomfortable and troubling, sometimes painful, occasionally threatening. In order to learn some things, we have to unlearn other things. As in Jesus’ puzzling saying, those who seek their lives must first lose them.

In the psalmist’s majestic image, we are destined to lie in green meadows beside still waters. But for now we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. “For thine is the kingdom” begins the closing affirmation of Jesus’ model prayer. Just before that, though, is the petition “deliver us from evil.”

Come, ye disconsolate, wherever ye languish

I’m remembering the first time, as a child playing football, I had my breath “knocked out” of me. I was terrified and literally thought I was going to die. Sometimes the journey of faith entails moments like that; yet another source of Breath is available to those who trust, as we are tutored in being still in the midst of havoc, fearing not in the face of threat.

To put one’s breath on the line, from the most ordinary of daily interactions to the more dramatic and rare occasions, is a statutory element of spiritual growth.

As the Apostle wrote, there is a kind of foolishness to faith; but it is not random or haphazard or unthinking. In addressing the world’s anguish, we hope to be effective. But our perseverance is not hitched to efficacy. We insert ourselves, compassionately and intelligently, because that's who we are. (Or at least who we are becoming.)

The little flock of Jesus has a larger, farther horizon. If and when we are faithful, it is only because we have heard and heeded the Word considered implausible by the logic of the world as is now constituted.

Come to the mercy seat, fervently kneel

Beloveds, things are not as they seem. Live-streamed tragedy saturating the airwaves encourages voyeurism (translated: advertisers’ dollars) and blistered rage. Cast your gaze higher, farther, wider, deeper. Allow the Beloved to adjust your sight, to steel your engagement, to strengthen your weak knees, to introduce you to the joy sturdy enough to outlive every night of weeping.

Wait for, work for, intercede for Another Voice, the Paraclete, who is available to those without a prayer, to the indigent of heart, to the unarmed and the unassuming, to those not distracted by the propagandists and racketeers.

They who now prance among the princes of deceit know not that their sun is setting, their time is up. Heaven’s blessing on Earth’s creation has been suppressed but not recanted.

Even now, the advance guard of the new Heaven and the new Earth are breaching the empire’s walls of exclusion and treachery.

(New York City’s famed Wall Street, the global center of financial piracy, was in colonial times literally the location of a wall to protect the southern parts of the peninsula from Native Americans.)

Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish

So take your cues from the Comforter. She will silence every threat, unravel every peril, forestall every danger, to safekeep your heart from every disquieting murmur.

Fret not over your breath, whether it can be stopped. It is merely on loan, and will be replenished by the self-same Breath who tamed the squalling waters before the first dawn’s light.

Let your prayer be: Give us today our daily breath.

For now, watch and wait. For now, let the groans of your heart channel the moans from the tear gassed streets, from the pandemic survivors’ grief, from every traumatized body and furrowed heart.

Locate your body near theirs. Intercede with loud protestations, with patient works of mercy, with unflinching demands for justice. De-invest in every derelict structure; re-invest in every neglected neighborhood.

Practice penitence, which alone offers the chance to heal wounds, renew covenant bonds, and halt history’s march toward tragedy. Perform Pentecost, whose edict privileges the commonweal over corporate avarice. Harness yourself to love’s demand, whose power alone can turn back the tide of fear-fomented vengeance.

Always, always remember: more is at work than what passes for the news.

Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal

#  #  #

©ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Italicized centered lines from “Come Ye Disconsolate,” Thomas Moore, adapted by Thomas Hastings. My favorite rendition of this song is the bluesy arrangement by Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway.

 

 

 

More is at work than passes for the news

Pentecost Sunday 2020 prose poem

by Ken Sehested

Almost every breakthrough begins with a breakdown. Goodness is not thereby assured; then again, neither is our breath, day by day.

We hope to be effective; but our perseverance is not hitched to efficacy. We insert ourselves, compassionately and intelligently, because that's who we are. (Or at least who we are becoming.)

The little flock of Jesus has a larger, farther horizon. If and when we are faithful, it is only because we have heard and heeded the Word considered “foolish” by the logic of the world as is now constituted.

Beloveds, things are not as they seem. Live-streamed tragedy saturating the airwaves encourages voyeurism (translated: advertisers’ dollars) and blistered rage. Cast your gaze higher, farther, wider, deeper. Allow the Beloved to adjust your sight, to steel your engagement, to strengthen your weak knees, to introduce you to the joy sturdy enough to outlive every night of weeping.

Wait for, work for, intercede for Another Voice, the Paraclete, who is available to those without a prayer, to the indigent of heart, to the unarmed and the unassuming, to those not distracted by the propagandists and racketeers.

They who now prance among the princes of deceit know not that their sun is setting, their time is up. Heaven’s blessing on Earth’s creation has been suppressed but not recanted.

Even now, the advance guard of the new Heaven and the new Earth are breaching the empire’s walls of exclusion and treachery. (New York City’s famed Wall Street, the global center of financial piracy, was in colonial times literally the location of a wall to protect the southern parts of the peninsula from Native Americans.)

So take your cues from the Comforter. She will silence every threat, unravel every peril, forestall every danger, to safekeep your heart from every disquieting murmur.

Fret not over your breath, whether it can be stopped. It is merely on loan, and will be replenished by the self-same Breath who tamed the squalling waters before the first dawn’s light.

For now, watch and wait. For now, let the groans of your heart channel the moans from the streets, from the pandemic survivors’ grief, from every traumatized body and furrowed heart.

Locate your body near theirs. Intercede with loud protestations, with patient works of mercy, with unflinching demands for justice.

Practice penitence, which alone offers the chance to heal wounds, renew covenant bonds, and halt history’s march toward tragedy. Perform Pentecost, whose edict privileges the commonweal over corporate avarice. Harness yourself to love’s demand, whose power alone can turn back the tide of fear-fomented vengeance.

Always, always remember: more is at work than what passes for the news.

#  #  #

©ken sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

Minneapolis fires, Pentecostal flame

by Ken Sehested

The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre—
To be redeemed from fire by fire.
T.S. Eliot, “Little Gidding,” lines from the final poem in his Four Quartets

T.S. Eliot’s poem, “Little Gidding,” was written in 1942 after the author survived the German bombing of London. He knew humankind faced a crucial choice: to be destroyed in the fires of enmity or to allow the fire of the Holy Spirit to refine, renew, and redeem.

Eliot’s lines are strikingly relevant today, in the week leading up to Pentecost Sunday, as we watch the fires from Minneapolis following the police lynching of George Floyd—the most recent in long string of similar tragedies.

Late last night I sat in stunned silence, agonized in heart, fearful in soul, body limp, watching the fiery conflagration in Minnesota. I instinctively wanted to be surrounded by a corps of wailing women from traditional cultures. I wanted to unsee what I was seeing.

Alas, there is no unseeing, no getting around, only getting through. Which will require renewed zeal in exorcising the original sin of our nation: racism.

We keep thinking the worst of that is behind us. It’s not.

People of faith need to recognize that racism represents the scorching of Pentecost.

Pentecost is my favorite day in the church liturgical calendar. (Which is reflected in the many things—litanies, poems, sermons, and commentary: see “Resources for Pentecost.”)

In my thinking, Easter represents God’s resurrection moment; Pentecost, God’s resurrection movement. As Richard Rohr has written, “If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it.” Pentecost is when the little flock of Jesus begins its equipping as insurgents against the walls of hostility.

Let the fire of the Spirit work: to be redeemed by fire from fire.

#  #  #

©ken sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

Resources for Pentecost Sunday worship planning

Litanies, poem, sermon, commentary, and a script for a choral reading of Acts 2:1-13

by Ken Sehested

• “Summon your nerve,” a call to the table on Pentecost

• “Pentecostal Passion,” a poem

• “T.S. Eliot’s Pentecostal agenda,” an essay

• “Summon your nerve,” a call to the table on Pentecost Sunday

• “All together,” a litany for Pentecost

• “This Little Flock of Jesus,” a litany for worship

• “The promise of Pentecost,” a sermon

• “Adelante—Keep Moving Forward,” a litany for worship

• “Worthy,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 29 and the Pentecost story in Acts 2

• “Pentecost,” a litany for worship

• “Earth Day: The link between Easter and Pentecost,” an essay

• “Loosed for life and love’s consent,” a litany for worship inspired by Acts 2:42-47

• “Kindle slavery’s funeral pyre,” a litany for worship inspired by Exodus 13:17-22 & the story of Pentecost in Acts 2

• “Why Psalm 104:35 needs to be included in the reading for Pentecost Sunday (Year A),” brief commentary

• “Day of Pentecost choral reading,” a script for choral reading, inspired by Acts 2:1-13

©ken sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

Memorial Day preparation quotes

The minority report

Compiled by Ken Sehested

§ No king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great strength. A horse is a vain hope for deliverance; despite all its great strength it cannot save. —Psalm 33:16-17

§ You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake. —Jeanette Rankin

§ What shall we do, we who are at war but are asked to pretend we are not? —Marvin Bell

§ War is as outmoded as cannibalism, chattel slavery, blood feuds, and dueling, an insult to God and humanity . . . and a daily crucifixion of Christ. —Muriel Lester

§ One of Bonhoeffer’s former theology students wrote him a letter from the Eastern front which tells of liquidating fifty prisoners of war in single day, of shooting women and children in the back of the neck for sneaking food to the captured and of burning down entire villages.  All these actions, which by Nuremberg standards would qualify as war crimes, are defended in anxious tones by Bonhoeffer’s young correspondent as having been committed because of “military necessity.” —George Hunsinger

§ An inquirer came to Tertullian, an early leader in the Christian church, and said: "I would be Christian, but after all, I do have to live, don't I?" "Do you?" the old man asked.

§ A church that is not able to take a firm stand against war is not a church which deserves to be believed. —Harvey Cox

§ Peacemaking is not an optional commitment; it is a requirement of our faith. We are called to be peacemakers, not by some movement of the moment, but by our Lord Jesus. —“The Challenge of Peace: God's Promise and Our Response: A Pastoral Letter on War and Peace,” US Catholic Bishops statement of 1983

§ How can you say Our Father if you plunge steel into the guts of your brother? Christ compared himself to a hen: Christians behave like hawks. Christ was a shepherd of the sheep: Christians tear each other like wolves. —Dutch theologian Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) in his essay “War Is Sweet to Those Who Have Not Tried It”

§. . . to be prepared for war is to be predisposed to war. —minutes from the 1952 Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting, report by its Social Service Commission

§ Show me who makes a profit from war and I will show you how to stop war. —Henry Ford

§ I was in the East End of London (a working-class quarter) yesterday and attended a meeting of the unemployed. I listened to the wild speeches, which were just a cry for “bread! bread!” and on my way home I pondered over the scene and I became more than ever convinced of the importance of imperialism. . . . My cherished idea is a solution for the social problem, i.e. in order to save the 40,000,000 inhabitants of the United Kingdom from a bloody civil war, we colonial statesmen must acquire new markets for the goods produced in the factories and mines. The Empire, as I have always said, is a bread and butter question. If you want to avoid civil war, you must become imperialists. —Cecil Rhodes, the millionaire British capitalist for whom Rhodesia was named

§ In time of war the first casualty is truth. —Boake Carter

§ When the rich wage war it is the poor who die. —Jean-Paul Sartre

§ Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. —U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower

§ I will save them—not by bow, sword or battle, or by horses and horsemen, but by the LORD their God. — Hosea 1:7

§ When wars are fought, thousands of trained soldiers are mobilized, highly trained experts and sophisticated technologies are activated. When peace is to be created, the world sends one person to shuttle back and forth between some of the parties. —Jan Oberg, director of Sweden's Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research

§ Those who died in war were better off than those who died later, who starved slowly to death, with no food to keep them alive. —Lamentations 4:9

§ O, that we who declare war against wars, and acknowledge our trust to be in God only, may walk in the light, and therein examine our foundation and motives in holding onto money! May we look upon our estates, our treasures, the furniture of our houses, and our garments, and try whether the seeds of war have nourishment in these, our possessions. —John Woolman, 18th century Quaker

§ An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.  —Mohandas Gandhi

§ We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. . . . Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.  —General Omar Bradley

§ The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows. One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but means by which we arrive at that goal.  —Martin Luther King Jr.

§ In modern warfare, seven children die for every soldier. —1993 United Nations report

§ It must now be obvious that we cannot live in a free, pluralistic society, enjoying our CD players and eating at Burger King and driving cars from every point on the globe without realizing that there must be a cost for such freedom. . . . —1991 letter during the Gulf War to the editor, Memphis, TN, from a military surgeon

§ The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his. —General George Patton

§ When I pray for peace, I pray not only that the enemies of my own country may cease to want war, but above all that my own country will cease to do the things that make war inevitable. —Thomas Merton

§ War is not an accident. It is the logical outcome of a certain way of life. If we want to attack war, we have to attack that way of life.” —A. J. Muste

§ Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. — Psalm 20:7

§ The only way I know to pluck from the hearts of enemies their desire to destroy us is to remove from their lives the sense that, for their own physical and spiritual survival, they must. —novelist David James Duncan

§ Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind…. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded with patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader, and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar. —William Shakespeare

§ War is good for the economy like cannibalism is nutritious. —George Bernard Shaw

§ I am sick and tired of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell. —General William Tecumseh Sherman

§ Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on the farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? . . . Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country. —Nazi leader Hermann Goering

§ If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. — Proverbs 25:21-22

§ Every piece of this [war] is bullshit. They call this war a cloud over the land. They made the weather, then they stand in the rain and say, “Shit, it’s raining.” —Renee Zellweger, as Ruby Thewes, in the movie "Cold Mountain"

§ Give in to your anger. With each passing moment, you make yourself more my servant. —Emperor Palpatine in “Star Wars”

§ Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness—and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe. —Arundhati Roy, Indian novelist

§ According to U.N. Development Fund for Women, 15 percent of wartime casualties in World War I were civilians. In World War II, 65 percent were civilians. By the mid ’90s, over 75 percent of wartime casualties were civilians. . . . In Iraq, for every dead U.S. soldier, there are 14 other deaths, 93 percent of them are civilian. . . . —Sr. Joan Chittister

§ Between 1800 and 1934, U.S. Marines staged 180 landings abroad. And that’s not even counting the Indian wars the army was fighting every year until 1890. —Max Boot

§ We do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. —2 Corinthians 10:3-4

 § As a minister, he steadfastly refused to mix politics and religion. In the pulpit, he stayed away from issues such as gay rights, abortion, and war, preferring instead to teach what Jesus taught—love your neighbor, help the less fortunate, forgive others because you have been forgiven, and follow God’s laws. —description of Rev. Schroeder, a character in John Grisham’s novel, The Confession

§ People are a lot more comfortable with a Predator [drone] strike that kills many people than with a throat-slitting that kills one. —Vicki Divoli, former CIA lawyer

§ Iconic journalist Walter Cronkite got his first significant reporting job when he was hired in 1937 by United Press, where he soon was covering the war in Europe. Hugh Baillie, president of UP, urged his reporters to “get the smell of warm blood into their copy.” —Douglas Brinkley

§ I remembered Bayard Rustin, a conscientious objector who had served time in prison during the Second World War and then became a leader in the civil rights movement, saying that being a pacifist is one-tenth conscientious objection and nine-tenths working to do away with the things that make for war. —David Hartsough

§ When you ask young men to kill people for a living, it takes a whole lot of effort to rein that in. —Reserve Marine Lt. Col. Paul Hackett

§ Christians whose loyalty to the Prince of Peace puts them out of step with today’s nationalistic world, because they are willing to love their nation’s friends but not to hate their nation’s enemies, are not unrealistic dreamers who think that by their objections they will end all wars. On the contrary, it is the soldiers who think they can put an end to wars by preparing for just one more. —John Howard Yoder

§ Recalling cynically those politicians who gush on about gallantry and sacrifice in warfare, E.B. Sledge, a veteran of the World War II campaigns at Peleliu and Okinawa wrote, “The words seemed so ridiculous. Only the flies benefited.”

§ It is directly contrary to the nature of Christ Jesus . . . that throats of men should be torne out for his sake. —17th century religious liberty champion Roger Williams

§ We used to wonder where war lived, what it was that made it so vile. And now we realize that we know where it lives, that it is inside ourselves. —Albert Camus

§ I am a violent man learning to be nonviolent. —Caesar Chavez

§ When all the men of war are killed / And flags have fallen into dust / Your cross and mine will tell men still / He died on each for both of us / That we might become the brothers of God / And learn to know the Christ of burnt men / And the children are ringing the bells of Gethsemani. —Thomas Merton

§ We seem always ready to pay the price for war. Almost gladly we give our time and our treasures—our limbs and even our lives—for war. But we expect to get peace for nothing. —Peace Pilgrim

§ If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there’d be peace. —John Lennon

§ War is not inherent in human beings. We learn war and we learn peace. The culture of peace is something which is learned, just as violence is learned and war culture is learned. —Elise Boulding

§ God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives. And God is with us, if we are with them. —Bono, lead vocalist for U2

§ President Bush should “blow them [terrorists] away in the name of the Lord.” —Rev. Jerry Falwell in a 2004 CNN interview

§ Peace is love that is passed on from generation to generation. —Clifford, age 8, quoted in Seeds of Peace

§ If we cannot pray for the time to come when God’s almighty arm will hold back warring armies, then it is a mockery to believe that God makes all things new. —Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt

§ Long have I held that war is an enormous crime; long have I regarded all battles as but murder on a large scale. —Charles Spurgeon, noted 19th century British Baptist pastor dubbed the “Prince of Preachers”

§ Fascism believes neither in the possibility nor in the utility of perpetual peace. It thus repudiates the doctrine of Pacifism—born of a renunciation of the struggle and an act of cowardice in the face of sacrifice. War alone brings up to their highest tension all human energies. —Italian dictator Benito Mussolini

§ My sincere view is that the commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions—or bury the results. —Marine Lt. Gen. Gregory S. Newbold, former operations officer for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who resigned four months before the 2003 invasion of Iraq

§ Being a pacifist between wars is as easy as being a vegetarian between meals. —Ammon Hennacy

§ We kill at every step, not only in wars, riots, and executions. We kill when we close our eyes to poverty, suffering, and shame. —Eberhard Arnold

§ Defending U.S. military censors’ refusal to release video footage showing Iraqi soldiers being cut in half by cannon fire from helicopters, a Pentagon senior official said: “If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war.” —quoted in The Christian Century, 11 December 1991

§ War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. —Major General Smedley Butler, US Marines (retired)

§ You have heard it said of old, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: but I say unto you, that you resist not evil with evil; but whosoever shall smite you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also.  — Matthew 5:38-42

§ The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force. —former US President Thomas Jefferson

§ Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac. —George Orwell

§ Here’s what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial. And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we’re hooked on. —Kurt Vonnegut

§ See that none render evil for evil to any person. — I Thessalonians 5:15

§ Force is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or thinks he does, as it is to its victims; the second it crushes, the first it intoxicates. The truth is, nobody really possesses it. —Simone Weil

§ And when it was claimed / The war had ended, it had not ended. —Denise Levertov

§ Peace plans its strategy and encircles the enemy. / Peace marshals its forces and storms the gates. / Peace gathers its weapons and pierces the defense. / Peace, like war, is waged. / But Christ has turned it all around: / the weapons of peace are love, joy, goodness, long-suffering; / the arms of peace are justice, truth, patience, prayer; / the strategy of peace brings safety, welfare, happiness; / the forces of peace are the sons and daughters of God.   —Walker Knight

§ What causes wars? Is it not your longings and lusts? You desire and do not have; so you kill. And your covet and cannot obtain, so you wage war. —James 4:1-2

§ The sword of murder is not the balance of justice. Blood does not wipe out dishonor nor violence indicate possession. —19th century author Julia Ward Howe

§ War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography. —American writer and satirist Ambrose Bierce

§ Then I saw a new heave and a new earth. And I heard a loud voice saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. God will wipe away every tear, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.” —Revelation 21:1-4

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

 

Memorial Day piety

A meditation on the day's significance

by Ken Sehested

        My question is not whether we should mourn, legitimately and unreservedly, the loss of our war dead on Memorial Day.

        Yes. A thousand times yes.

        My question is, on what day should we also mourn the loss of others’ war dead? Indeed, one of Memorial Day’s stories of origin traces to April 1866 when a group of women in Columbus, Mississippi, decorated the graves of Confederate solders. Noticing the nearby barren graves of Union soldiers, the women place flowers on those as well.

        Do we have no time or occasion, for instance, to mourn the loss of Afghanistan’s and Iraq’s casualties, the young and old especially, the women and children and all others whose only misstep was being in the wrong place at wrong time? The body count over the last 15 years alone of U.S. military engagement in these two countries begins, conservatively, at one million, the overwhelming majority noncombatants, consumed in retaliation for the loss of some 3,000 in the 9/11 terrorist attacks on our shores.

        Truth be told, though, Memorial Day piety too often serves to rally the emotions of national vanity and stoke the flames of vengeance. In doing so, we are caught up again in the logic of Lamech’s contention.

        In the book of Genesis, immediately following the story of Cain's murder, is a brief genealogy of five generations of Cain's descendants, culminating with Lamech. The only thing we know about him is his hot pledge: "I have killed a man for wounding me; a young man for striking me. If Cain is avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold" (Gen. 4:23a-24). By chapter six, the relation between sin and violence is summarized in concise and explicit terms: "Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence" (6:11). The presence of physical violence is the unmistakable indicator of spiritual corruption.

        I happen to believe that the failure to love enemies, resulting in the resort to calculated violence, is to hedge your bet on Jesus. Others will argue differently.

        So let’s be very clear about this: The disagreement between proponents of just war and those of principled nonviolence does not include competition for divine affection. God is utterly beyond such partiality, and nothing we can do will tip the scales of beloved attention. No one gets more cookies, seating upgrade or pay-for-play access to seats of power. The contrast in opinion is not a contest over who excels in moral heroism, superior courage, or intellectual rigor.

        The difference isn’t over virtue and decency but vision and discernment, discernment of the shape of God’s imminent domain (aka what Jesus named as the kingdom of God) based on what God has done in the past, on what God has promised for the future, and how those of us on the Jesus Road can best align ourselves to that direction.

        Moreover, the disagreement is not merely between these two positions but also within each of them. In any given season or circumstance people of equal compassion and courage and intellect can and will disagree over a spectrum of details. None can claim privy access to the will of God, the mind of Christ or the movement of the Spirit.

        The choice demands each person’s studied attention and devoted commitment, assessed, corrected or refined within a community of conviction. Unfortunately, there is no empirical test to verify accuracy prior to risky engagement. However, should convictions shift based on new insight, turning this way or that remains an option. The worst you can do is remain a bystander.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

Pastoral dilemmas with observing Mother’s Day

by Ken Sehested

            Those of a certain age may share my childhood church experiences of Mother’s Day. During the service, the oldest and youngest mothers present were recognized. All women were offered carnations to wear, pink if your mother was living, white if deceased. And of course, families took Moms out to eat lunch after church, so she wouldn’t have to cook that Sunday(!).

            This was in a time—long ago in a galaxy far, far away—when restaurant visits among my social strata were rare. In my rearing, the only eating out was occasional trips to the Dairy Queen for burgers, a few times on vacations (which were still burger events for me), and Mother’s Day.

            Nowadays, the average American eats out an average of 5.9 per week.

            A brief anecdote by Maralee McKee (“America’s modern manners and etiquette expert) illustrates how unintentionally brutal those Mother’s Day observances could be.

            “I once suffered a miscarriage shortly before Mother’s Day,” she writes. “When I entered the sanctuary that Sunday, an usher carrying a basket of carnations greeted me. ‘Happy Mother’s Day, pretty lady!’ He innocently beamed. ‘I know you must be a mom! Here’s a flower.’ In a sudden daze I accepted the flower from his hand and rushed to the bathroom crying.”  

            In the early years of our congregation’s life, we pastoral leaders put special effort in planning Mother’s (and Father’s) Day—though without the sentimental trappings—to highlight and honor the work of parenting. Typically, in place of a sermon, we asked selected members to speak of their own mother’s and father’s enduring influence on their lives.

            We heard some extraordinary stories of steadfast strength, and encouragement, and tenderness, and gratitude in those testimonies. But afterwards, to our genuine surprise, we got more than a little pushback from others.

Right. A Mother's Day poem written some years ago in honor of my Mom, who died on 25 February 2020.

            The initial complaint came from one of our members who very much wanted to have a child but was biologically unable to do so. She experienced the emphasis on mothering as a torment. Others resisted the emphasis because of their history of parental discord, abuse or abandonment. Others were still grieving the loss of a mother or father, and the liturgical attention stirred more pain than appreciation.

            We eventually stopped marking these days in any focused way, something I still regret. I wish we could have adapted our observances to provide opportunity to acknowledge, for some, the painful memories. Generally speaking, though, the church doesn’t do lament very well. (But that’s another essay.)

            In Scripture’s cultural background, the inability to have children was a profound source both of social shame and an economic hazard—which is why the reversal of barrenness was a lucid metaphor of God’s saving work (as with Sarai in Genesis 11:30 and Elizabeth in Luke 1:7). Vividly, the author of Proverbs compares Sheol to “the barren womb, the earth ever thirsty for water, and the fire that never says ‘Enough’” (30:16).*

            In his final hours as he bore the cross to his place of execution, Jesus says to women grieving his fate: “For the days are surely coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.’” The context of his statement is a warning against the destruction to come, basically saying “thank God you don’t have children who will suffer this fate.” But by implication, in the age to come, such as these will have their shame turned to fecund praise (Luke 23:29).

            I have a number of friends who have adopted children who do not allow the lack of familial genetics to be a barrier to steadfast parenting. And many more friends, with or without their own children—teachers, child care providers, grandparents and aunts and uncles, godparents, coaches—who play invaluable nurturing roles in the lives of young ones. The ancient African proverb—“It takes a village to raise a child”—is no less pertinent, now and here, as there and then.

            Parenting is a profound responsibility, not to mention a perilous duty, and communities of faith need to learn how to recognize, support and enrich this calling, without stigmatizing those who don’t have children, or traumatizing those who have lost children, or reifying inherited gender roles.

#  #  #

*Other texts that speak of the work of God’s redemptive power illustrated as the reversal of “barren” (childless) status include: Genesis 11:30, 25:21, 29:31; Exodus 23:26; Judges 13:3; 1 Samuel 2:5; Psalm 113:9; Isaiah 49:21, 54:1; Luke 1:7, 1:36; Hebrews 11:11.

See also:
• "On the flow of tears: For my daughters," written as a personal reflection on fatherhood
• "A brief history of Mother's Day"
• "Mother's Day: A litany for worship drawn from the words of Julia Ward Howe"

©ken sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

 

In the future, here are seven things I’ll recall about our present COVID pestilence

by Ken Sehested

        If specific moments can serve as memory triggers for a larger historical period, I would nominate seven current headlines to characterize this COVID-19 season in US history.

        1. The death by suicide of Dr. Lorna M. Breen, a renowned emergency room doctor in New York City, who, with her colleagues, bore the brunt of treating massive numbers of COVID-19 admittances.

        She eventually fell victim to the virus, took off 10 days to recover, returned to the emergency room, collapsed on the floor, then went to live with her sister in Virginia to recover. She had no history of mental illness; was active in sports and an avid salsa dancer; was a deeply religious person who volunteered weekly at a nursing home.

        The sheer tragedy of what she was witnessing was too much to bear. Her dying should knock our socks off.

        2. Among the radical right-wing groups protesting in several state capitols (whose rallies are coordinated and funded by wealthy donors with white nationalist sympathies) demanding the reopening of the economy, one young woman in Nashville carried a sign saying, “Sacrifice the Weak.”

        The sentiment is not new in US or in global history, of course. The 5th century BCE Greek historian Thuycydides wrote: “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”

        This sentiment is precisely behind the Nazis’ infamous “Final Solution” to exterminate not only Jews but also homosexuals, gypsies, and those with physical or mental disabilities.

        Former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan was himself a fan of Ayn Rand, the novelist-philosopher who wrote that the Great Commandment to love your neighbor is tantamount to “moral cannibalism,” and that those who live for others are “parasites.”

        The gunslinging hecklers’ chants for “freedom” in our state capitols demonstrate how decadent and licentious that honorable word has become.

        3. We now know that the pandemic spreads fastest in crowded quarters, e.g., prisons, nursing homes, and meat packing plants. So President Trump’s use of the Defense Production Act to order those plants to reopen is effectively an order condemning countless low-income workers, many of them people of color, to painful sickness and even death.

        It appears the only reason the president did not similarly act to mandate industries to gear up the production of testing kits—which every medical professional knows is essential to prevent higher levels of infection—is to disguise the actual spread of the disease and further damage his reelection campaign. Of all the cruelties and crimes he has committed, none may be more blatantly, singularly hideous.

        (As of 1 May 2020, 37 other countries had tested a higher percentage of their population than the US. Congress’ own physician, Dr. Brian Monahan, says he does not have enough COVID-19 test kits to test the 100 senators Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is calling back into session in the coming days.)

        4. “That's the story of healthcare in America today,” said former insurance executive Wendell Potter after the largest private health insurance provider in the US announced that it saw a significant increase in profits over the last three months while the Covid-19 pandemic killed tens of thousands and forced millions more off their employer-sponsored coverage.

        5. Maryland’s Republican Governor Larry Hogan managed to purchase thousands of COVID-19 test kits from South Korea. He now has them stored in a secret location protected by members of the Maryland National Guard and State Patrol officers.

        Why? To protect the shipment from being confiscated by the federal government, which has expropriated supplies ordered from private companies by other states in recent weeks.

        6. Who can forget President Trump’s suggestion that injecting disinfectant might be a cure for the virus. Was he was being sarcastic? Watch this 1:11 video and judge for yourself.

        7. No statement I’ve heard or read in recent weeks is more telling that this one from Minnesota nurse Emily Pierskalla:

        “If I die, I don’t want to be remembered as a hero.

        “I want my death to make you angry too.

        “I want you to politicize my death. I want you to use it as fuel to demand change in this industry, to demand protection, living wages, and safe working conditions for nurses and ALL workers.

        “Use my death to mobilize others.

        “Use my name at the bargaining table.

        “Use my name to shame those who have profited or failed to act, leaving us to clean up the mess.

        “Don’t say ‘heaven has gained an angel.’ Tell them negligence and greed has murdered a person for choosing a career dedicated to compassion and service.”

        I understand our desire to encourage front-line workers—like medical professionals—with expressions of gratitude. And I sincerely hope each and every one finds a measure of comfort in the words and acts of appreciation popping up not just here but around the world.

        But the "hero" tag should trouble us as well. It is too easy to do the charitable work of assigning personal gratitude while ignoring the structural fractures that recklessly put our medical professionals (among others) in harm's way.

        It's as if we are saying, "Thank you for being willing to die, so we don't have to change our ways."

        This is gross. This is imbecilic. This is cowardice. This is manifestly immoral. We have no shame. God have mercy on our souls, for no other authority will suffice.

        Offer your heartfelt applause as vigorously and personally as you can for those now carrying a heavy load of the public’s welfare. But don’t let such expressions become a kind of penance which absolves us from the hard work of recasting public policies that preference the common good over private greed.

        Like the virus, the market has no conscience, no purpose, no aspiration, other than to reproduce itself.

#  #  #

©ken sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

 

Hallelujahs and heartaches, too

On the 50th anniversary of Rev. Francisco Rodés’ ordination

by Ken Sehested

What a day! What a day! Not to
mention a year, fifty of them piled
head-to-toe, some of them a bit
fuzzy now (thank God!), others
like constellations whose radiance
still guides during dark nights
of the soul. Little did you know,
a half-century ago, what your
profession would involve,
where your convictions would
take you, the joys then unimaginable,
the sorrows ruthless beyond belief.
And the "ordinary" days, the days
for which songs are never
composed, for which cakes are
never baked, for which poems
are never rhymed nor hymns
inspired, for which hardly anyone
but the Beloved took note.

Scores upon scores of hallelujahs
and heartaches, too. Cares that kept
you up at night and joys that set
you moving at the first sight
of dawn’s light.

If you could have known then
what you know now, would
you have allowed those
authorizing hands to be laid
on your head? Would you,
instead, have run screaming
from the room, faster than Jonah
in a speed boat, further than
Tarshish multiplied many
times over? Bemoaning the day
of your birth, more bitterly than
Jeremiah? Cursing God more
boldly than Job, demanding
a grand jury indictment for
the Most High?

Might you have sought an easier
Gospel to declare—a softer,
more digestible—
thus recommendeth the Lord?—
Would you have preferred a cool
breeze and votive candle to
Pentecost’s raging wind and
flaming tongues of fire? Maybe
a luxury hotel room to the
Nativity’s barn-yard stable?
Did another life, of air-conditioned
ease in los Estados Unidos, tempt
your fate? Or a leather-seated,
power-windowed Mercedes
instead of el burro?*

Wouldn’t it all have been easier
if Jesus had turned those rocks
to bread. Or cut a deal with the devil
in order to accomplish salvation’s end?
Or to undertake a few magical feats
to pack the sanctuary and grow
the budget? What harm could that
have done?

But, no. Nooooo. You knew, down
in your toes if not in your head,
that there is no skipping
from the crib to the cross to the
Crown of Glory. No shortcuts to
bypass those ordinary days. No
passing the cup of those agonizing
experiences. No surge protection
against joy’s electrifying arc.

For there is no ordinary in
ordination’s destination. In this
bondage, and this alone, does
freedom break out. In this
submission, does liberty emerge.
In such precarious life does
restlessness encounter the
peace that passes all understanding.

Be still. Fear not. The Promise
endures, even on those days when
you think your work’s in vain.
Live large, my friend.
Laugh often, and love well.

#  #  #

©ken sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org, 2 June 2014, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Francisco Rodés’ (now pastor emeritus, Primera Iglesia Bautista, Matanzas, Cuba) ordination to the Gospel ministry.

*My friend’s nickname for his 30 year-old Lada, a cheap Russian car. On one trip together he repaired a leaky radiator gasket with chewing gum.

The spokes of grief spin on the axis of hope

by Ken Sehested

These are most surely the days to trace the shape of
hope in the swirl of despair: to reassure children, to
encourage harried parents, to tip big-time, to speak out
loudly against vacuous leaders, to praise medical
professionals, to acknowledge teachers who are
working harder than ever (with exponentially less
notice), to celebrate cleaner air (a foretaste of what
could be if together we were to rigger the needed will
for weaning from fossil fuels). And on and on. (Add here
your nominees for concerted public attention.)

Nevertheless, do not forsake the labor of lament, of
public rituals naming the anguish, of the singing of sad
songs. The very spokes of grief spin on the axis of hope.
No one grieves aloud except for the deep down
awareness that life has come off the rails of gracious
accord, of promised bounty, and the practice of
neighborliness embedded in our DNA.

Only the silenced bear the weight of hushed
abandonment. So pay attention to the silence, not the
noise. This is where you are needed. Ask permission to
come alongside their discomfort. Be a parable of shelter
and comfort; let the taste of salt fill your mouth as you
regard their tears; shine light on their circumstances;
champion their fate.

The road to Heaven is trod in the company of silenced
companions and strangers unaware. Only on such
journeys are hearts aligned in tune with Everlasting
rapport, its gates swung wide, with the sound of festal
procession and Joy’s consummation.

#  #  #

©ken sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org
Written as a prayer of mourning over my mother’s recent passing; and in intercession for one of my favorite poets, John Prine—among countless others—whose lives have been cut short by the pandemic’s vicious pulse. Listen to his recording of “Hello In There”.