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Colin Kaepernick, national anthems, and flag-flown piety

Commentary on what is and is not sacred

by Ken Sehested

        It started as a typical evening’s research, selecting and reading a number of news stories in search of material for my weekly column. One on the list was the account of San Francisco 49ers’ quarterback Colin Kaepernick sitting during the playing of the national anthem prior to the start of the game.

        Reading these accounts led me to similar events in previous years of athletes using their public visibility as a stage for protest. That led to digging into the history of the national anthem, “The Star Spangled Banner,” including its largely unknown third verse which celebrates the killing of African slaves. This information led me to research the US invasions of Canada (also largely unknown here).

        It was a busy evening, but a fascinating one.

        And these questions revive an ancient debate, for people of faith, over competing claims over what is or is not sacred.

§  §  §

            Kaepernick had not publicly announced his decision; in fact, he had remained seated in the three previous preseason games, but no one noticed. This time, a reporter spotted him.

        Now both commercial and social media are ablaze with a debate over his sit-down, a dispute that adds extra decibels to our electoral cacophony and another chapter in our anguished national debate on race. Over and over his mortal sin is named as a “lack of pride” in his country.

        Responding to reporters’ questions, Kaepernick said, “Ultimately it’s to bring awareness and make people realize what’s really going on in this country. There are a lot of things that are going on that are unjust, people aren’t being held accountable for, and that’s something that needs to change. That’s something that — this country stands for freedom, liberty, justice for all. And it’s not happening for all right now.”

        That statement is surprisingly similar to one made by legendary baseball great Jackie Robinson, who wrote in his 1972 biography, “As I write this twenty years later, I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag.”[1]

§  §  §

        Freedom, in its current usage, has come to mean dominion.       

§  §  §

        Ann Killion, sports writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, recently questioned the purpose of singing the national anthem “At an event that is a game between two arms of a giant corporate entity. What is so patriotic about spending $300 a ticket to watch big guys hit each other?”[2]

        It wasn’t until 1931 that “The Star-Spangled Banner” became our national anthem, and then only after 40 previous congressional votes, beginning in 1918. The song was not universally beloved, partly because of its difficulty in singing, and partly because of obscure lyrics. Among the obscure ones is a phrase in the third stanza’s:

        “No refuge could save the hireling and slave / From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave.” The reference was to mercenary forces employed by the British in the War of 1812, along with American slaves who volunteered to fight in exchange for Britain’s pledge of their freedom.

        In a Facebook post my friend Ray made another historical reference, summarizing many of the Kaepernick criticisms he has heard:

        “Your refusal to stand betrays a tremendous disrespect and will not accomplish anything. Almost everyone else has always stood up, so why won't you? Why don't you just make things easier on yourself and just stand up. If not, you should be put out of a job, or better yet, put in jail.”

        Ray then added his own conclusion: “These are all comments once directed to Rosa Parks at a different time and place, but perhaps some things aren't that different after all.”

§  §  §

        War is always a dispute over bread and the land needed for its production. But, given the reach of modern economic institutions, land needs not be owned in order to be controlled.

§  §  §

        The tune for which Frances Scott Key wrote his poem—originally titled “Defence of Fort McHenry”—was a well-known English ballad celebrating the virtues of boozing and womanizing. Better that, though, than adopting the tune of Britain’s national hymn, “God Save the Queen,” for use in our own—as in “God Bless America,” one of the early candidates for a national anthem, which copies the Brit’s note-for-note.

        In 1861, poet Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote a fifth verse to support the Union cause in the Civil War and denounce “the traitor that dares to defile the flag of her stars.”[3] I doubt this verse will be sung this Saturday at the Auburn-Clemson game.[4]

§  §  §

        When gold medal gymnast Gabby Douglas did not place a hand over her heart for the singing of the U.S. National Anthem during the 2016 Rio Olympics, she was heavily criticized to the point where she released a public apology. Meanwhile, white shot-putters Ryan Crouser and Joe Kovacs kept their hands down at their side and no one questioned them.[5]

§  §  §

        My own congregation has a history regarding alleged desecration of national honor. Several years ago a couple of our youth, on their own accord, refused to stand, salute the American flag and say the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of their school day. I’d like to think the roots of this resistance were planted, or at least nourished, in our community, in our songs and Sunday school lessons and sermons about the never-ending competition for spiritual allegiance. “For you shall worship no other god, because the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God” (Exodus 34:14).

§  §  §

        It never occurred to me before now to ask what exactly a “spangle” is (as in “star-spangled”). The dictionary says it’s “a small thin piece of glittering material typically used to ornament a dress; a sequin.” A shiny plastic thing. Now I can’t get the image of the flag as a star-sequined banner out of my head.

§  §  §

        Many historical accounts refer to the War of 1812 as “America’s Second War of Independence.” More properly, it was America's “First War of Choice,” since it was we who declared the war. Though historical causation is always a complicated matter, and both Britain and the U.S. had lingering disputes from our previous war, the evidence is clear that the war’s principal aim was annexation of Canada.

        Among the many pieces of our forgotten history is the fact that the U.S. invaded Canada four times: in 1775 during the Revolutionary War; in the War of 1812; in 1837-‘38 in the Patriot War and the Battle of Windmill; and in the Fenian raids of 1866-’71.[6]

        Then there was the near war, “The Pig War” (literally, over the killing of one pig), when in 1859 US and British troops and warships amassed around the San Juan Islands near Seattle.[7] Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed.

        Finally, it wasn’t until 1939 that the U.S. formally abandoned an invasion plan known as “War Plan Red,” developed in the 1920s, as a contingency should we again go to war with Britain. (As it turns out, the Canadians has a similar plan for us.)

§  §  §

        “There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.” —Howard Zinn

§  §  §

        The U.S. Civil Code[8] that regulates the display of the flag stipulates that whenever other flags are also displayed, the American flag always takes precedence—meaning, no other flag above it; or, if on the same level, the U.S. flag must always be on its own right (the viewers’ left).

        A church in our neighborhood got in trouble over this not long ago, hoisting the Christian flag above the American flag on its front lawn pole. After a brief rash of indignant comments, and a surprisingly old fashioned Baptist defense from the pastor, the publicity faded. Federal law does not prescribe a penalty for such desecration.

        In fact, the earliest “flag desecration” laws (every state had one by 1932) were not enacted to squelch political dissent but to prohibit use of the flag for political or commercial ends—something that now happens all the time. The only attempt at federal law criminalizing flag desecration (in 1968, specifically aimed at repressing flag burning) was overturned by the Supreme Court in 1989.

§  §  §

        “There are no unsacred places; / there are only sacred places / and desecrated places.” —Wendell Berry, “How to Be a Poet”

§  §  §

        The U.S. flag was only occasionally used or displayed, except on naval vessels and installations, until the Civil War when it became the winning side’s banner for the largest slaughter in U.S. military history. The anthem, which centers the flag in national memory, came to its cultural fore in 1918 during the opening World Series game pitting the Chicago Cubs and the Boston Red Sox. It was received so well, during the seventh inning stretch, that when the series moved to Boston, the Red Sox owner hired a band to do the same.[9]

        The flag being raised over the grisly battle hilltop of Iwo Jima in World War II is among our national icons. Prior to 9/11, most stations switched to a commercial during the obligatory playing of the national anthem prior to sporting events. “The anthem means a lot more today,” said Ed Goren, president of Fox Sports[10]—whose only job, like all such executives, is to make money for shareholders.

        Now the flag-centered anthem is broadcast at every major sporting event in the U.S., including NASCAR races and even a few “professional” wrestling matches. Whole companies exist to manufacture red-white-and-blue apparel: headscarves, bikinis, whole wardrobes; and car dealers frequently boast the biggest flags in town.

§  §  §

         The flag's central purpose, aided by the anthem, is to maintain attention to, and confidence in, military supremacy. The nation's memory of flag "desecration" is associated with the shame of the one war—Vietnam—we lost.

§  §  §

        The thing about desecrating the flag is that it first must be considered sacred. The thing about pledges of allegiance, hands over hearts, are the covenant terms. Maybe it’s not so serious. The courts have ruled that “In God We Trust” is devoid of actual religious content but serves as a form of “ceremonial deism.”[11] As Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, “Most people are willing to take the Sermon on the Mount as a flag to sail under, but few will use it as a rudder by which to steer.”

        To make sacred is to sanctify. To sanctify is to make righteous. To make righteous is to restore right-relatedness, “on earth as it is in heaven.” Sacred duty means the well-being of the community transcends all else, even one’s own life. Which is why the moral tone of a soldier’s vow is so impressive.

        The contest of allegiance, as to which flag takes precedence, has grown murky. The Constantinian assumption remains secure, with the state’s purpose assumed to be largely parallel to that of the church. So, typically, we put both flags in our sanctuaries without second thought, usually with the arrangement of honor stipulated in federal law. The dispute over sovereignty, over whose bread will satisfy, over whose power is more reliable, over whether love is stronger than fear, is adjudicated anew every time we come to the Table. Unfortunately, the bread tends to be stale.

        Kaepernick’s pride, or lack of it, brings to mind this ancient assessment. “Look at the proud! . . . They open their throats wide as Sheol; like Death they never have enough. They gather all the nations for themselves, and collect all peoples as their own” (Habakkuk 2:4, 5).

§  §  §

        “You don’t like what Kaepernick has to say? Then prove him wrong, BE the nation he can respect. It’s really just that simple.” —Navy veteran Jim Wright [12]

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NOTES

[1] http://mlb.nbcsports.com/2016/08/29/jackie-robinson-i-cannot-stand-and-sing-the-anthem-i-cannot-salute-the-flag/

[2] http://www.sfchronicle.com/49ers/article/Is-the-national-anthem-even-necessary-9191779.php

[3] Christopher Klein, “9 Things You May Not Know About The Star-Spangled Banner”, History.com http://www.history.com/news/9-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-star-spangled-banner

[4] In case you’re interested, there are official protocols to be followed when the national anthem is played. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/36/301 Also, Time magazine has assembled videos of what it judges the “Top 10 Worst National Anthem Renditions.” http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1889754_1889752_1889689,00.html

[5] Morgan Jerkins, “What Kolin Kaepernick’s National Anthem Protest Tells Us About America,” Rolling Stone http://www.rollingstone.com/sports/colin-kaepernicks-national-anthem-protest-w436704

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Canada

[7] Larry Getlen, “The Secret Canadian plan to invade the US,” New York Post http://nypost.com/2015/05/24/the-secret-canadian-plan-to-invade-the-us/

[8] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/4/7

[9] For more see “A brief history of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ being played at games and getting no respect,” Fred Barbash and Travis M. Andrews, The Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/08/30/a-brief-history-of-the-star-spangled-banner-being-played-at-games-and-getting-no-respect/

[10] http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2001-09-21/sports/0109210225_1_anthem-sports-broadcasts-fox-sports

[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceremonial_deism

[12] http://americannewsx.com/hot-off-the-press/vets-respect-compelled-bought-inherited/

This Land Is Your Land

Independence Day in light of Woody Guthrie’s enduring question about to whom the land belongs

by Ken Sehested
4 July 2016

        The fireworks started early, long before the night’s dark background provided illuminating dazzle, testimony to the pyrotechnics expert on the afternoon NPR hour who said he still prefers the “big boom” type over the advanced visual displays.

        My wife retired early to our basement apartment to escape the roar. I always shudder on Independence Day for the dogs who shiver in fright at the noise.

        Every year the major networks compete on this evening for viewers tuned in for the liturgical assurance of patriotic songs, “bombs bursting in air,” celebrity cameos, and the inevitable hero-izing of troops. The latter urge is understandable, given the agonizing affect of hundreds of veteran suicides every month.

        Yet there still seems to be little awareness of the connection between military necessity and our nation’s consumptive habits—the latter symbolized by the annual hotdog eating contest on The Fourth, in New York’s Coney Island, this year’s winner setting a new record of 70 wieners+buns devoured in the 10-minute contest.

        According to the DC Park Police, the fireworks display in our nation’s capital has never been canceled because of weather.

        My tradition on The Fourth is listening to all the versions of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” I can find online. I especially like the two “lost verses” rarely heard when the song is performed. One of them, from Guthrie’s original 1940 lyrics, goes like this:

        There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me.
        The sign was painted, said “Private Property.”
        But on the backside, it didn't say nothing.
        This land was made for you and me.

You have to remember the song was recorded just as the Cold War’s anti-communist fever was ascending.

        The other “lost” verse is one that calls out the church more than the state:

        In the squares of the city – In the shadow of the steeple
        Near the relief office – I see my people
        And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin'
        If this land's still made for you and me.

        You may be surprised to know that Guthrie appropriated an existing gospel tune by A.P. Carter for “This Land Is Your Land.” The Carter Family’s hymn, “When the World’s On Fire” was written and recorded in 1930.  Guthrie was one in a long line of musical bards who used or adapted existing tunes to new lyrics. It’s not quite true that Martin Luther used beer hall tunes for his Reformer hymns; but the practice—long established before copyright laws—was common.

        You may also be surprised to know that Guthrie wrote “This Land Is Your Land” (originally titled "God Blessed America for Me") as a reaction to Irving Berlin’s patriotic hymn “God Bless America,” first performed by Kate Smith on Armistice Day in 1938, against the backdrop of looming war clouds in response to Nazi and Fascist belligerence in Europe.

        It’s interesting, too, that an earlier song also titled “God Bless America,” by Robert Montgomery Bird in 1834, contained these lines:

        God bless the land, of all the earth,
        The happy and the free.
        And where's the land like ours can brave
        The splendor of the day
        And find no son of hers a slave?
        God bless America!

        Once you recover from the gasp-generating irony of this line—And find no son of hers a slave—there is a valuable lesson to be learned, particularly as to why “This Land Is Your Land” can become a widely-celebrated song once the “lost verses” are excised.

        It is this: Extolling the vision of the Beloved Community of which Guthrie sings, without also attending to existing patterns of access to its bounty, easily becomes an exercise in sentimentality. Even worse, it becomes an ideological disguise to hide the truth about our nation’s thoroughly undemocratic and unequal conditions.

        It’s not just that the gap between vision and practice, between aspiration and implementation, don’t add up. It’s that structural forces are in place which heighten, rather than hinder, the divide. The “grumblin’ and the wonderin’ if this land’s still made for you and me” is more than petty envy.

        Moreover, when it comes to the question of God blessing America, Scripture is pretty clear. Of the 41 occasions when the word “bless” is used in the Newer Testament, only twice is it an imperative—and neither involve God: In Jesus’ instruction to his listeners, “Bless those who curse you” (Luke 6:28) and Paul’s echo of the same: “Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse” (Romans 12:14). [1] In his upside-down kingdom dream, Jesus’ intention for blessing was not to sacralize violence but to draw enemies within Mercy’s reach.

        “Hey, Woody Guthrie,” Bob Dylan later wrote in “Song to Woody,” the world “seems sick and it’s hungry, it’s tired and it’s torn. / It looks like it’s dying, and it’s hardly been born.”

        I don’t know if Guthrie knew one of God’s old-fashioned covenant stipulations in Torah, but he would doubtless be pleased if he did: “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants” (Leviticus 25:23). Guthrie, a friend of “aliens and tenants,” would have opposed the modernization of that (among many other) texts.

        Of course, Guthrie lyrics have not been immune from mongrelizing. My wife reminded me of a middle school field trip she chaperoned many years ago. During the drive the kids began singing “This land is my land, this land’s not your land / I’ve got a shotgun, and you don’t got none / If you don’t get off, I’ll blow your head off / This land was made for me and mine.” All in humor of course, with adolescent giggling. That’s how it usually starts.

        Living as we do in the shadow of the steeple, and with refined clarity of what God does and does not bless, Woody Guthrie deserves the last word, this one from one of his less well known songs, “Ain’ta Gonna Grieve (My Lord Any More):

        Many a faith’s too easy shaken
        Many a heart too full of fear
        Many an eye is too mistaken
        Grievous to my savior dear
        Ain’ta gonna grieve my lord any more [2]
 

[1] Ched Myers, “Mixed Blessing: A Biblical Inquiry into a ‘Patriotic’ Cant.” Download a free copy of this essay.

[2] Listen to this performance by Billy Bragg & Wilco.

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©ken sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

You corrupted wisdom for the sake of splendor

Meditation amid pandemic and pandemonium

by Ken Sehested

I will likely be considered antiquated, maybe maniacal, even apoplectic when I say we in the US (with derivative outbreaks elsewhere) are under the spell of the demonic, of those who worship death’s malicious craving, specifically the sacrificial scalp of dissenters, of those who do not genuflect in its presence, of any and all who stand in the way of imperial designs, who claim authority to divide the world into makers and takers, to shape all reality in service to the ruthless pursuit of power’s conceit, arrogance being the elixir of indefinite, everlasting rule of the strong over the weak, the privileged over the disdained, the worthy over the maimed.

Not just rule, but a despising and revulsion of the frail, now consigned as burnt offering to an unholy, odious, heinous god; a god who justifies caging children, who threatens fire from (nuclear) heavens, who shrugs and scoffs at the sight of trauma, of those begging for breath, during pandemics, racial and economic pandemonium, and ecological devastation; who laughs at every attempt of impeachment, whose word is less than worthless, whose every step is concealed in deceit, whose smirking face tells lies at every turn, whose law has become a license for infamy.

And all the profiteering minions chant: “It’s the cost of doing business. Nothing personal.”

Nevertheless, “The Word came, saying: ‘Mortal, say to this people: You are a land that is not cleansed. Your officials are like wolves tearing their prey, shedding blood, destroying lives for dishonest gain. You have practiced extortion, committed robbery, oppressed the poor and needy, and extorted the immigrant’” (cf. Ezekiel 22).

And yet the rapacious laugh: "How can God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High?" (Psalm 73:11) Which is to say, scream all you want; none hear the cries of the despoiled. Your God has hung a “do not disturb” sign on heaven’s door.

Thereby, you are left to your own grievous destiny. Pray only that your death is swift, your screams swallowed. In truth, “altruism is incompatible with freedom, with capitalism,” and with “the pursuit of happiness.” (Novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand, a favorite of banksters and gangsters alike, from her essay, “The Virtue of Selfishness.”)

“I will not trade my freedom for your safety!” “I need a haircut.” (Actual signs at recent protests demanding a reopening of the economy in the midst of a public health crisis.)

The Ancient of Days wails, “How long? How long will your priests barter amnesty for flattery? How long will your prophets pander lies, your judges abide fraud, your elected officials sell their services to the highest bidder?” (cf. Jeremiah 23:26) How long will you hoard what is not yours! (Habakkuk 2:6)

Those used for target practice, as grist for the mill, as anglers’ bait and fodder for canons cry out, backs against the wall: “How long, O Lord? How long!” (Job 8:2, 18:2, 19:2; Psalm 4:2, 6:3, 13:1-2, 35:17, 62:3, 74:9-10, 74:22, 79:5, 80:4, 82:2, 89:46, 90:13, 94:3, 119:84; Isaiah 6:11; Jeremiah 4:21, 12:4; Habakkuk 1:2)

Judgment awaits those who “plunder many nations, because of human bloodshed and violence to the earth” (Habakkuk 3:6-8). For "I will speak against those who cheat employees of their wages, who oppress widows and orphans, or who deprive the foreigners living among you of justice, for these people do not fear me," says the Almighty (Malachi 3:5).

Because “In the abundance of your trade you were filled with violence. . . . Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor.“ (Ezekiel 28:16-17)

Kindred: Conflicting claims to divine sanction are loose in the land. We face a moment of reckoning of historic significance. Silence is insufficient. Peace is not quiet. Withdrawal is a form of complicity with existing arrangements of power.

This is a spiritual struggle with incarnated impact shaping social, economic, and political choices. We must “Test the spirits to see which is from God” (1 John 4:1); and loudly, vigorously announce our conclusions from pulpits and public squares alike.

Therefore, within your assemblies, be persistent in “considering how to incite one another”—to provoke, stimulate, spur, stir, encourage—“to love and good works” (Hebrews 10:24), to fulfilling the demands of justice, the prerequisites of peace, all of which are mediated by the imperative of mercy.

Stand, O Mortal, in the watchtower and scan the horizon. “For there is still a vision which will eclipse the ways of the wicked. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come” (cf. Habakkuk 2:1-3).

In the midst of this present turmoil, seek out the quiet of your heart’s deepest region. There, Breath is available, and a Sheltering Wing. There a Guiding Hand is proffered—not to escort you from history’s bloody reign, but through it to that far horizon foretold in our defining invocation: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:9-10).

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©ken sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

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

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©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.

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©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.

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©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.

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*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