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Signs of the Times  •  6 September 2018 •  No. 171

¶ Processional. “Crazy Horse,” Dupleesy & the violins of the world” (Thanks Wendy.)

Above. Aechmea blanchetiana (Orange) are large full sun tolerant bromeliads. Posted in gratitude for the life and legacy of David McReynolds.

Special issue
Short accounts of remarkable, but largely unsung, heroes

¶ Invocation. “Throw off the covers of earth’s darkened slumber! Unplug your ears, you creatures of flesh! From deepest sigh of tear-stained eye, set your sight on Heaven’s resolve. For the sky’s bright luster, alive with motion, shows the wonder of Blessed intention.” —continue reading “Blessed intention,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 19

¶ Call to worship. “We travel today with Jesus as he was leaving Caesarea Philippi, in the far northern region of ancient Israel. Named for the Roman Caesar, located in what is now known as the Golan Heights, a site of contention to this day, Syrian land occupied by Israeli allure. Even after these years together, the disciples still imagine Jesus supplanting the great Caesar, scattering Rome’s legions, restoring the glory of Judea’s lost splendor, fulfilling its remembered boast as the

capital of nations.” —continue reading “I’m not saying it will be easy,” a call to worship inspired by Mark 8:27-38

¶ Remembering David McReynolds. “It would be a stretch to say he was a friend. More like an acquaintance in his far-flung orbit of fellow pilgrims who looked to him for light.

Right: McReynolds with his cat, Shaman.

        “We corresponded off and on for more than a decade. He was generous to people he barely knew, and was known throughout his life for kindness to those with whom he disagreed.

        “I looked forward to his occasional posts on Facebook, with off the cuff commentary on current events. In our last correspondence, he responded to some material I wrote about Muriel Lester, who has a front row seat in my personal cloud of witnesses. David wrote to say that he drove Lester all over Southern California on one of her speaking tours many years ago.

        “‘I must come to see you to hear those stories,’ I responded. Regrettably, I never did.” —continue reading “He desired a better country: A remembrance of David McReynolds”

¶ Hymn of praise. “Sing, so the back row hears you / Glide, 'cause walking just won't do / Dance, you don't have to know how to / Ever since, ever since grace got you.” —MercyMe, “Grace Got You”

¶ Good news. “A federal judge in South Carolina recently reinstated water protections in 26 states, following a lawsuit filed by environmental groups against the Trump administration for illegally suspending the Clean Water Rule early this year. The law clarifies which bodies of water are covered by the Clean Water Act’s pollution-control programs. Although implementation is still on hold in 24 states, the ruling is a decisive win for the environment—and for the millions of Americans whose water supplies are now better protected from pollution.” —Courtney Lindwall, Natural Resources Defense Council

¶ Confession. “You can’t fix yourself by breaking someone else.” —watch this brief (2:58) video of Jay Shetty explaining how the longer one holds on to anger, resentment, anxiety, the more damage it does to oneself (Thanks Linda.)

¶ Words of assurance. “You just hide me in thy bosom / ‘Til the storm of life is over / Rock me in the cradle of thy love / Then you feed me, ‘til I want no more / Then you take me to that blessed home above.” —Fireside Gospel Singers, “Hide Me In His Bosom”

¶ “The Baptists and the yogis join to fight a pipeline.” “Just down the road, across the rolling fields and woodlands where most of his congregation grew up, the most powerful corporation in Virginia plans to build a natural gas compressor station. Dominion Energy’s facility is integral to the 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which will tunnel under the nearby James River and march across the county.

Right: Hindu priest Swami Dayananda

        “The pipeline has drawn protests along its planned path from West Virginia, through Virginia and into North Carolina. But the Union Hill community in Buckingham County, founded after the Civil War by freed slaves and near the geographic center of the state, is the only place in Virginia that faces the additional issue of a compressor station. . . .

        “The choice to resist has put Wilson and his congregation in step with an unlikely group of allies. As he neared the end of his sermon last Sunday at Union Grove Baptist, Wilson noticed a figure in orange just inside the entrance to the church. . . . ‘Swami Dayananda!' Wilson exclaimed at a diminutive woman with short gray hair and the robes of a Hindu monk.” —for more see Gregory S. Schneider, Washington Post

¶ Hymn of supplication. “We staring in the face of hate again / The same hate they say will make america great again / No consolation prize for the dehumanized / For america to rise it's a matter of black lives / And we gonna free them, so we can free us / America's moment to come to Jesus.” —Common, “Letter to the Free”

¶ “About 15,000 Flint [Michigan] children will return to school next week with new backpacks stuffed with goodies, some including letters of encouragement and support from people across the globe.

        “The letter-writing initiative, as well as the backpacks filled with notebooks, folders, pencils, and other school supplies, is the result of a project by Mari Copeny (pictured at left), an 11-year-old Flint sixth-grader who is using her budding celebrity to draw attention to her city’s water crisis. —Cynthia E. Thomas, Yes! magazine

¶ Professing our faith. "When it comes to saving what needs saving, being merely nice and pliant won’t win the day, or the life. Sometimes we need to dig in our heels and do some hollering." —Jan Richardson

¶ Hymn of resolution. “I want to be ready when joy comes back to me.” —Ruthie Foster, “Joy Comes Back”

¶ Short story. When Grammy nominated Jordin Sparks sang the national anthem prior to the Dallas Cowboys v.s Phoenix Cardinals football game in 2017, she didn’t take a knee. But neither did she let the occasion pass without a word of dissent. On her left wrist—with which she held the microphone—she had prominently written “Proverbs 31:8-9.” Look it up.

¶ Offertory. Indiara Sfair, “Improvisation in Cm.”

¶ Greta Thunberg (pictured at right), a 15-year-old in Sweden, is protesting climate change “in the most active way she knows how. She is on strike, refusing to go to school until her country’s 9 September general election. Her protest has captured the imagination of a country that has been struck by heatwaves and wildfires in its hottest summer since records began 262 years ago.”

        “Every day for two weeks, Thunberg has been sitting quietly on the cobblestones outside parliament in central Stockholm, handing out leaflets that declare: ‘I am doing this because you adults are shitting on my future.’” —David Crouch, Guardian

¶ More on Sen. John McCain. As is often the case, Rebecca Solnit’s commentary on Sen. John McCain’s legacy rises above the swarm of interpreters.

        “Our country was founded in conflict—not the ordinary conflict of the Revolutionary war, but the conflict between Thomas Jefferson’s ideals and his actions as an owner and exploiter of other human beings. You can dismiss the slavery and uphold the ideals, or vice versa, but an understanding of who we have been and how we got here means recognizing both and how they inflect each other. . . .

        “It means recognizing Abraham Lincoln’s greatness and his monstrous policies toward the Lakota, recognizing that we have been neither—as American exceptionalism would have it—the best of nations, or the worst, but a magnificent, unresolved pile of conundrums and paradoxes and populations at odds with each other and ideals that are more often held up for admiration than they’re upheld. . . .

        “I don’t want people to appraise [McCain] for his sake, but for our own: for our ability to tell irreducible stories, to see the world and its players in their full complexity.” —“John McCain was complex. His legacy warrants critical discussion,” Guardian

¶ Preach it. “Forgive yourself for not knowing what you didn’t know before you learned it.’ —Maya Angelou

¶ Profile. The beautiful artwork of Ricardo Levins Morales  requently graces the layout of “Signs of the Times” columns. (With his permission. See one of his latest, at left.) In a recent interview with Margie O’Loughlin, he comments:

        “I was born into a farming family on a mountain in Puerto Rico. Nothing in my life blinked, beeped, or had a pause button. From that, I learned a certain kind of patience—and to speak of the world through a narrative of abundance. When people are behaving in ways that are harmful to others, it almost always comes down to a perception of scarcity. . . .”

        The movements he is drawn to are “about restoring power to people whose power had been taken away.” —for more see “Local Art Studio focues on resilience against oppression through art,” Messenger, newsletter of the Longfellow and Nokomis areas of Minneapolis, Minn.

¶ Can’t makes this sh*t up. In January an armed Trump supporter confronted Rep. Eric Descheenie during an anti-immigration protest at the Arizona state capitol, demanding to know if he was in the country legally. Descheenie is Navajo. —Snopes

¶ Call to the table. “For the Fruits of All Creation,” sung by First-Plymouth Church, Lincoln, Nebraska.

¶ “That girl was a problem. . . Glory Be.” Dr. Courtney Pace, in a 2017 “Nevertheless She Preached” conference presentation, “Subversive Sisters: A Herstory of Our Foremothers." This year’s conference (“Celebrating the voices of women in the pulpit”) is slated for 23-25 September, Waco, Texas.

¶ The state of our disunion. “We have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population. . . . In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment.  Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security.  To do so we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming. . . .

        “We should dispense with the aspiration to 'be liked" or to be regarded as the repository of a high-minded international altruism.  We should stop putting ourselves in the position of being our brother's keeper and refrain from offering moral and ideological advice. We should cease to talk about vague and unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of living standards, and democratization. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.” —excerpt from an historic planning study written in 1948 by George Kennan, then with the US State Department and later ambassador to the Soviet Union. Kennan, a Democrat and later critic of President Bush’s war in Iraq

¶ Best one-liner. “The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it.” —Rev. Billy Graham, Parade magazine, 1981

¶ For the beauty of the earth universe. A visual meditation on Psalm 119 using 100 photos from the Hubble Space Telescope, music by Peter Gabriel. (6:29. Thanks Tom.)

¶ Altar call. “I believe in being ready, / I believe in being ready, / I believe in being ready, / When this world's at an end.” —Rising Appalachia

¶ Benediction. “Open your mouths, oh people of praise. Unchain your lungs and unleash your lips. Let joyful noise erupt from every muted tongue, thankful hymns from every muffled mouth. Compose a new song for the Chorister of Heaven. A cappella or symphonic, let the sound rise like leaven. Whether big band or bluegrass or rhythm and blues. Polka or hip-hop, bebop or swing. Salsa, Gregorian or adagio for strings.” —continue reading “Big band or bluegrass,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 98

¶ Recessional. “God be in my head, and in my understanding; / God be in mine eyes, and in my looking; / God be in my mouth, and in my speaking; / God be in my heart, and in my thinking; / God be at mine end, and at my departing.” —H. Walford Davies, performed by Choir of King's College, Cambridge

¶ Lectionary for this Sunday.

        “Blessed intention,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 19

        “I’m not saying it will be easy,” a call to worship inspired by Mark 8:27-38

¶ Lectionary for Sunday next.

        “Big band or bluegrass,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 98

        “In the Shadow of a Steeple: Time for a post-national church?” a sermon drawing on 1 Corinthians 1:18-31

¶ Just for fun. The sand pendulum, from the Science Academy. (Thanks Floyd.)

#  #  #

Featured this week on prayer&politiks

• “I’m not saying it will be easy,” a call to worship inspired by Mark 8:27-38

• “He desired a better country: A remembrance of David McReynolds”

• “Big band or bluegrass,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 98

• “Blessed intention,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 19

• “In the Shadow of a Steeple: Time for a post-national church?” a sermon drawing on 1 Corinthians 1:18-31

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

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

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

 

Signs of the Times  •  28 August 2018 •  No. 170

Above: Photo from Colombia’s newly established Serrania del Chiribiqu National Rainforest. Thanks to the efforts of 25 young people, ranging in age from 7-25, the area has been declared the world’s largest tropical rainforest national park following decades of efforts by environmental experts and conservationists. More than that—and this is historic—the forest has been given the same legal rights as a human being. Photo by Cesar David Martinez. —for more see Anastasia Moloney, “The Colombian Amazon has the same legal rights as you,” World Economic Forum

¶ Processional. “Now as I look around, it's mighty plain to see, / This world is such a great and a funny place to be. / Oh, the gamblin' man is rich, an' the workin' man is poor, / And I ain't got no home in this world anymore.” —Woodie Guthrie. “I Ain’t Got No Home In This World Anymore” [Keep in mind that investment houses on Wall Street, no less than casinos, are gambling dens.]

        Guthrie wrote this song as a parody of the popular hymn, “This World Is Not My Home” (aka “Can’t Feel At Home”),  popularized at the time by the Carter Family.

        However, in the Newer Testament’s repeated admonitions to “love not” and “be not conformed” to “the world,” it’s not speaking about the earth. “The world” is the complex web of oppressive power arrangements which distort and disfigure God’s intention in Creation. Those excluded from the table of bounty—in its fullest sense, and by the innumerable ways injustice, indignity, and violence happens—have "no home" in this "world."

¶ Good news. Recently, after Saskatchewan farmer Brian Williams died just before harvest, more than 100 volunteers showed up at his farm to reap his crop. (See photo above by Jeff Brown.) Watch this brief (0:33) video.  For the full story, see David Shield, CBC.

¶ Invocation. “Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity, and the rod of anger will fail. Those who are generous are blessed, for they share their bread with the hungry. Do not rob the poor or crush the afflicted, for the LORD pleads their cause and despoils the life those who despoil them.” —Proverbs 22:8-9, 22-23

¶ Call to worship. “Creator God, we give thanks this day for work: for work that sustains; for work that fulfills; for work which, however tiring, also satisfies and resonates with Your labor in creation. As part of our thanks we also intercede for those who have no work, who have too much or too little work; who work at jobs that demean or destroy, work which profits the few at the expense of the many.” —continue reading “Labor Day,” a litany for worship, for work that fulfills

¶ “This weekend we mark another Labor Day holiday, both here and in Canada (excepting Quebec). At least 80 other countries celebrate the first of May as a workers’ holiday. Jamaica has the most interesting Labour Day tradition. For most of its colonial history the country observed “Empire Day” on 24 May in honor of British Queen Victoria’s birthday and her emancipation of slaves in 1938. But in 1961 Empire Day was supplanted by Labour Day, on 23 May, to commemorate the 1938 labor rebellion which led to independence. And the day’s focus is not on picnics, retail sales and car racing but on community service projects.

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

        “As with so many of our holidays, we have mostly forgotten the severe conflict which provides the historical context. In the latter decades of the 19th century industrialization was hitting its stride in the developing world. The technology of commerce was producing massive amounts of profit and a widening gaps between rich and poor.” —continue reading “Labor in the Shadow of Sabbath,” a sermon for Labor Day

¶ Confession. “Is there no song to be sung, no bell to be rung, no laughter from the fields at play with their yield? Would that my mouth be formed and my lips unleashed to speak a word, a true and hearty word, to all grown deaf with grief.” —continue reading “Sustain the weary with a word,” a litany for worship inspired by Isaiah 50:4-9a

¶ The History Channel has a good brief video and article with Labor Day history.

¶ Hymn of praise. “My Lord done just what he said. / Yes He did, Oh Lord, yes He did. / He healed the sick and He raised the dead. / Yes He did, Oh Lord, yes He did.” —The Nathaniel Dett Chorale, “I Can Tell the World”

¶ Forgotten Labor Day history. “The U.S. Department of Labor’s page on the history of Labor Day notes the holiday “is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers.” It doesn’t mention the Pullman strike of 1894, which President Grover Cleveland suppressed with federal troops, leading to dozens of deaths. —for more see Arthur Delaney, “The Bloody Origin of Labor Day,” huffpost

Right: On 1 May 1886, some 300,000 workers across the US went on strike, singing a popular slogan, “Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, Eight hours for what we will!”

¶ Hymn of intercession. Hymn of intercession. Joan Baez singing “Joe Hill”  And here’s Paul Robeson’s rendition.

        Joe Hill, a Swedish immigrant, was a songwriter, cartoonist and mining labor organizer in the US. He was convicted (on shady evidence) of killing a Salt Lake City grocery store owner and executed by firing squad in 1915. Hill is credited with coining the phrase “pie in the sky,” used in his most famous song, “The Preacher and the Slave,” which was a parody of the hymn “In the Sweet By-and-By.” Here’s a Utah Phillips rendition of “The Preacher and the Slave”.

¶ Hymn of delectability. In celebration of a new season of the edible, often red, berry of the nightshade Solanum lycopersicum, commonly known as a tomato plant, listen to Kate Campbell’s “Jesus and Tomatoes Coming Soon.”

¶ “Ever wonder why homegrown tomatoes taste so much better than ones you buy in a store? Renowned seed saver and farmer John Coykendall hits it out of the park with this explanation.” —PBS Food (9:18 video. Thanks Leah.)

¶ Words of assurance. This short (3:39 video) commentary about the common good by Robert Reich is revelatory. (Thanks Jimmy.)

¶ Word. "Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his hands, so that he may be able to give to those in need." —Ephesians 4:28

¶ Belated celebration of the Feast of Jonathan Daniels, 14 August. Daniels, an Episcopal seminarian, was in Lowndes County, Alabama in 1965 working on voter registration. He and others were arrested on 14 August. After being released on 20 August, he was instantly killed by a shotgun blast while protecting 17-year-old Ruby Sales, a co-worker, who later became a prominent civil and human rights activist, founding The SpiritHouse Project, a non-profit inner-city mission in Washington, DC dedicated to Daniels’ memory. In 1994 the Episcopal Church added Daniels to its Lesser Feasts and Fasts calendar of commemoration. —for more see Mary Frances Schjonberg, Episcopal News Service

Left: Icon of Jonathan Myrick Daniels by Mark Friesland

¶ Professing our faith. “I lost fear in the black belt [of Alabama, a region originally named for its dark topsoil] when I began to know in my bones and sinews that I had been truly baptized into the Lord's death and Resurrection, that in the only sense that really matters I am already dead, and my life is hid with Christ in God. I began to lose self-righteousness when I discovered the extent to which my behavior was motivated by worldly desires and by the self-seeking messianism of Yankee deliverance!

        "The point is simply, of course, that one's motives are usually mixed, and one had better know it. As Judy and I said the daily offices day by day, we became more and more aware of the living reality of the invisible "communion of saints"—of the beloved community in Cambridge who were saying the offices too, of the ones gathered around a near-distant throne in heaven—who blend with theirs our faltering songs of prayer and praise.

Right: Ruby Sales' mug shot at the Montgomery Police Department after her arrest.

        "With them, with black men and white men, with all of life, in Him Whose Name is above all the names that the races and nations shout, whose Name is Itself the Song Which fulfills and ‘ends’ all songs, we are indelibly, unspeakably ONE." —Jonathan Daniels. You can read Daniels' entire meditation at Luis Enrique Hernández Rivas' Facebook page.

¶ Hymn of supplication. “Jesus, lover of my soul, Let me to Thy bosom fly, While the nearer waters roll, While the tempest still is high: Hide me, O my Saviour, hide, Till the storm of life is past.” —Maddy Prior & The Carnival Band “Jesus, Lover of My Soul”

¶ Can’t makes this sh*t up. On Tuesday, 5 June, US Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said her newly-established federal school safety commission will not be examining the role of guns in our nation’s spate of school shootings. —Haley Britzky, Axios

        And now DeVos is considering using federal grants to purchase guns for teachers. (While 94% of teachers use personal funds for school supplies.) —Erica L. Green, New York Times

¶ Preach it. “Our merchants and masters complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price and lessening the sale of goods. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people.” ―Adam Smith, 18th century Scottish economist and philosopher whose book, "The Wealth of Nations," is considered the “bible of capitalism”

¶ Call to the table. “Sweetheart, you look a little tired / When did you last eat? / Come in and make yourself right at home / Stay as long as you need / Tell me, is something wrong? / If something's wrong you can count on me / You know I'll take my heart clean apart / If it helps yours beat.” —Sleeping At Last, "Atlas: Year Two" (Thanks Mike.)

¶ The state of our disunion. A number of companies are experimenting with food and beverage delivery by drone. IBM just scored a patent on a delivery service, where the drone actually anticipates your coffee needs by tracking your sleep quality via a Fitbit or similar device that records your biometrics, blood pressure, pupil dilation, facial expressions and wake-up time. —Ziati Meyer, USA Today
        Meanwhile, 21% of children in the US live in families whose income is below the federal poverty threshold.

¶ For the beauty of the earth. A time-lapse video (0:28) of the Milky Way galaxy rotating over an ancient baobab tree. This sequence was shot over a period of almost 8 hours last month at "The Island of Lost Baobabs" in Botswana's Makgadikgadi Pans. —Burrard-Lucas Photography (Thanks Donna.)

¶ Altar call. “Which Side Are You On,” Pete Seeger.

¶ “I have disagreed with Sen. John McCain on a whole range of issues over many years. We see the world in profoundly different ways. However, he is numbered in a rare breed of politicians of his generation who has displayed more character and integrity, the willingness to be guided, more often than not, by moral principle rather than profit or political expediency.” —continue reading “Senator McCain: Long live the mavericks”

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

¶ Recessional. “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” Ethan McGrath’s composition of Walt Whitman’s poem, performed by Taipei Chamber Singers.

¶ Lectionary for this Sunday. “Oh, for a Word to be heard from above / Oh, for a pardon for hardened contempt / School us in mercy, tutor in grace.” —“Oh, for a Word,” a litany for worship inspired by Mark 7:31-37

¶ Lectionary for Sunday next.

        • “Blessed intention,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 19.

        • “Sustain the weary with a word,” a litany for worship inspired by Isaiah 50:4-9a.

¶ Just for fun. “If you were a sibling of Jesus,” comedian Michael Jr. (3:54 video)

#  #  #

Featured this week on prayer&politiks

• “Labor Day,” a litany for worship, for work that fulfills

• “Labor in the Shadow of Sabbath,” a Labor Day sermon

• “Blessed intention,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 19

• “I’m not saying it will be easy,” a call to worship inspired by Mark 8:27-38
 
Other features

• “Senator McCain: Long live the mavericks,” brief commentary on his passing

• “Sustain the weary with a word,” a litany for worship inspired by Isaiah 50:4-9a

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

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

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

 

Signs of the Times  •  16 August 2018 •  No. 168

Special issue
GOOD NEWS STORIES

and in commemoration of the life and legacy of Aretha Franklin, “Queen of Soul,” whose lineage
included being raised singing Gospel music in the New Bethel Baptist Church,
Detroit, Michigan, where her father, Rev. C. L. Franklin, was pastor

¶ Processional. “O Happy Day,” Aretha Franklin & Mavis Staples.

¶ Invocation. “…You can trust the promise of this opening; / Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning / That is at one with your life’s desire. / Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk; / Soon your will be at home in a new rhythm, / For your soul senses the world that awaits you.” —John O’Donohue

¶ Call to worship. “No kind action ever stops with itself. One kind action leads to another. Good example is followed. A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees. The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves.” —Amelia Earhart

¶ Hymn of praise. “None shall sleep, / None shall sleep! . . . / Vanish, O night! / Set, stars! Set, stars! / At dawn, I will win! / I will win! / I will win!” (English translation)  —Aretha Franklin, who at the last minute substituted for famed tenor Luciana Pavarotti at the 1998 Grammy Award ceremony, performing “Nessum Dorma”

Small-scale agriculture as spiritual practice

How people of faith and conscience are recognizing that growing food
and tending nutrition is far more than producing sufficient (and cheaper) calories.

Right: A rural farm and church in Vermont, photo by Sean Pavone/iStock

¶  “The Movement to Turn Church Land into Farmland. A nascent movement of faith leaders, conservation experts, and food advocates are joining forces to connect young farmers to the vast quantity of land owned by churches. . . . In March, 35 leaders from across the U.S. who are ‘working at the intersection of faith, ecological stewardship, and farming’ gathered for the inaugural FaithLands event at Paicenes Ranch in California’s Central Valley.” —Leilani Clark, Civil Eats

¶ Learn more about a new church start in North Carolina organized around farming. —Brooks Berndt, “Farm Church as Embodied Spirituality: An Interview with Sarah Horton-Campbell,” United Church of Christ

¶ “On a warm weekend in early May, Reverend Heber Brown of Pleasant Hope Baptist Church in Baltimore led a delegation of his members on a tour of Browntown Farms in Warfield, Virginia and the Coalition for Healthier Eating food hub in Bethel, North Carolina. For Brown, the founder of the Black Church Food Security Network (BCFSN), the day trip was a concrete step toward solidifying strong relationships between Black residents of East Coast cities and Black farmers in the rural south.” —Leilani Clark, Civil Eats

¶ Imagine a 2-acre farm that produces 300 kinds of vegetables. In the middle of Detroit. (See photo at left.) It’s called an “agrihood,” short for agricultural neighborhood, which puts food production at its center. And it’s a growing trend. (2:54 video. Thanks Lamar.)

¶ Words of assurance. “Blessed Assurance,” Aretha Franklin.

¶ Confession. “I've spent a lot of time in gun-country, God-fearing America. There are a hell of a lot of nice people out there, who are doing what everyone else in this world is trying to do the best they can to get by, and take care of themselves and the people they love. When we deny them their basic humanity and legitimacy of their views, however different they may be than ours, when we mock them at every turn, and treat them with contempt, we do no one any good. . . . We should be breaking bread with each other, and finding common ground whenever possible. I fear that is not at all what we've done.” —for more see Tyler Durden, “Anthony Bourdain Slams 'Privileged' Liberals For Their 'Utter Contempt" Of Working-Class America,' ZeroHedge

¶ Passing the Peace. One day, when the congregation is instructed to “greet each other with the Peace of Christ,” this is gonna break out. And the Book of Revelation’s concluding promise that one day “every tear will be dried” will also say “and every leg will know how to dance.” (2:00 video. Thanks Wendy.)

¶ Hymn of supplication. “Precious Lord Take My Hand,” Aretha Franklin

¶ “10 years ago Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church in Asheville [NC] turned their lawn into a garden. (See photo at right.) It was an early "food and faith" connection on my vocational path. Stopped by for a visit today. (BTW, I love that their garden is right next to McDonalds. I've always seen it as an act of defiance.)” —Leah McCullough, Facebook

¶ Professing our faith. “When I think about the changes I want to see in the world, it's easier . . . to snipe from the edges than to enter the space between the comfort of home and the risks of the world.” —Gareth Higgins, The Porch magazine

¶ Eliada Homes has been serving children since 1903, but is now recovering a significant part of its agricultural mission—not simply to save money on food but also as a means of enhancing emotional healing and building social skills for the 600 children it serves annually in its residential treatment programs, foster care services, and traditional childcare.

        Located on 320 acres on the edge of Asheville, NC, the renewed subsistence farming operation focuses on food as part of holistic therapy. Many of the children have been traumatized by some form of abuse. “It’s going to be dynamic in the sense that it involves the community, but also in the sense that it takes the children here and gives them a learning center where they can interact with mother nature,” according to Farms Manager Brook Sheffield. —for more see Mackensy Lunsford, “Eliada revives farming to help heal, feed children,” Asheville Citizen-Times

¶ Hymn of resolution. “Precious Memories,” Aretha Franklin, with Rev. James Cleveland & the California Community Choir.

¶ Short story. “When the news reporter approached me, I was milling about in the grass, adjusting my pastoral stole, preparing to be present with some of our local teachers at a press conference.

        “He wanted to know why I was there. I answered with a simple affirmation of our public schools and the teachers that serve in them.

        “But he was asking a different question, and he persevered: but why? Why are you here, as a faith leader, in support of public education?

        “I stared at him for a moment, summoning all of those things that are true about public schools and God’s children, young and old, who gather there. As stories about community and brokenness, wealth and poverty, injustice and restoration, passion and exhaustion, the love of discovery and the lack of paper, and the provision of care for the least of these swarmed, fighting for the spot on the tip of my tongue, I wondered if I might ought to simply say: because of Jesus. 

        “Because of Jesus. . . .” —continue reading Mary Elizabeth Hanchey’s “Because of Jesus,” written after participating in a public school teachers’ rally in Raleigh, NC. Hanchey is Program Associate for Legislative Advocacy and Interfaith Outreach for the NC Council of Church.

¶ Hymn of intercession. “A Change Is Gonna Come,” Aretha Franklin.

¶ “Why Mister Rogers’ Message of Love Is Good for Your Health. Evidence has mounted that he was on to something—people who express love and kindness really do regularly lead healthier lives.”

        The “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” documentary on Fred Rogers and his “Mister Rogers Neighborhood” is now making it’s way to your local theatre. See this 2:55 trailer. —Richard Gunderman, Yes! Magazine

¶ This is a hopeful trend. “Candidates across the country and allied outside groups are seizing on the gun debate in advertising this election cycle, but with a twist: More spots now promote gun control than oppose it.” —Nicole Gaudiano, USA Today

¶ When only the blues will do. “Ain’t No Way,” Aretha Franklin.

¶ Short take: Remembering an unheralded saint. “Bob Fletcher, a former California agriculture inspector who, ignoring the resentment of neighbors, quit his job in the middle of World War II to manage the fruit farms of Japanese families forced to live in internment camps, died in 2003 in Sacramento at age 101.” —William Yardley, New York Times

¶ Good-but-overlooked electoral news. There was virtually no reporting on recent primary elections in the US that including this gem: Voters in Ohio approved a measure that will curtail gerrymandering in the state’s congressional districts—by 75%!

        In 2012 Republicans garnered only 52% of the vote in Ohio, but won 12 of 16 congressional races. —Fran Korten, Yes! Magazine

        States where legislation or citizen initiatives to curb gerrymandering electoral districts may be on the ballot in November, including Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah, and Colorado, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. —Alexis Farmer, Brennan Center for Justice

¶ Preach it. “The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better.” —Fr. Richard Rohr

¶ Inspiring news. Watch this brief (1:00) video about 83-year-old Antonio Vicente (pictured at right), a Brazilian, who restored 76 acres of clear-cut forest to its previous condition. —60 Second Docs (Thanks Rachel.) 

¶ Call to the table. “Be not dismayed whatever betide / God will take care of you / Beneath His wings of love abide / God will take care of you.” —Aretha Franklin, “God Will Take Care of You”

¶ Best one-liner. “There are three things that are real: God, human folly, and laughter; the first two things are beyond our comprehension, so we must do what we can with the third.” —former US President John F. Kennedy

¶ For the beauty of the earth. This is wondrous: “The Most Detailed Map of the Universe to Date.” (3:40 video. Thanks Larry.)

¶ Altar call. “When my soul was in the lost and found / You came along to claim it / I didn't know just what was wrong with me / Till your kiss helped me name it / Now I'm no longer doubtful, of what I'm living for / And if I make you happy I don't need to do more.” —Aretha Franklin, “Natural Woman”

¶ Benediction. “To be truly radical is to make hope possible, rather than despair convincing.” —Raymond Williams

¶ Recessional. “I wanna wear a diamond gem / In the new Jerusalem / I wanna walk the street of gold / In the homeland of the old / I'm going to view the host in white / Who travel both day and night / Coming up from every nation / On the way to the great carnation.” —Aretha Franklin, “How I Got Over”

¶ Barack and Michelle Obama released a statement remembering Aretha Franklin, saying “For more than six decades since, every time she sang, we were all graced with a glimpse of the divine.” For more background on Aretha Franklin, watch this short (4:34) video recollection, “Remembering Aretha Franklin” and/or read Farah Jasmine Griffin’s “Aretha Franklin—Musical Genius, Truth Teller, Freedom Fighter,” The Nation

¶ Lectionary for this Sunday. “. . . my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God.” —Psalm 84:2

¶ Lectionary for Sunday next. “By the Word of Truth we are nursed and nestled. We are cradled, caressed, and sanctified. . . . But know this: Doing the Truth may raise blisters on your feet, calluses on your hands, sweat running down from forehead to finger.” —“By the Word of Truth,” a litany for worship inspired by James 1:17-27

¶ Just for fun. What brilliant engineers do in their spare time. (3:21 video. Thanks Wendy.)

¶ More fun. When you need a hug from a furry friend who expects nothing in return. —Animals Are Family (2:59 video. Thanks Lori.)

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Featured this week on prayer&politiks

• “By the Word of Truth,” a litany for worship inspired by James 1:17-27

• “We must be prepared: A brief meditation for the living of these days”

• “Sweet surrender,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 15
 
Other features

• “The latest US-Iran dust-up: Reckless baiting . . . again,” an essay

• “Where do you put your anger? Anger and the animating presence of God,” an essay
 

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

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

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

Signs of the Times  •  12 July 2018  •  No. 167

Special edition
ANGER

Commentary and a collection of quotes

Introduction

        Few topics are as ambiguous for people of faith as anger. All of us get angry from time to time. But something inside us tells us we’re not supposed to be angry—even though sometimes it feels right.

        The Bible itself seems to be ambiguous. Jesus appears to forbid it when he says “every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment.” (Matthew 5:22—although a textual note adds: “Other ancient authorities insert ‘without cause’ in this verse. The rest of this text involves Jesus’ warning about insulting behavior.)

        God surely gets angry. A lot. How come God gets to, and we don’t? The Psalms, in particular, are packed full of angry statements., though we almost never read those. (For more on this, see “Angry words in the Psalms: A collection of texts.”)

        One Saturday evening a church member called my wife about worship the next morning. She had assigned him a Scripture reading.

        “I made a mistake and wrote down Psalm 109,” he said.

        “That’s the one,” Nancy said.

        “Are you sure?” he replied, “This one’s not very nice—and you want me to read this in church?!”

§  §  §

        Sometimes we muster the will power to “swallow” our anger. Doing that, however, is like swallowing a mouth-full of nails. It usually produces serious digestive problems. (Have you ever heard someone described as “eaten up with anger”?)

        Psychologically speaking, swallowing anger leads either to depression (when internalized) or aggression. I am convinced we can no more stamp out anger than we can destroy energy. It simply assumes another form.

§  §  §

        I probably have as many questions about anger as anyone. I know four things for sure.

        1. If you’re never angry, you’re not paying attention. Conflict is constitutive to life as we know it, and envisioning and practicing redemptive response is the heart of faith.

        2. Anger is the appropriate response to every form of abuse and injustice. It is, in fact, the animating presence of God; for life as we know it is not finally fated to destruction and will be transformed. This is the promise on which faith is formed and engaged.

        3. Yet anger’s sway easily becomes a cover to act out our own fears and self-centeredness—and is especially brutal when invoking religious identity and divine blessing. Truth be told, the only way to God is through unwelcomed, unruly neighbors. (See Matthew 5:23-24.)

        4. As with all such weighty matters, talking about the appropriate use of anger is immeasurably easier than practicing it. We remain acquainted with failure; it is risky; and sometimes bruising. But such is the stuff of glory. —continue reading “Where do you put the anger? Anger and the animating presence of God”

 

A collection of quotes

§ “But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment. . . .” —Matthew 5:22a

§ “Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil.” —Ephesians 4:26-27

§ “Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage: anger at the way things are and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are.” —Saint Augustine

§ “Anger, used, does not destroy. Hatred does.” —Audre Lorde

§ The truth will set you free but first it will piss you off.” —Joe Klaas

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

§ "If it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" —Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

§ “Grab the broom of anger and drive off the beast of fear.” —Zora Neale Hurston

§ "Beneath the shouting, there’s suffering. Beneath the anger, fear. Beneath the threats, broken hearts. Start there and we might get somewhere." —Parker Palmer

§ One Saturday evening a church member called my wife about worship the next morning. She had assigned him a Scripture reading.
        “I made a mistake and wrote down Psalm 109,” he said.
        “That’s the one,” Nancy said.
        “Are you sure?” he replied, “This one’s not very nice—and you want me to read this in church?!”

§ “Do not be quick to anger, for anger lodges in the bosom of fools.” —Ecclesiastes 7:9

§ “Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.” ―Mark Twain

§ “Declare your jihad on thirteen enemies you cannot see—egoism, arrogance, conceit, selfishness, greed, lust, intolerance, anger, lying, cheating, gossiping and slandering. If you can master and destroy them, then you will be read to fight the enemy you can see.” ―Abu Hamid al-Ghazali

§ “Men in rage strike those that wish them best.” ―William Shakespeare, Othello

§ “The best answer will come from the person who is not angry.” —Arabic proverb

§ “Anger as soon as fed is dead– / 'Tis starving makes it fat. ” ―Emily Dickinson

§ “Not the fastest horse can catch a word spoken in anger.” —Chinese proverb

§ "Jesus does not weep in anger or in indignation or with any satisfaction. He weeps in profound grief for this gift of God that has died." —Walter Brueggemann

§ “The fiercest anger of all, the most incurable, / Is that which rages in the place of dearest love.” ―Euripides

§ “Anger is the prelude to courage.” ―Eric Hoffer

§ “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves: one for the enemy, one for yourself.” —Confucius

§ “At the heart of all anger, all grudges, and all resentment, you'll always find a fear that hopes to stay anonymous.” ―Donald L. Hicks

§ “How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.” —Marcus Aurelius

§ “You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger.” —Gautama Buddha

§ “Hatred bounces.” —e.e. cummings

§ “Talk to us about reconciliation / Only if you first experience / the anger of our dying. / Talk to us about reconciliation / Only if your living is not the cause / of our dying.” —excerpt from a poem by Filipino author Justino Cabazares

§ “No matter how hot your anger is, it cannot cook yams.” —Nigerian proverb

§ “Every war already carries within it the war which will answer it. Every war is answered by a new war, until everything, everything is smashed.” —Käthe Kollwitz

§ “I have learned through bitter experience the one supreme lesson: to conserve my anger, and, as heat conserved is transmitted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmitted into a power which can move the world." —Mahatma Gandhi

§ “Anger makes us all stupid.” —Johanna Spyri

§ “If I have learned anything in my life, it is that bitterness consumes the vessel that contains it.” —Rubin “Hurricane” Carter

§ “If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.” —Chinese proverb

§ “Conquer anger by love; conquer evil by good; conquer the miser by liberality; conquer the liar by truth.” —Gautama Buddha

§ “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” —Romans 12:21

§ “Let us not be afraid to protect the weak because of the anger of the strong, or to defend the poor because of the power of the rich.” —Brazilian theologian Rubem Alves

§ “What Christians call discipleship is nothing less than organizing people for another way of life that deals with the inequalities, the frustrations, the anger, and the hopelessness of their times in constructive ways.” —Joerg Rieger

§ “For what we Christians lack is not psychology or literature . . . we lack a holy rage—the recklessness which comes from the knowledge of God and humanity. The ability to rage when justice lies prostrate on the streets, and when the lie rages across the face of the earth . . . a holy anger about the things that are wrong in the world. To rage against the ravaging of God's earth, and the destruction of God's world.” —Kai Munk, Danish pastor killed by the Gestapo in 1944

§ “Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” —Gautama Buddha

§ The seven deadly sins: Luxuria (extravagance, later lust), Gula (gluttony), Avaritia (greed), Acedia (sloth), Ira (wrath, more commonly known as anger), Invidia (envy), and Superbia (pride).

§ “What do you think we ought to do with the anger and the yearning for vengeance that is so powerful among us? I proposed in [Praying the Psalms] that what the lament psalms do is show Israel doing three things. First, you must voice the rage. Everybody knows that. Everybody in the therapeutic society knows that you must voice it, but therapeutic society stops there. Second, you must submit it to another, meaning God in this context. Third, you then must relinquish it and say, ‘I entrust my rage to you.’” —Walter Brueggemann

§ “A Cherokee elder sitting with his grandchildren told them, ‘In every life there is a terrible fight—a fight between two wolves. One is evil: he is fear, anger, envy, greed, arrogance, self-pity, resentment, and deceit. The other is good: joy, serenity, humility, confidence, generosity, truth, gentleness, and compassion.’ A child asked, ‘Grandfather, which wolf will win?’ The elder looked him in the eye. ‘The one you feed.’” —Cherokee parable

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

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

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