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Signs of the Times  •  3 July 2018 •  No. 166

¶ Processional. “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.” —Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, “This Land is Your Land”

“Purple Mountains Majesty” photo by Russ Bishop

Special edition
PATRIOTISM

¶ Invocation. “In seasons of dark desire eyes strain for Eden’s refrain and flickered light ’mid the fright of earth’s travail. Oh, Beloved, unleash your Voice of Pardon from wrath’s consuming reign. Speak peace to the hungered of heart.” —continue reading “Speak peace to the hungered of heart,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 85

¶ Call to worship. “This Land Is Your Land,” Woody Guthrie.

¶ Good news. Amazing story of 10-year-old Sarah Haycox recovered a forgotten story in her town’s history and successfully lobbied to give it prominence. —CBS Sunday Morning (2:52 video. Thanks Abigail.)

¶ Hymn of praise. “This is my song, O God of all Nations / A song of peace for lands afar and mine / This is my home, the country where my heart is / Here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine / But other hearts in other lands are beating / With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.” —Indigo Girls, with Michelle Malone, “Song of Peace (Finlandia)”

¶ “Over the past 15 years the aphorism ‘freedom is not free’ has become a popular patriotic refrain. But we forget that, in 1953, Army Chief of Staff General Matthew Ridgeway used the phrase to identify the difference between those who torture their captives and those who, like us, believe the disavowal of torture is among the “self-evident truths” dating from our Republic’s founding. The ‘cost’ of freedom entails moral accountability.” —continue reading, “The cost of freedom entails moral accountability: The need for truthtelling about the CIA’s torturing practices”

¶ One hundredth birthday of “God Bless America.” We forget that this popular tune was penned by a refugee—Irving Beilin, who changed his name to Berlin. “The first reference to the song in The New York Times describes a performance at a dinner sponsored by the National Conference of Christians and Jews, where religious leaders repudiated the “doctrine of race and hate” in totalitarian Europe and urged Americans not to let it happen within their own communities. In a 1940 leaders of a joint Ku Klux Klan and the pro-Nazi German American Bund rally called for a boycott of the song.

        Listen to the radio star Kate Smith’s first performance of the song.

        Woody Guthrie’s song, “This Land Is Your Land,” was originally written as a sarcastic comment on the Berlin song and was titled “God Blessed America for Me.” First recorded in 1944 by Moses Asch, this controversial verse was not included and, in fact, forgotten until 1997 when Smithsonian archivist Jeff Place heard it while digitizing the acetate master: “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.”

        The song wasn’t released until 1951, when McCarthyism was on the rise and Cold War politics became dominant.

        Guthrie never recorded another controversial verse, one that expressly calls out the church: “One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple, / by the relief office I saw my people.  / As they stood hungry,  / I stood there wondering if God blessed America for me.” —For more see Sheryl Kaskowitz, “’God Bless America’: 100 Years of an Immigrant’s Anthem,” New York Times; and Nick Spitzer, “The Story of Woody Guthrie’s ‘This Land Is Your Land,’” NPR (audio version 13;00)

¶ Confession. “This nation is founded on blood like a city on swamps / yet its dream has been beautiful and sometimes just / that now grows brutal and heavy as a burned-out star. —Marge Piercy, in “Circles on the Water”

¶ “I would suggest that such practices as the designation of 'In God We Trust' as our national motto, or the references to God contained in the Pledge of Allegiance can best be understood as a form of 'ceremonial deism,' protected from Establishment Clause scrutiny because they have lost through rote repetition any significant religious content. . . ." —US Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Lynch v. Donnelly (1984)

¶ Hymn of supplication. “I was walking with my brother / and he wondered what's on my mind / I said, What I believe in my soul / ain't what I see with my eyes / And we can't turn our backs this time /  And the river opens for the righteous.” —Jackson Browne, “I Am a Patriot” (Thanks Thom.)

¶ Words of assurance. “I raised my head and set myself / In the eye of the storm, in the belly of a whale / My spirit stood on solid ground / I'll be at peace when they lay me down.” —Loretta Lynn & Willie Nelson, “Lay Me Down” (Thanks Marsha.)

¶ “This year, five state legislatures passed laws mandating that every public school prominently display the U.S. motto, ‘In God We Trust.’ The addition of Arkansas, which passed such a law in 2017, brings to six the number of states with public school mandates, including Alabama, Florida, Arizona, Louisiana and Tennessee. Those laws, mostly sponsored by legislative prayer caucuses in about 30 states, were inspired by the foundation’s 2017 manual known as Project Blitz [a project of the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation], a 116-page guide for state legislators listing 20 model bills of which ‘In God We Trust’ is the first.” —Yonat Shimron, Religion News Service

¶ Professing our faith. “Because our virtues as a nation are considerable, we tend to think our vices unremarkable. Such is not the case. At the same time, this is the case: If you do not love your land you cannot participate in its healing.

       “If we are to rightly interpret our condition, listening for the Word that is needed, we simply must take seriously the whole story—its glory and its shame.” —continue reading “Of Thee I Sing: An Independence Day meditation”

¶ Hymn of resolution. “I’d hammer out a danger, I’d hammer out a warning, I’d hammer out a love between my brothers and my sisters, all over this land.” —Peter, Paul & Mary, “If I Had a Hammer”

¶ Quotes on patriotism.

        • “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” —Samuel Johnson

        • “A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.” —Edward Abbey

        • “Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.” —Charles De Gaulle

        • “The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?” —Pablo Casals

        • “Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country.” —Bertrand Russell

        • “Born in iniquity and conceived in sin, the spirit of nationalism has never ceased to bend human institutions to the service of dissension and distress.” —Thorstein Veblen

        • “American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.” —James Baldwin

        • “When a nation is filled with strife, then do patriots flourish.” —Lao Tzu

        • “Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.” —Oscar Wilde

¶ Hymn of intercession. “What makes a gringo your smart aleck lingo / When he stole this land from the Indian way back when / Don't he remember the big money lender / That put him a lincoln parked where his pinto had been / The almighty peso that gives him the say so / To dry up the river whenever there's crops to bring in / Such a good neighbor to take all his labor / Chase him back over the border till he's needed again.” —Merle Haggard, “The Immigrant”

¶ “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 heroizing of troops. The latter urge is understandable, given the agonizing affect of hundreds of veteran suicides every month." —continue reading “This Land Is Your Land: Independence Day in light of Woody Guthrie’s enduring question about to whom the land belongs”

¶ “The devil lies to the kings and gets them blind drunk on his wine of Patriotism and they fill their subjects with the same stuff and tell them that their fatherland is in danger and they must fight to protest it. That is a lie of the Devil.

        “The highest type of patriotism is to refuse to fight with carnal weapons and stand by Him who taught us to love our enemies and put up the sword.

        “O Reader, don't let the devil fool you on this false notion of patriotism. . . . Will we, followers of the Prince of Peace, dedicate our bodies to the god of war to murder or butcher our fellow man? God forbid!” —W.S. Craig, writing in the “Repairer” publication, April 1918, rooted in the Free Methodist tradition

¶ Offertory. “Unforgettable,” Bill Waltrous (RIP – 1938-2018).

¶ Preach it. “When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion—its message becomes meaningless.” —Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

¶ Can’t makes this sh*t up. “. . . we have the right and obligation to protect what others have fought and died for.” —letter to the editor, Asheville Citizen-Times, of a motorcyclist rejecting calls for stricter enforcement of vehicular noise regulations

¶ Call to the table. “Lovers of the world unite / Bound to Creator’s vision, bright / That even these, our darkest nights / Become the light, become the light." —Alana Levondoski, “Hope Beyond All Hope”

¶ The state of our disunion, from the world of gazillionaire athletes. Superstar basketball player LeBron James left a $35.6 million contract offer from Cleveland on the table; and then, a few days later, signed a new one with the Los Angeles Lakers for $38.5 million per year. Let’s do the math.
        The National Basketball Association regular season schedule is 82 games per year. So, LeBron’s salary comes to a wee bit over $1,878,000.00 per game (a bit less per game if they reach the playoffs).

¶ Best one-liner. “Nobel Prize now a near-certainty for Trump after he does the impossible: Unites Canada.” —Paul Duncan (Thanks Linda—and a belated happy Canada Day to friends north of the 49th.)

¶ For the beauty of the earth. Time-lapse video (1:15) of cactus blooms unfolding. (Thanks Lori.)

¶ Altar call. “I want our nation to listen to a poet who dares to unchoke love from bellowing patriotism. One who will resuscitate the word with the sharp rib-cracking pressure of truth, so that the gasp of the future may rush into our lungs, that we might breathe together and survive our broken hearts.” —Rivera Sun, “Sing the Body Politic, Electric,” CommonDreams

¶ Benediction. “Tend your sick ones, O God. Rest your weary ones. Bless your dying ones. Soothe your suffering ones. Embrace your afflicted ones. Shield your joyous ones. Grace your shamed ones. May the love that abides and never dies stay secure in us, around us, and beyond us, forever and ever. Amen.” —continue reading “Call to prayer and pastoral prayer,” Nancy Hastings Sehested (adapting a prayer from St. Augustine)

¶ Recessional. “From the north to the south / from the west to the east / hear the prayer of the mothers / bring them peace / bring them peace.” —Yael Deckelbaum & Prayer of the Mothers, “This Land” (English translation of Hebrew and Egyptian Arabic lyrics), a 14-member ensemble of Jewish, Arab and Christian women

¶ Lectionary for this Sunday. “Good pleasure,” a litany for worship inspired by Ephesians 1:3-14

¶ Lectionary for Sunday next. “Strangers we were,” a litany for worship inspired by Ephesians 2:11-22

¶ Just for fun. The Sunday when Bart Simpson switched the hymn. (1:23 video. Thanks Sally.)

#  #  #

Featured this week on prayer&politiks

• “Of Thee I Sing: An Independence Day meditation”

• “Good pleasure,” a litany for worship inspired by Ephesians 1:3-14

• “Strangers we were,” a litany for worship inspired by Ephesians 2:11-22

• “Call to prayer and pastoral prayer,” Nancy Hastings Sehested

 
Other features

• “The cost of freedom entails moral accountability: The need for truthtelling about the CIA’s torturing practices”

• “Speak peace to the hungered of heart,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 85

• “Colin Kaepernick, national anthems, and flag-flown piety: Commentary on what is and is not sacred”

• “This Land Is Your Land: Independence Day in light of Woody Guthrie’s enduring question about to whom the land belongs”

©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  •  3 November 2016  •  No. 95

¶ Processional. Someday there will be a peace dance as vigorous, as compelling, and as ecstatic as this: Comanche war dance (1:00 video).

Above: Badlands National Park, South Dakota

Introduction

        By now, DAPL (Dakota Access Pipeline) has become a familiar acronym to many in the US. The confrontation near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, where the Cannonball River joins the Missouri River, is cleft by a thin barricade.

        On one side is law enforcement: Morton County sheriffs, augmented with state police, National Guard troops, sheriffs from other states and oil company private security personnel, all heavily armed and supported by surveillance airplanes and helicopters, armored vehicles, even “sound cannons” (“Long Range Acoustical Devices” emitting ear-splitting noise).

Right: An 86-year old Sioux elder arriving at the Sacred Stone Camp near Cannonball, North Dakota. (Photo: Birk Albert/Facebook)

        On the other, unarmed members of the Standing Rock Sioux Nation (who name themselves “Water Protectors”) and their supporters, which now number in the thousands. —continue reading Ken Sehested’s “Confrontation on the Cannon Ball: The Dakota Access Pipeline”

¶ Invocation. “Now I Walk in Beauty,” adapted from a Navajo prayer, performed by Libana.

¶ “When the white man came we had the land and they had the Bibles; now they have the land and we have the Bibles." —Chief Dan George

¶ “Standing Rock,” Trevor Hall. This music video + text (4:13) effectively summarizes the situation at the Standing Rock Sioux peoples resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline.

¶ More than 900 law enforcement officials from 17 counties, 12 cities, North Dakota National Guard, and six other states are currently using public funds to protect Energy Transfer Partner’s private project, known as DAPL.” —C.S. Hagen, “Standing Rock Chief Condemns Crackdown,” and Dan Zukowski, “Governor Uses Emergency Order to Bring Out-of-State Police to Dakota Access Pipeline Protest,” EcoWatch 

¶ The legal protocol used by the North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple to justify bringing law enforcement personnel from outside the county to Standing Rock is a little-known provision called the Emergency Management Assistance Compact which is intended for state agencies to share resources during natural disasters. In this case, protecting a private business is considered a natural disaster. —Steve Horn, “The Natural Disaster Assistance Law Is Why Other States Are Policing Dakota Access Pipeline Protests,” Huffington Post

¶ Energy Transfer Partners, which is building the $3.8 billion pipeline, said Tuesday that the protesters were trespassing and that “lawless behavior will not be tolerated”—oblivious to the fact that the Fort Laramie Treaty gave exclusive ownership rights to the Lakota Sioux. (More on that below.)

¶ Call to worship. “Worthy, worthy the One who conceived the earth and gave birth to bears and basil and beatitudes alike. We extol you, Heaven’s Delight and Earth’s Repose! Oh, children of Christ’s embrace, even when trembling abounds, say aloud: God is worth the trouble!” —continue reading Ken Sehested’s “Heaven’s delight and earth’s repose,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 145

"To understand the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, you need to understand tribal sovereignty: Policy has to be paired with indigenous people’s experiences." —Victoria M. Massie, Vox

¶ Hymn of praise. Hopi spirit chant.

¶ Commerce trumps all. “We just want to maintain safety as we go through this and that means everyone involved. . . . We don’t want anybody hurt or run over down there. We just want to make sure commerce can continue as it should.” —Morton County (North Dakota) Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier, quoted in Lee Strubinger, South Dakota Public Radio

¶ “Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realize we cannot eat money.” —Cree proverb

¶ Confession. “We have seen that the white man does not take his religion any more seriously than his laws, that he keeps both of them just behind him, like Helpers, to use when they might do him good. … These are not our ways. We kept the laws we made and lived by our religion. We have never understood the white man, who fools no one but himself.” —Chief Plenty-Coups, Crow nation

¶ For the Lakota, the Dakota Access Pipeline is associated with the “black snake” (see right) of an ancient Lakota prophecy that predicted one day a black snake would crawl out of the ground, bringing great destruction to the People of the Plains.

¶ Hymn of lamentation. “Sitting Bull Memorial Song,” Lakota Thunder.

¶ “The reservation, of course, is where the Native Americans were told to live when the vast lands they ranged were taken by others. The Great Sioux Reservation, formed in the eighteen-sixties, shrunk again and again. In the nineteen-fifties and early sixties, the Army Corps of Engineers—the same Army Corps now approving the pipeline—built five large dams along the Missouri, forcing Indian villages to relocate. More than two hundred thousand acres disappeared beneath the water. —Bill McKibben, “A Pipeline Fight and America’s Dark Past,” The New Yorker

¶ Words of assurance. “Spirit Healing Song – Lakota.”

¶ “Since 2010, over 3,300 incidents of crude oil and liquefied natural gas leaks or ruptures have occurred on U.S. pipelines. These incidents have killed 80 people, injured 389 more, and cost $2.8 billion in damages. They also released toxic, polluting chemicals in local soil, waterways, and air.” —Amanda Starbuck, Center for Effective Government (Thanks Brent.)

¶ “A North Dakota oil well owned by Oasis Petroleum Inc. blew out over the weekend [15-16 October 2016] and has yet to be capped, leaking more than 67,000 gallons of crude so far and endangering a tributary of the Missouri River, state officials said.” —Ernest Scheyder, Reuters

Left: One of three camp sites of the Standing Rock Sioux “Water Protectors” and their allies opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline. RNS photo by Emily McFarlan Miller.

¶ “Sunoco Logistics, the future operator of the [Dakota Access Pipeline] delayed this month after Native American protests in North Dakota, spills crude more often than any of its competitors with more than 200 leaks since 2010, according to a Reuters analysis of government data.” —Liz Hampton, Reuters

¶ “How to Contact the 17 Banks Funding the Dakota Access Pipeline. Here are CEO names, emails, and phone numbers—because banks have choices when it comes to what projects they give loans to.” —Emily Fuller, YES! magazine

¶ Hymn of intercession. “Lakota National Anthem,” Porcupine Singers of Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

¶ In 1987, the United States Senate acknowledged that the Great Law of Peace of the Iroquois Nations served as a model for the Constitution of the United States. —U.S. S. Con. Res. 76, 2 Dec. 1987

¶ Illustrated map of Native American Nations, with animated progress of lands taken from pre-European times to the present.

¶ “Some day the earth will weep, she will beg for her life, she will cry with tears of blood. You will make a choice, if you will help her or let her die, and when she dies, you will die.” —John Hollow Horn, Oglala Lakota

¶ The “Black Hills Gold Rush” of the 1870s, illegally opening Lakota Sioux land to miners and settlers, is what led to US General George Armstrong Custer’s defeat in the Battle of the Little Bighorn of 1876. The 1828 "Dahlonega Gold Rush" in the north Georgia mountains precipitated the forced removal of the Cherokee nation.

Reaching further back
in history

Important background to current affairs

¶ Theological rationale for conquest. The following excerpt is from "El Parecer de Yucay," a 1571 theological document commissioned to justify Spain’s colonization in the Americas.

        Its author asked, “What could it mean that God put these miserable Indians, so inept and beastly, in kingdoms so big . . . and lands so wonderful and so full of riches?” The answer is the form of a parable:

        “God acted . . . as a father who has two daughters: one very white, full of grace and gentility; the other very ugly, bleary-eyed, stupid and bestial. If the first is to be married, she doesn't need a dowry, but only to be put in the palace and those who want to marry her would compete for her. For the ugly, stupid, foolish wretch, it isn't enough to give her a large dowry, many jewels, lovely magnificent, and expensive clothes. . . .

        “This is what I say about these Indians, that one of the means of their predestination and salvation were the mines, treasures and riches. . . .” —for more, see Toasts with the Inca: Andean Abstraction and Colonial Images on Quero Vessels by Thomas B. F. Cummins

¶ “In his farewell address to Congress in 1796, our first U.S. president, George Washington predicted that the flaws embedded in federalism, as it was set up in the Constitution, would eventually translate into incomprehensible misery for the American Indian. His biographer, Joseph Ellis, tells us that Washington, more than any other of our Founders, foresaw that “what was politically essential for a viable American nation was ideologically at odds with what it claimed to stand for.” —Paul VanDevelder, “Reckoning at Standing Rock: What to understand the pipeline protests? Start with the Founding Fathers," High Country News

¶ There’s this. "He [the King of Great Britain] has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. —from the US Declaration of Independence

¶ Then, there’s this. “It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stink and scent thereof; but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and [we] gave the praise thereof to God.” —William Bradford, governor of the early Plymouth Colony, writing in 1637 of his Pilgrim community’s annihilation of a Pequot Indian village along the Mystic River

¶ “Under the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, the United States pledged that the Great Sioux Reservation, including the Black Hills, would be "set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation" of the Sioux Nation, and that no treaty for the cession of any part of the reservation would be valid as against the Sioux unless executed and signed by at least three-fourths of the adult male Sioux population.” A subsequent “agreement” provided subsistence rations for the starving Sioux, but signed only by 10% of its population, effectively abrogated the Fort Laramie Treaty.  —US Supreme Court, US v. Sioux Nation, 1980

¶ “. . . a more ripe and rank case of dishonorable dealings will never, in all probability, be found in our history.” —1974 US Court of Claims, quoted US Supreme Court, US v. Sioux Nation (1980), referencing the Fort Laramie Treaty

¶ Consumerism as the new imperial strategy. In 1803 US President Thomas Jefferson wrote a confidential letter to Congress recognizing “The Indian tribes residing within the limits of the U.S. have for a considerable time been growing more & more uneasy at the constant diminution of the territory they occupy.” He recommended two measures. The first was to encourage Native Americans to take up agriculture.

        “Secondly to multiply trading houses among them & place within their reach those things which will contribute more to their domestic comfort, then the profession of extensive, but uncultivated wilds, experience & reflection will develop to them the wisdom of exchanging what they can spare & we want, for what we can spare and they want.” —"A Long History of Treaties,” nebraskastudies.org

¶ “When asked by an anthropologist what the Indians called America before the white man came, an Indian said simply, “Ours.” —Vine Deloria, Jr., author of Custer Died for Your Sins

¶ In an 1892 letter to the Seneca spiritual leader Handsome Lake, President Thomas Jefferson wrote: “In all your enterprises for the good of your people, you may count with confidence on the aid and protection of the United States. You are our brethren of the same land; we wish your prosperity as brethren should do.” —Wikipedia

¶ Preach it. 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.”

¶ “Trail of Tears” is generally used when speaking of the Cherokee removal—a death march, if you will, in which one of every four died en route—from 1836-1839, in accordance to Congress’ “Indian Relocation Act” of 1830. Sometimes, though, the phrase is used in relation to all Native Americans relocated from their land in the Southeast— including Muscogee, Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw—to what is now Oklahoma.

¶ Prior to their removal, the Cherokees took their case to the US Supreme Court—and won. President Andrew Jackson, who had pushed Congress to pass the 1930 Indian Removal Act, refused to enforce the decision. —"Trail of Tears," history.com

¶ Can’t makes this sh*t up. “Tonight’s Ohio high school football game between the Greenfield-McClain Tigers and Hillsboro Indians featured this embarrassing banner (at left) presented by the Greenfield-McClain cheerleaders, promising a ‘Trail of Tears Part 2 for Hillsboro.” —Deadspin

¶ Call to the table. “Lakota Dream Song,” The Lonely Bear Cub.

¶ The state of our disunion. “Between 1778, when the Delawares ceded their land, and 1871, when the Nez Perce signed with the government, Congress ratified 371 treaties [all of which were broken or amended in deceptive ways]. Indians then owned about 140 million acres. . . . Today, Indians control 56 million acres— barely 2% of the US.” —Timothy Egan, “The Nation: Mending a Trail of Broken Treaties," New York Times

¶ Altar call. “In the end, says the Western writer William Kittredge, reconciliation will be America’s only way out of that legacy of dishonor, the only sensible path to a future worth living—our Last Chance Saloon.” —Paul VanDevelder, “Reckoning at Standing Rock: What to understand the pipeline protests? Start with the Founding Fathers,” High Country News

¶ The sun symbol (right) was important to many Native American nations. The Great American Plains tribes performed a Sun Dance each year at the summer solstice.

¶ For the beauty of creation. NASA video of "Fiery looping rain on the sun."

¶ Benediction. “In beauty I walk / With beauty before me I walk / With beauty behind me I walk / With beauty above me I walk / With beauty around me I walk / It has become beauty again.“ —closing prayer from the Navajo Way Blessing Ceremony

¶ Recessional. “Lakota Lullaby,” Wayra, featuring famous artwork from J.D. Challenger, Kirby Sattler, and other famous artists.

¶ Lectionary for Sunday next. “With feet-wearied hope doth my voice still rejoice.  / Incline us, consign us, to steadfast Embrace. / With glad songs of vict’ry, from the formerly vanquished, / let the festal procession loot the treasury of fear. / With soul-rested hope doth my voice still rejoice. / Incline us, consign us, to steadfast Embrace.” —continue reading Ken Sehested’s “Mutinous lips,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 118

¶ See Ken Sehested's "How to support the Standing Rock action opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline" for a list of concrete suggestions and general commentary.

¶ Postscript. When approaching Native American Indian culture (or any culture other than your own), do so with humility. There is a lot of culture-vulturing out there—duty-free, new-agey fluff and hucksterism passing as spirituality, as if it were a shiny bauble, free for the taking, stripped of actual grounding in communal life and material relations. —Ken Sehested, from “Confrontation at the Cannon Ball: The Dakota Access Pipeline”

¶ Just for fun. “Native American Comedy.” (3:44 video)

#  #  #

Featured this week on prayer&politiks

• “Mutinous lips,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 118

• “Confrontation on the Cannon Ball: The Dakota Access Pipeline”

Other feature

• “Vote, or don’t: The issues are larger than the election”

 
Resources for All Saints Day

• “All Saints Day,” a litany for worship 

• “For All the Saints,” new lyrics to an old hymn

• “Hallowed Week: A call to worship for All Hallowed Eve and All Saints Day,” by Abigail Hastings

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Language not otherwise indicated above is that of the editor. 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.

Kokopelli (right), among the most recognizable of Native American symbols, was depicted by southwestern tribal cultures as a hunchbacked flute player, revered as a fertility deity, a prankster and a storyteller.

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  •  27 June 2018 •  No. 165

¶ Processional. “Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor,” musical setting by Irving Berlin of Emma Lazarus’ poem on the Statue of Liberty, performed by the Portland Choir & Orchestra.

Above: Badlands National Park, South Dakota

Special issue on
IMMIGRATION

¶ Invocation. “In seasons of dark desire eyes strain for Eden’s refrain and flickered light ’mid the fright of earth’s travail. Oh, Beloved, unleash your Voice of Pardon from wrath’s consuming reign. Speak peace to the hungered of heart.” —continue reading “Speak peace to the hungered of heart,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 85

¶ Call to worship. “Come, heaven! Come, earth! With mercy so tender, adopted in splendor, all bloodletting malice shall melt into praise. Riches of grace are lavishing still—breathlessly awaiting the fullness of days, when all will be gathered and richly arrayed. With mercy so tender, adopted in splendor, all bloodletting malice shall melt into praise.” —continue reading “Good pleasure,” a litany for worship inspired by Ephesians 1:3-14

¶ Signs of resistance to impunity.
        • “The El Paso [Texas] County sheriff [Richard Wiles] prohibited his deputies from working off-duty at a temporary shelter housing migrant children, saying he refused to support the Trump administration’s “unjust” policy of separating families at the border. “I told them absolutely not. I think it’s wrong. . . . It’s not consistent with the values of the sheriff’s office.” —Samantha Schmidt, Washington Post
        • After providing journalists a tour of a child detention camp near El Paso on the Mexican border, a senior manager told them that President Trump’s zero-tolerance immigration policy was a ‘dumb, stupid decision. . . . All it did was harm children.’” —Kevin Tripp, Guardian

¶ Hymn of praise.  “All praise belongs to God. Let’s sing.” —“Tala' al-Badru Alayna” (The Moon Has Shone His Light To Us),” Canadian children’s choir singing the oldest known Islamic song, which was sung by Prophet Muhammad's companions to welcome him as he sought refuge in Medina

¶ Setting the record straight in light of fearmongering. "‘There's no wave of crime being committed by the immigrant community,’ [Houston, Texas, police chief Art] Acevedo said. ‘As a matter of fact, a lot of the violent crime that we're dealing with is being committed by people that are born and raised right here in the United States.’” Four different academic studies now prove him right. —for more see John Burnett, “Illegal Immigration Does Not Increase Violent Crime, 4 Studies Show,” NPR

¶ When love overrules fear. This brief (1:06) video, recorded by an onlooker, shows Mamoudou Gassama, an undocumented migrant from Mali living in France, scaling four floors of an apartment building to rescue a toddler dangling on a balcony rail.

¶ Confession. I am “trudging into the distance in the bleeding stinking mad shadow of Jesus. . . . The Lord out of dust created me, made me blood and nerve and mind, had made me bleed and weep and think, and set me in a world of loss.” —adapted to read first-person, from Flannery O’Connor’s novel, The Violent Bear it Away

¶ Words of assurance. “All glory to you, Gracious One, who smiles on the earth, restoring the fortunes of our ancestors. In your presence, the weight of shame is lifted, and we are drenched in pardon. The cooling of your anger lifts mist into the air, and the fields drink their fill.” —continue reading “Justice and peace will kiss,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 85

¶ Hymn of intercession. “The Prayer of the Refugee,” Rise Against.

¶ Colbert, Sessions, and the Apostle Paul. In case you missed this: Stephen Colbert takes down Jeff Sessions’ biblical rationale for family separation policies. (5:06 video)

¶ Professing our faith. “In considering illegal immigration, many talk appropriately about the rule of law. But there is also the imago dei—the shared image of God—that does not permit individual worth and dignity to be sorted by national origin. This commitment does not translate simplistically into open borders and amnesty. It does mean, however, that immigrants should not be used as objects of organized anger or singled out for prejudice and harm.” —Michael Gerson

Right: Rob Rogers, political cartoonist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, was fired from his job after producing this cartoon.

¶ Short story. My friend and colleague Joyce Hollyday and other gringas meet every Thursday with a group of Spanish-speaking women at a local church in Madison County, NC, for Bible study, language lessons, and a potluck lunch. The mujeres’ fear of being arrested and deported bubbles up frequently in the conversation.

        “But a few weeks ago Carmela announced over lunch, ‘I think the best way to keep from being sent back is to introduce ourselves to local law enforcement—let them see our children and get to know our families.’ It seemed to me audacious and brave—and very frightening for my friends.”

        You’ll love reading the rest of the story, “Lunch with the Law.”

¶ Cheers. “Notice how we’re constantly told there isn’t $ to provide adequate schools or healthcare for poor children but funds suddenly materialize whenever they decide to imprison children.” —@BreeNewsome

¶ Jeers. Border Patrol agents caught on film destroying supplies left by humanitarian groups to reduce migrant deaths while crossing the US border with Mexico. More migrants died during that dangerous trek in the last 16 years than in 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina combined. (Thanks Jeanne.)

¶ By the numbers. National Bureau of Economic Research reported in a June 2017 study that each adult refugee settling in the US between 2010-2014 paid, on average, $21,000 more in taxes than they cost in public assistance. —Veronika Bondarenko, Business Insider

        In a July 2017 study the Trump Administration’s House and Human Services office that that refugees paid $63 billion more in taxes than they received in public assistance. —New York Times

¶ “Regarding our current ‘immigration’ uproar: the chaos at our southern border with Mexico did not start at that border. There is traceable history behind the fact that many of this era’s migrants are from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador.” —continue reading “Are things are getting worse? No, just uncovered. Commentary on ‘zero tolerance’ immigration policies, with five suggestions”

¶ Offertory. “Immigrants: We get the job done.” Lin-Manuel Miranda (“Hamilton” creator) produced this thought-provoking music video about the American immigrant experience, featuring Residente, Riz MC & Snow Tha Product. (6:07 video.)

¶ History summary you need to know.

        • Here’s an excellent, brief (3:21 video) history of race as an immigration factor. (Thanks Leon.)

        • Essential reading. “There’s no immigration crisis and these charts prove it,” Christopher Ingraham, Washington Post

        • “There were no federal laws governing who could enter and who couldn’t until the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.” —read more on US immigration history, Becky Little, “The Birth of ‘Illegal’ Immigration,” History

        • “When people say ‘my ancestors came here legally,’ they’re probably right. For the first century of the country’s existence, anyone could land here and walk right off the boat with no papers of any kind. Coming here ‘illegally’ did not even exist as a concept [until 1924].” —Kevin Jennings, LA Times

        • “Until the 1920s, Europeans who came to the United States could just show up, without a visa, and were generally admitted. After the 1920s, there were also relatively easy avenues available to people to adjust their status while remaining in the country, even if they had entered without authorization. Those possibilities basically ended in 1965 [with the Immigration and Nationality Act], and the consequence of this change has directly fed our current immigration challenges.” —Moustafa Bayoumi, The Guardian

        • How things have changed. “The traditional hospitality of the American people has been severely tested by recent events, but it remains the strongest in the world. Republicans are proud that our people have opened their arms and hearts to strangers from abroad and we favor an immigration and refugee policy which is consistent with this tradition.” —Republican Party platform of 1980

Art at right by Nizar Ali Badr. See more of his “pebble stories” art.

¶ Preach it. “As a general rule, I would say that human beings never behave more badly toward one another than when they believe they are protecting God.” —Barbara Brown Taylor

¶ “What is the fear that drives the leaders of the United States to tear children from their parents and put them in places of horror and despair? For both Pharaoh and Herod, the destruction of children had nothing to do with “safety” and everything to do with insecurity, a pathological hatred of the other, and a fanatical desire to hold on to power at all costs.” —Sylvia Keesmaat, “Separating Children and Parents Is Not About Safety. It’s About Hate,” Sojourners

¶ Hymn of supplication. “I Am a Stranger,” Ken Medema.

¶ Can’t makes this sh*t up. President Trump has nominated Ronald W. Mortensen to be the Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. Mortensen currently works for the Center for Immigration Studies, a white nationalist group. —Southern Poverty Law Center (Thanks Harold.)

¶ Call to the table. “I am resilient / I trust the movement / I negate the chaos / Uplift the negative / I'll show up at the table / Again and again and again / I'll close my mouth and learn to listen.” —Rising Appalachia, “Resilient”

¶ The state of our disunion. “There are white Christians who are OK with forcibly separating migrant children from their families . . .  who are so enthusiastically preparing for summer mission trips to these same children’s countries.” —@davidswanson (Thanks Kristen.)

¶ More disunion. In February the “US Citizenship and Immigration Services altered its mission statement by taking out a reference to the US as a ‘nation of immigrants.’" The new statement speaks of “protecting Americans, securing the homeland, and honoring our values.” The rising tide of xenophobia is now reinforced with formal language. —Max Greenwood, The Hill

¶ Best one-liner. “All of us are immigrants, in this state of grace.” —Leslie Lee & Steve Gretz, “Immigrants” 

¶ For the beauty of the earth. Two resources to explore opportunities at US national parks.

        •The outdoor recreation company Montem has created a very useful compilation, “Top 37 National Parks To Visit Before You Die," which includes not only photos but background information, including a “things to do list” and “how to get there” options for each.

        • “The 22 best US national parks to escape the crowds, chosen by experts.” —Guardian

¶ Altar call. “The strategy of Jesus is not centred in taking the right stand on issues, but rather in standing in the right place—with the outcast and those relegated to the margins." —Fr. Gregory Boyle

¶ “Here's where to donate to help migrant children and families at the border,” by Megan Leonhard, offers great advice generally as well as several specific recommendations. —CNBC (Thanks Buddy.)

¶ Benediction. It’s hard to describe Bruce Springsteen’s performance (6:26 video) at the recent Tony Awards. It’s a combination of spoken word and singing (from “My Hometown”) as he describes both the beauty and the heartache of every hometown. There is no one without the other. Root yourself; find companions; turn your face into whatever wind—fair or foul—is blowing. In everything give thanks, resting in the assurance, which only a heart of faith can access, that in the end goodness will outdistance hardship.

¶ Recessional. Sharifah Khasif, extraordinarily beautiful Qur’anic recitation.

¶ Lectionary for this Sunday. “Rouse yourselves,” a litany for worship inspired by Ezekiel 2:1-5. And: “Sufficient grace,” a litany for worship inspired by 2 Corinthians 12:2-10 & Habakkuk 3:17-19.

¶ Lectionary for Sunday next. “Good pleasure,” a litany for worship inspired by Ephesians 1:3-14

¶ Just for fun. There is no white Jesus. (1:52. Thanks Phil.)

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Featured this week on prayer&politiks

• “Are things are getting worse? No, just uncovered," commentary on “zero tolerance” immigration policies, with five suggestions

• “Good pleasure,” a litany for worship inspired by Ephesians 1:3-14

• “Blessed assurance: Call to the table in the face of terror”

• “Speak peace to the hungered of heart,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 85

• “Justice and peace will kiss,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 85

• “Three exegetes—a traditionalist, a modernist, and a post-modernist—walk into a bar. Over shots of bourbon, the three discuss the prologue (1:3-14) to the epistle to the Ephesians,” pastoral commentary
 
SPECIAL FEATURE. In light of the US Independence Day approach, see this 2017 special issue of “Signs of the Times” on “Patriotism.”
 
Other features

• “Out of the House of Slavery,” a Bible study on “immigration”

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