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Signs of the Times  •  13 July 2016  •  No. 81

¶ Processional. “Ella’s Song,” Sweet Honey in the Rock.

¶ Call to worship. “If blood will flow when flesh and steel are one / Drying in the color of the evening sun / Tomorrow's rain will wash the stains away ‘ But something in our minds will always stay ‘ Perhaps this final act was meant / To clinch a lifetime's argument / That nothing comes from violence and nothing ever could.” —Sting, “Fragile,” performed with Yo-Yo Ma, Chris Botti and Dominic Miller (Thanks Garth)

¶ Invocation. “You may write me down in history / with your bitter, twisted lies. / You may trod me in the very dirt, / but still, like dust, I'll rise.” —Maya Angelou, "Still I Rise," National Public Radio (Listen to Angelou reading and/or read the text.)

¶ Good news. “The number of Black farmers in the United States is suddenly growing again. In 2012, there were more than 44,000 of them, up about 15 percent from 10 years earlier.” —Sylvia Harvey, “The Resurgence of Black Farmers," Yes! Magazine

¶ At right, Ieshia Evans, a nurse and mother of two, arrested during the Black Lives Matter demonstration following Alton Stirling's killing by police. Photo by Jonathan Bachman, Reuters. For more information on this photo, see Catherine Thorbecke, “The Story Behind the Striking Photo of a Woman in a Dress Next to Armed Police in Baton Rouge,” ABC News.

¶ "If I love you, I have to make you conscious of things you do not see." —James Baldwin

¶ “‘Put those damn weapons down. I’m not going to tell you again, goddamn it. Get those goddamn weapons down.’  That was the first command of one of Louisiana’s most revered figures, General Russell Honore, when he arrived in New Orleans in 2005 to direct the military recovery after Hurricane Katrina.  The General’s directions have not been followed in Baton Rouge. . . . When [in 2014] Ferguson police showed a militarized response to protestors, General Honore was again plainspoken. ‘Any time we have policemen pointing weapons at American citizens, they need to go through retraining.’”  —Bill Quigley, “Baton Rouge: ‘Put Those Damn Weapons Down,'” Huffington Post

¶ Hymn of praise. “Venite exultemus Domine” (“Come let us praise the Lord”), William Byrd, performed by Quite Cleveland. (Thanks Roy.)

¶ “The [Black Lives Matter] demonstrators didn't block the bridge because they don't care about the law. They blocked it because they still do.” —read more of David Waters’ "A bridge in Memphis becomes a symbol of deep divide, deeper wish to unite," in the Memphis Commercial Appeal, where interim police chief Michael Rallings joined the march which shut down part of Interstate 40

Left, "Our Lady, Mother of Ferguson" by Mark Dukes.

¶ This is amazing! Innocent black man befriends the crooked cop who framed him and sent him to Jail for four years! —CBS News (3:00 video. Thanks Dan.)

¶ Good long read. For those interested in the history of racial discourse, Julian E. Zelizer’s “Fifty Years Ago, the Government Said Black Lives Matter” has a detailed account of the political maneuvering behind the crafting and release of the 1968 Kerner Commission report that sought to analyze the causes of race riots that rocked the nation in the summer of 1967. Zelizer’s article serves as the introduction to Princeton University Press’ 2016 edition of The Kerner Report: The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders.

¶ “I want the Dallas Police Department to see I support you. I defend you. I will care for you. That doesn’t mean I will not fear you. That doesn’t mean that when you approach me, I will not have a visceral reaction and start worrying about my personal safety.” — Parkland Memorial Hospital trauma surgeon Dr. Brian H. Williams, an African American who treated Dallas police officers shot by a sniper on 7 July, recounting his own tense moments from earlier encounters with police, in Elahe Izade, The Washington Post

¶ Hopeful news. “A group of former senior military officials and veterans, including Gens. David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal, have launched a veteran-focused gun law initiative. The initiative, Veterans Coalition for Common Sense, is spearheaded by Capt. Mark Kelly, a former Navy combat pilot and astronaut whose wife, Rep. Gabby Giffords, D-Ariz., was the target of an assassination attempt in 2011.” —Alex Horton, Stars and Stripes (Thanks Dan.)

¶ Make America brutal again. Donald Trump’s election campaign comments superimposed over video from lunch counter sit-ins in the 1960s. (It's pretty stark.)

¶ Confession. “When the night has come / And the land is dark / And the moon is the only light we'll see / No I won't be afraid / Oh, I won't be afraid / Just as long as you stand, stand by me.” —Tracy Chapman, “Stand By Me”

¶ We are largely unaware of the conflict and competing demands in our nation between our political and economic values, between democracy and corporate (largely-unregulated) capitalism. Where the former aims at a place for all at the table of bounty, the latter favors a kind of social Darwinism, survival-of-the-fittest logic that brooks no values other than market efficiency. The metric of profit in the former focuses on shared human rights; the latter, on exclusive property rights, rendered vividly with chilling effect on our Republic in the 2010 “Citizens United” Supreme Court decision which bestowed personhood on corporations. —Ken Sehested
        For further analysis, see Mark Blyth, “Capitalism in Crisis,” Foreign Affairs.

¶ Bumper sticker prophecy. “I’ll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one.”

¶ Hymn of lamentation. “Melody from Orpheus and Eurydice,” performed by Dimitry Olevsky, violin, and Harout Senederemian, piano.
        Chaplain Alan Wright “didn’t know what he’d find in the emergency room” after racing to a Dallas hospital on 7 July in response to reports of casualties from sniper fire aimed at police escorting a “Black Lives Matter” march. Two days later he burst into tears during worship while listening to a rendition of Christoph W. Gluck’s “Melody from Orpheus and Eurydice.” (Ironically, in the recording noted above, you can briefly and faintly hear a siren in the background.) —Religion News Service

¶ Words of assurance. “His Eye is on the Sparrow,” a bluesy rendition by Lauryn Hill and Tanya Blount of the traditional revivalist song of the early 20th century.

¶ For the beauty of the earth. 35 seconds of spectacular photos of unusual birds. —“Wonders of the world” (Thanks, Susan.)

¶ Preach it. “Intercessory prayer is spiritual defiance of what is in the name of what God has promised. Intercession visualizes an alternative future to the one apparently fated by the momentum of current forces. Prayer infuses the air of a time yet to be into the suffocating atmosphere of the present. . . . This is the politics of hope. Hope envisages its future and then acts as if that future is now irresistible, thus helping to create the reality for which it longs.” —Walter Wink, The Powers that Be: Theology for a New Millennium. Here’s a link for a longer excerpt on intercessory prayer.

¶ “Put another way, what passes for the news is often enough closer to a horror movie in which, just around the next corner, another nightmare is readying itself to leap out and scare you to death. Maybe it’s not what you really want to see, but once it starts, you can’t take your eyes off it. And that’s the point.” —Tom Engelhardt, TomDisptach

¶ Call to the table. Let yourself be wrapped in “the ties that bind but do not strangle, the lover’s reach which does not entangle, the wing that shadows but never wrangles.” —continue reading Ken’s Sehested’s “Prayers while throwing stuff: Pondering grief from Baghdad to Baton Rouge, Medina to Minneapolis, Dhaka to Dallas”

¶ In a 22 April address at Rice University in Houston, Texas, US Secretary of State John Kerry said “religious communities can play a role in achieving foreign policy goals around the world. Invoking religion in an unusually direct manner, Kerry said understanding the importance of faith is essential in diplomacy and working with religious leaders can help solve complex problems in foreign countries. ‘The more we understand religion and the better able we are as a result to engage religious actors, the more effective our diplomacy will be in advancing the interests and values of our people.’” Early in his term, in 2013, Kerry established an Office of Religion and Global Affairs. —Carol Morello, Washington Post

¶ Altar call. “Give Me Jesus,” Wartburg Choir.

¶ “Cubans weigh in on Obama,” a video (1:42) from AJ+.

¶ A resolution drafted by Ken Sehested in support of continued normalization of diplomatic ties between the US and Cuba was recent approved by the United Church of Christ (UCC) Southern Conference. The statement, “Bring Down the Wall in the Caribbean,” will be forwarded for deliberation at next summer’s biennial General Synod meeting in Baltimore.

¶ A key purpose for this prayer&politiks site involves addressing the confusion surrounding the English word “politics,” commonly used in contradictory ways which confound our notions about spirituality. (If you haven’t read the “what is ‘politiks’?” column, I encourage you to do so.)
        Here is a recent example of this conundrum, in a brief article by a Croatian journalist regarding the European refugee crisis.
        In the first paragraph, Elvis Džafić writes, “The solution needs to be political in order for us to see the end of the suffering of innocent people.”
        However, in the third paragraph he says, “It would be great to see the church speak louder about this crisis and on the behalf of the people who need help instead of politicizing it.”

¶ Benediction. “Happiness is a life nourished by the love and goodness of God that contributes to the flourishing of creation. Even in the face of evil, rejection and suffering, a person who has learned to love well will experience pleasure and satisfaction from being herself—a person built from the loving use of God-given creativity, power and goodness. When that goodness takes up residence in us we realize that we are the living image of God, and that makes us happy.” —Ellen T. Charry, “Happy pursuits: A Christian vision of the good life,” Christian Century

Right. “The Rescuer” by Michael D. O’Brien

¶ Recessional. Ukele Group from Wellington Girls’ College and Wellington College, New Zealand.

¶ Lectionary for Sunday next. “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. / Restore us again, Savior and Friend; revive us to the joy of unyielding fidelity and steadfast love.” —continue reading Ken Sehested’s “Justice and peace will kiss”

¶ Just for fun. “Rolling in My Sweet Baby’s Arms,” performed by a who’s-who of award-winning bluegrass musicians, including John Hartford, Del McCoury, Jerry Douglas, Alison Krauss, Stuart Duncan, Tony Rice, Sam Bush, Mark O´Connor.

#  #  #

Featured this week on prayer&politiks

• “Prayers while throwing stuff: Pondering grief from Baghdad to Baton Rouge, Medina to Minneapolis, Dhaka to Dallas”

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

Left: StoryPeople by Brian Andreas

©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.

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  •  6 July 2016  •  No. 80

¶ Processional. “This Land Is Your Land,” Woody Guthrie.

Above: Redwood National Forest, California.

Special issue on
Woody Guthrie

        Woody Guthrie was born in the small town of Okemah, Oklahoma, named after a Kickapoo Native American chief. I knew his music long before I learned he was reared not so far from where I was born. For her wedding one of my grandmothers rode a covered wagon from North Texas to what was then called “Indian Territory.” My other grandparents worked in that same region under the feudal arrangement charitably called “sharecropping.”

        The town of Okemah was founded on land expropriated and reassigned, multiple times, from Native American peoples by the US Government. Okemah is in the middle of the region where Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee and Seminole nations in the US Southeast were forced marched (“The Trail of Tears”) following the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The town is south of Tulsa, site of a major race riot in 1921 which destroyed what was then the wealthiest African American community in the nation. An hour’s drive west of Okemah is Oklahoma City, site of the 1995 terrorist bombing of the Murrah Federal Building by Timothy McVeigh, a Gulf War veteran.

        This land—like much land everyone—bears the contested scars of ownership. This dispute was the subject of many Woody Guthrie songs.

        Along with a number of artists and activists in his era, Guthrie was accused of being a communist. Once, when interrogated about singing at a left-wing rally, Guthrie commented: "Left wing, right wing, chicken wing—it's all the same to me. I sing my songs wherever I can sing 'em." Many have noted the Communist Party wouldn’t have wanted him anyway, given his disavowal of any political doctrine willing to sacrifice actual human beings on the altar of ideals.

        Tragically, Guthrie spent the last decade of his life in psychiatric hospitals, suffering from Huntington’s Disease he inherited from his mother. Little was known about the disease at the time. But his death in 1967 led to the founding of what is now the Huntington’s Disease Society. —Ken Sehested

¶ For more background on Guthrie, see Rob Collins’s “Woody Guthrie: Portrait of a Populist,” Oklahoma Gazette.

¶ Invocation. “I don't think a Christian is worth his salt who has not been called a Communist today. Trying to refute that epithet is about like running for your birth certificate when someone calls you an s.o.b.” —Clarence Jordan, founder of Koinonia Farm

¶ Call to worship. “Somos el barco, somos el mar, yo navego en ti, tu navegas en mí. We are the boat, we are the sea, I sail in you, you sail in me.” —Sosmos El Barco (We Are the Boat),  by Pete Seeger, sung here together with Holly Near, Arlo Guthrie, and Ronnie Gilbert

¶ Guthrie used the 1930 A.P Carter gospel tune of “When the World’s On Fire,” for “This Land Is Your Land.”

¶ Hymn of (populist) praise. “When I Rose This Morning,” Fellowship Chorale. 

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

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

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

        Yet there still seems to be little awareness of the connection between military necessity and our nation’s consumptive habits—the latter symbolized by the annual hotdog eating contest on The Fourth, in New York’s Coney Island, this year’s winner setting a new record of 70 wieners+buns devoured in the 10-minute contest. —continue reading Ken Sehested’s “This Land Is Your Land: Independence Day in light of Woody Guthrie’s enduring question about to whom the land belongs

¶ Confession. “This old house is falling down around my ears / I'm drowning in a river of my tears / When all my will is gone you hold me sway / And I need you at the dimming of the day / You pulled me like the moon pulls on the tide / You know just where I keep my better side. —“Dimming of the Day,” Bonnie Raitt and Richard Thompson

¶ The title of Guthrie’s autobiographical novel Bound for Glory was taken from the song “This Train (Is Bound For Glory),” an African-American gospel of unknown origin, first recorded in 1922. Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s 1939 recording  popularized the song.

¶ Words of assurance. “Land of Hope and Dreams” by Bruce Springsteen, which ends with a refrain from "This Train."
      “This Train carries saints and sinners
       This Train carries losers and winners
       This Train carries whores and gamblers
       This Train carries lost souls
       This Train dreams will not be thwarted
       This Train faith will be rewarded”

¶ Hymn of intercession. “Deportee,” Woody Guthrie, performed by his son Arlo Guthrie.

¶ Preach it.
       “When Jesus come to town, all the working folks around
       Believed what he did say
       But the bankers and the preachers, they nailed Him on the cross
       And they laid Jesus Christ in his grave”
       —Woodie Guthrie, “Jesus Christ”

¶ Guthrie’s influence vs. Donald Trump’s arrogance. “Now I ain’t got no politics / So don’t lay that rap on me / Left wing, right wing, up wing, down wing / I see strip malls from sea to shining sea.” —Tom Russell, “Who’s Gonna Build Your Wall?”

¶ Call to the table. “When it comes to the question of God blessing America, Scripture is pretty clear. Of the 41 occasions when the word “bless” is used in the Newer Testament, only twice is it an imperative—and neither involve God: In Jesus’ instruction to his listeners, “Bless those who curse you” (Luke 6:28) and Paul’s echo of the same: “Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse” (Romans 12:14). In his upside-down kingdom dream, Jesus’ intention for blessing was not to sacralize violence but to draw enemies within Mercy’s reach.” —Ken Sehested, “This Land Is Your Land: Independence Day in light of Woody Guthrie’s enduring question about to whom the land belongs”

¶ Guthrie’s “Oklahoma Hills,” recorded by his cousin, Jack Guthrie, was selected as the Sooner state’s official song in 2001.

¶ The freedom to roam is the general public's right to access certain public or privately owned land for recreation and exercise. The right is sometimes called the right of public access to the wilderness or the right to roam.

            In England and Wales public access rights apply to certain categories of mainly uncultivated land—specifically "mountain, moor, heath, down and registered common land." Developed land, gardens and certain other areas are specifically excluded from the right of access. Agricultural land is accessible if it falls within one of the categories described above. Most publicly owned forests have a similar right of access by virtue of a voluntary dedication made by the Forestry Commission. People exercising the right of access have certain duties to respect other people's rights to manage the land, and to protect nature.

            In Scotland and the Nordic countries of Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden as well as the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania the freedom to roam may take the form of general public rights which are sometimes codified in law. The access is ancient in parts of Northern Europe and has been regarded as sufficiently basic that it was not formalised in law until modern times. —Wikipedia

¶ Altar call.
       “Many a faith’s too easy shaken
        Many a heart too full of fear
        Many an eye is too mistaken
        Grievous to my savior dear
        Ain’ta gonna grieve my lord any more, not any more.”
       —“Ain’ta Gonna Grieve (My Lord Anymore),” lyrics by Woody Guthrie, tune by Jeff Tweedy & Jay Bennett, performed by Billy Bragg & Wilco

¶ The Woody Guthrie Center was formally opened in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on 27 April 2013.

¶ Benediction. “Trouble Will Soon Be Over,” Blind Willie Johnson.

¶ Recessional. “Hobo’s Lullaby,” Arlo Guthrie.

#  #  #

Featured this week on prayer&politiks

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

• “Remind us again,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 82

• A new collection of annotated book reviews in “What are you reading and why?”
 

©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.

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  •  30 June 2016  •  No. 79

Processional. “America the Beautiful,” performed by Willie Nelson for a video protesting the devastating practice of coal mining by mountaintop removal.

Above. Purple mountains' majesty. Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming.

¶ America the Beautiful. Poet and Wellesley College English professor Katharine Lee Bates wrote her poem “Pikes Peak,” first published in 4 July 1895 edition of The Congregationalist magazine under the title “America,” on a trip to Colorado’s Pike National Park. In 1910 the poem was adapted to a hymn tune by Samuel A. Ward.
        In Bates’ original poem (revised in 1904 and 1911), the third stanza ends with, “Till selfish gain no longer stain, / The banner of the free!” These lines “reflected Bates’ disillusionment with the Gilded Age’s excesses” which produced profound levels of economic inequality in the late 19th century (Lynn Sherr, America the Beautiful: The Stirring True Story Behind Our Nation's Favorite Song).
        The fourth and final stanza of the original poem also contained prophetic announcement, “Till nobler men keep once again / Thy whiter jubilee!” referencing the Torah’s “jubilee” tradition of a profound social renewal movement along with a reference to Revelation 7:14 where those “dressed in white” represent “they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb,” the Lamb being the one who refused violence’s ascendancy, accomplishing salvation’s triumph by abandoning rather than wielding the sword of vengeance.

¶ Invocation. “O Truth Untamed, all boundaries bow before You / All borders bend according to your Word / O grant that every bitter heart be harbored / In sheltered cove, with Mercy’s flag unfurled / Hearken and haste, Desire of every nation / Refresh the heart of hope too long deferred.” —continue reading Ken Sehested’s new lyrics to “This Is My Song”

¶ Quotes for Independence Day reflection.
        • “What the people want is very simple. They want an America as good as its promise.” —Barbara Jordan
        • “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 Percy
        • “American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.” —James Baldwin
        • “O, let America be America again — / The land that never has been yet — / And yet must be.” —Langston Hughes

¶ Call to worship. Listen to a reading of Langston Hughes’ “Let America Be America Again,” produced by junior students in the James Logan High School Electronic Media Production Academy (4:28).

¶ Counter stories. In light of Istanbul and Orlando and the fear of otherness which feeds these and similar eruptions, we must tell different stories. Our struggle, said the Apostle Paul, is not against flesh and blood but against “principalities and powers” (Ephesians 6:12). The only means of effectively defeating evil is not by killing it but by displacing it.
            Posted below are three recent stories with a different tale to tell.

            § Mayor of London Sadiq Khan (at left) took this selfie with the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and the UK’s Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis at a multi-faith Iftar meal [breaking the day’s fast after sundown during Ramadan] for 100 young people from across London’s faith communities. Khan is the first ethnic minority to be elected as mayor of London, and the first Muslim serving as mayor of a major western nation’s capital. Lambeth Palace, home of the Anglican Archbishop, hosted the event on Monday 27 June. —Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly

            § What happened when an Orthodox Jewish congregation went to a gay bar to mourn Orlando. “When our synagogue heard about the horrific tragedy that took place at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, it was at the same time that we were celebrating our festival of Shavuot, which celebrates God’s giving of the Torah. As Orthodox Jews, we don’t travel or use the Internet on the Sabbath or on holidays, such as Shavuot. But on Sunday night, as we heard the news, I announced from the pulpit that as soon as the holiday ended at 9:17 p.m. Monday, we would travel from our synagogue in Northwest Washington to a gay bar as an act of solidarity.” —Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld, Washington Post

            § Creative resistance to hate. Members of the Orlando Shakespeare Theater took the lead in resisting Westboro Baptist Church’s picketing of funerals of those killed in the Pulse nightclub shooting, constructing large angel outfits to block the protestors’ visual access. (See photo at right.)
       The Westboro vicious anti-gay legacy of disrupting funerals, which began in 1991but escalated significantly after the killing of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming, stretches to include military funerals and women preachers. (A church in East Texas where my wife was preaching was targeted—the congregation’s youth group took lemonade to the protestors.) Read the NPR story (and 1:14 video)

¶ Hymn of praise. “This Is My Song,” a cappella rendition by Joan Baez.

¶ More on the Muslim response to terror.

            • ”A Joint Muslim Statement: On the Carnage in Orlando,” more than 200 imams, scholars and community leaders http://orlandostatement.com/ For more background on this document, see “Muslims on Orlando Attacks,” Cameron Glenn, Wilson Center  and CNN’s interview with one of the co-authors.

            • “50 Million Muslims Start Peace Campaign and Openly Denounce ISIS,” Huffington Post http://www.itakelibertywithmycoffee.com/2015/12/50-million-muslims-start-peace-campaign-and-openly-denounce-isis/

            • “Muslim anti-Isis march not covered by mainstream media outlets, say organisers: Hundreds of Muslims flooded the streets of London to condemn terrorism. Media’s response: Silence.” —The Guardian

            • “Muslim Americans denounce ISIS terror campaign; urge Americans to stand in solidarity and peace with them.” —PennLive

            • “Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: ISIS is to Islam What Westboro Baptist Church is to Christianity,” Georgia Bristow, Bipartisan Report.

¶ “What percentage of terror attacks in the US and Europe are committed by Muslims?” (you’ll be surprised), Dean Obeidallah, The Daily Beast.

¶ “Army of God? 6 Modern-Day Christian Terrorist Groups You Never Hear About,” Alex Henderson, AlterNet.

¶ Confession. “God Forgive Us,” Armenian hymn.

¶ The Broadway hit musical “Hamilton” avoids an equally pronounced feature of Hamilton’s beliefs: his deeply ingrained elitism, his disdain for the lower classes and his fear of democratic politics. . . .
            “Hamilton mistrusted the political capacities of the common people and insisted on deference to elites. In a speech delivered at the Constitutional Convention, Hamilton praised the hierarchical principles of the British political system. He argued, for example, that the new American president and senators should serve for life. . . .
            “No founder of this country more clearly envisioned the greatness of a future empire enabled by drastic inequalities of wealth and power. In this sense, too, “Hamilton” is very much a musical for our times.” —Jason Frank and Isaac Kramnick, “What ‘Hamilton’ Forgets About Alexander Hamilton," New York Times

¶ Other stories of effective resistance. This is how meaningful and sustainable political change happens, one watershed at a time: mobilizing a broad spectrum of citizens who understand long-term hidden costs outweigh short-term profit—a process not dependent on the fickle and cash-corrupted practice known as electoral politics. —Ken Sehested

            • “After facing community resistance, bottled beverage giant Nestlé Waters North America this week ditched its plans to extract water from a Monroe County, Penn. spring. The plan would have seen Nestlé take 200,000 gallons of water per day from the source in Kunkletown. . . .
            "This entire village of Kunkletown came together and slayed the dragon, and it's something to be proud of," Eldred Township resident Donna Deihl told the Allentown Morning Call. . . .
            “The news comes less than a month after voters in Hood River County, Ore. stopped a years-long attempt by Nestlé to extract up to 100 million gallons a year of Oxbow Springs water and bottle it under the Arrowhead brand.” —Andrea Germanos, Common Dreams

¶ And in related water news. 71% of the citizens of Butte County, California, voted to ban fracking. This is the fourth California country to do so. For a list of other fracking bans, in the US and elsewhere, see “Keep Tap Water Safe.”

¶ Words of assurance. “Let the rain wash away all the pain of yesterday / I know my kingdom awaits and they've forgiven my mistakes / I'm coming home, I'm coming home / Tell the world that I'm coming.” —“I’m Coming Home,” Ruby Wilson, the Queen of Beale Street (Memphis)

¶ Prank? The headline read “McDowell High (NC) senior prank sparks backlash.” Who are the party-poopers? Latino/a students. Some of the school’s seniors were given permission to decorate the school. What they ended up doing is building a wall out of cardboard boxes closing off an open area, with the caption “We built the wall first” appearing on an Instagram photo. This is how the seeds of Donal Trump’s vulgarity sprout in a harvest of destruction. —from a Ginny Rhodes article, mcdowellnews.com

¶ Best response to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign theme:
       Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
       The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
       We, the people, must redeem
       The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
       The mountains and the endless plain—
       All, all the stretch of these great green states—
       And make America again! —Langston Hughes, final stanza of “Let America Be America Again”

¶ “Border controls have always been racist in character. And it’s much the same today. They are about locking in our wealth and keeping mosques out of the Cotswolds. At present, globalisation is a luxury of the rich, for those of us who can swan about the globe with the flick of a boarding pass. The so-called “migrant crisis” is globalisation for the poor. They are blowing their trumpets around our walls. And our walls will fall.”  —Giles Fraser, “National borders exist to pen poor into reservations of poverty”

¶ Preach it. “We’re not bound by genetic code to repeat the mistakes of the past. We can learn. We can choose. We can tell our children a different story, one that describes a common humanity, one that makes war less likely and cruelty less easily accepted,” one that may lead to “our own moral awakening.” —President Barack Obama, speaking at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial in Japan, 27 May 2016. Obama is the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima

¶ Call to the table. “What a Friend We Have In Jesus,” sung by a farm family inside an empty grain silo.

¶ Altar call. “Redemption Song,” by Bob Marley, performed by Playing for Change (various artists).

¶ Benediction. “My country ‘tis of thee, struggling for liberty, of thee I sing. / Land where my people died, brilliant with nature’s pride, / From plain and mountain side let freedom ring.” —continue reading Ken’s Sehested alternate lyrics to “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee”

¶ Recessional. “This Is My Song,” sung in Finnish by a flash mob at the Helsinki, Finland train station. The “Finlandia” tune was written by Finnish composer Jean Sibelius in 1899 as a protest to growing censorship of Finnish society by Russia, then Finland’s colonial ruler.

¶ Lectionary for Sunday next. “Remind us again, oh maker of peace, oh drier of tear and calmer of storm, that lion and lamb share a common destiny. Remind us again, that all is Yours and Love secures.” —continue reading Ken Sehested’s “Remind us again,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 82

#  #  #

Featured this week on prayer&politiks:

• “Remind us again,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 82

• “This Is My Song,” new lyrics to an old song

• “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” alternate lyrics

Independence Day resources:

• “Proclaim liberty throughout the land: History of the Liberty Bell”

• “Nation of frivolous piety,” a litany for worship on patriotic occasions

• “Proclaim Liberty,” a litany for worship around US Independence Day

• “Instruction on freedom’s demands,” a litany for worship