Recent

by Ken Sehested

Now that the search for the mass shooter in Maine is completed (though the trauma of Lewiston’s citizens will carry on for who-knows-how-long), this is a timely moment to turn public attention to the culprits that escalate the capacity for such carnage.

Two weeks ago the New York Times ran a review of a new book by Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson, “American Gun: The True Story of the AR-15.”

Here are two key paragraphs:

“After the [assault rife ban signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1995] ended, in 2004, the door burst open [for its expanded manufacture and sale]. A gun enthusiast of a private equity firm entered the market, and, with a company called Freedom Group, flooded the country with AR-15-style guns. McWhirter and Elinson obtained internal documents from Freedom Group, including a ‘confidential’ memo by the marketing team arguing for allowing the company’s guns to be featured in violent video games as a way to help ‘create brand preference among the next generation who experience these games.’ In an email, a company executive marveled at how well this strategy seemed to work. . . .

“The day that Sandy Hook [Elementary School mass shooting that killed 20 children and six adults on 14 December 2012] funerals began, Freedom Group’s board of directors held an emergency meeting, voting to acquire a gun barrel manufacturer that would make the company’s AR-15-style rifles even more profitable. Sandy Hook ‘was an awful horrific huge tragedy,’ Freedom Group’s chief executive later remarked in a disposition, ‘but its impact on the long-term capital decisions of the business were not a factor.’” —review by Mike Spies, New York Times Book Review, 15 October 2023, pp. 14-15

 Two takeaways:

• Notice how the language of “freedom” is associated with a weapon whose sole purpose is to kill humans with great efficiency.
• Notice how “awful horrific huge tragedy” cannot override the priority of “capital decisions.”

Three references documenting the fact that just economic relations are a consistent thread throughout Scripture and indicator of spiritual health:

• For a long essay on this topic, see Ched Myers’ “The Biblical Vision of Sabbath Economics.”
• For a book length study, see Walter Brueggemann’s “Money and Possessions.”
• For additional other resources, see the Faith and Money Network site.

One conclusion:

Gun manufacturers in the US, significantly aided and abetted by their public relations firm, the National Rifle Association, are indirectly responsible for more fatalities and injuries than all the illicit drug manufacturers (everywhere in the world) combined.

§  §  §

Postscript

After posting my recent “Trenched by sorrow” prose poem, I found myself compiling a collection of my favorite musical requiems and laments. That list is now posted here.

#  #  #

After posting my “Trenched by sorrow” prose poem, I found myself recalling favorite musical requiems and laments. And minutes turned to hours as I compiled an expansive list of those available for online listening. (I found short excerpts from some of the longer classical requiems.) The list below is limited by my own subjectivity, of course; but it does include wide variety of musical genres.

What are yours? I encourage you to make your own list. Pull one or more up to guide your prayers when hope gets hard to come by.

Our capacity to grieve is directly related to our capacity for hope, much like the circumference of a tree’s canopy is proportionate to its root system. The work of lament contains in its very performance the generative power of assurance that siphons away the rule of fear. (For more on this see “The labor of lament“) —Ken Sehested

§ “Come Holy Spirit / And stay with me always / Within You I’ll remain / For in You I’m sustained.” —Isaac Cates and the Ordained gospel rendition of Mozart’s “Lacrimosa: Requiem D Minor“

§ “Pie Jesu” (“Merciful Jesus”) by Sarah Brightman, Paul Miles-Kingston. The music accompanies actual film footage from World War I’s “Battle of The Somme,” 1 July-18 November 1916, where more than one million men were wounded or killed, making it one of the bloodiest battles in history.

§ “Waters of Babylon (where we sat down and wept).” —Sweet Honey in the Rock, lyrics drawn from Psalm 137

§ “Requiem,” Orthodox Christian Chant by the Choir of the Great Kiev Lavra

§ “Twilight and evening bell, / And after that the dark! / And may there be no sadness of farewell / When I embark; / For, though from out our bourne of time and place / The flood may bear me far, / I hope to see my Pilot face to face / When I have crossed the bar.” —“Crossing the Bar,” Alfred Tennyson, performed by Laudate Mennonite Ensemble

§ “David, the king, was grieved and moved, / He went to his chamber, his chamber, and wept; / And as he went he wept, and said, / “O my son! O my son! / Would to God I had died, / Would to God I had died, / For thee, O Absalom, my son, my son.” —“268 David’s Lamentation,” Second Ireland Sacred Harp Convention 2012

§ “Strong wind, strong wind / Many dead, tonight it could be you / And we are homeless, homeless / Moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake.” —English translation, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, “Homeless”

§ “Requiem for 3 Cellos and Piano” by David Popper performed by “Three Sisters Trio”

§ “How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart?” —“How long, Lord?” translated lyrics from “Eela Mata Ya Rabbou,” hymn adapted from Psalm 13 of lament over the Israeli massacres of Palestinian protestors in the Gaza Strip, performed by Fairouz

§ “When I am laid, am laid in earth, / May my wrongs create / No trouble, no trouble in thy breast. / Remember me, remember me, but ah! forget my fate. / Remember me, but ah! forget my fate.” —Alison Moyet, Dido’s Lament from “Dido and Aeneas” by Henry Purcell

§ “Kaddish” from “Deux Melodies Hebraiques,” Maurice Ravel, featuring Olivia Da Costa

§ “Let me weep for my cruel fate / And sigh after freedom! / And let me sigh / Sigh after freedom! / May sorrow, out of pity, break the ropes of my sufferings, / of my sufferings, out of pity. / And let me sigh after freedom!” —English translation of lyrics to Handel’s “Lascia ch’io pianga” (“Let me weep”), performed by Aksel Rykkvin

§ “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,” Odetta.

§ “Death hath deprived me of my dearest friend,” Thomas Weelkes, a eulogy on the death of Thomas Morley in 1602, performed by Vox Luminis

§ “Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the / world, have mercy on us, who takes away the / sins of the world, grant us peace.” —translated lyrics to “Lament for the Valley,” one song in Karl Jenkins’ “For the Children” cantata, written to mark the 50^th anniversary of the 1966 Aberfan disaster in Wales, where a mountainside coal slurry damn broke sending the sludge down the mountain into Aberfan, crushing a school and nearby houses. One hundred sixteen children were killed, along with 26 adults.

§ “Holy Mother, where are you? / Tonight I feel broken in two. / I’ve seen the stars fall from the sky. / Holy mother, can’t keep from crying. / Oh I need your help this time, / Get me through this lonely night. / Tell me please which way to turn / To find myself again.” —“Holy Mother” by Eric Claption, Luciano Pavarotti, and the East London Gospel Choir

§ “Mournful that day. / When from the ashes shall rise / a guilty man to be judged. / Lord, have mercy on him. / Gentle Lord Jesus, / grant them eternal rest. / Amen.” —English translation of lyrics to “Lacrimosa,” part of the Dies Irae sequence in the Requiem mass, performed by Elżbieta Towarnicka

§ “Precious Lord,” Fannie Lou Hamer. This was the last hymn Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. requested—for that evening’s mass meeting in Memphis—shortly before he was assassinated.

§ “Eies irae” from Giuseppe Verdi’s “Requiem”

§ “Wayfaring Stranger,” Hayde Bluegrass Orchestra

§ “How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place,” Brahms Requiem, Taylor Festival Choir

§ “Kyrie Eleison” (“Lord Have Mercy”), from Mozart’s Requiem Mass, performed by the Berlin Philharmonic

§ “Mother Mary, full of grace, awaken. / All our homes are gone, our loved ones taken. / Taken by the sea – / Mother Mary, calm our fears, have mercy. / Drowning in a sea of tears, have mercy. / Hear our mournful plea. / Our world has been shaken, / we wander our homelands, forsaken.” —Eliza Gilykson, “Requiem,” performed by Age to Age. The piece was written after the 26 December 2004 earthquake in the Indian ocean, creating a tsunami which struck Indonesia, killing over 260,000.

§ “May the angels lead you into paradise / May the martyrs receive you / In your coming / And may they guide you / Into the holy city, Jerusalem / May the chorus of angels receive you / And with Lazarus once poor / May you have eternal rest.” —Gabriel Fauré, “Requiem: In Paradisum”

§ “Largo in D Flat” (“Going Home”), Antonin Dvorak, New World Symphony

§ “O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger: / nor chasten me in thy displeasure. / Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am weak: / O Lord, heal me, / for my bones are troubled. / My soul also is troubled: / but, Lord, how long?” —English translation of “Domine ne in furore tuo” (“O Lord, Rebuke Me Not”) by Claudio Monteverdi, performed by The Sixteen

§ “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”

§ “Officium Defunctorum: Missa pro defunctis: I. Introitus,” Collegum Vocale Gent

§ “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs,” Henryk Górecki (1^st movement, second part).

#  #  #

Commentary on yet another savage war in a war weary land

Ken Sehested
10 October 2023

Invocation
“Psalm 135: Arabic Orthodox Chant,”
from St. George Church, Aleppo, Syria.

Only the most ruthless will applaud, or even rationalize, Hama’s attack on Israel. It is heinous. Saturday’s attack began with an massacre of concertgoers at a venue near the Gaza border. It’s estimated that at least 260 Israelis were killed and an unknown number taken hostage.

Before you begin culling the goats from the sheep, however, you need to take into account some important history—which most US citizens do not know—of the decades of humiliation dished out on the Palestinian population.

What follows is a very partial summary for use as a starting point in understanding this history. It is a complicated history, to be sure. But saying that does not mean no conclusions can be drawn.

1. The rise of British imperialism directly shapes the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Near the end of World War I, British authorities literally drew lines in the sand to create what are now considered nation states of the Middle East. This was in anticipation of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. Prior to these new “nations,” the regions were ruled by an assortment of potentates of various tribes, clans, and families. Britain’s map-making (initially with French support) artificially divided large people groups. The fractious legacy of those fabricated boundaries linger still.

2. The nation of Israel was created as a refuge for Jews escaping Europe’s holocaust ovens (on top of millennia of persecution), an episode unparalleled in the history of human savagery—in its systematic intention and implementation if not in sheer magnitude. Indeed, the brutal legacy of anti-Semitism (in which the Christian community shares significant responsibility) in many parts of the world is well-documented, including in the US.

3. Israel’s declaration of independence on 14 May 1948 was preceded by a decade of underground Jewish terrorist organizations operating in Palestine in resistance to British rule (and sometimes with each other). Those attacks, including bombings and targeted assassinations, escalated considerably near the end of World War II.

4. The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was a proposal which recommended a partition at the end of the British Mandate. On 29 November 1947, the UN General Assembly adopted the Plan as Resolution 181, calling for two separate states, one Arab, one Jewish, with Jerusalem to be governed by a special international regime.

Hymn of petition
“There are people who want to live in peace / Don’t give up,
keep dreaming / Of peace and prosperity / When will the
walls of fear melt / When will I return from exile / And my
gates will open / To what is truly good.”
—English translation of Yael Deckelbaum &
Prayer of the Mothers, ensemble of Jewish, Arab
and Christian women “Prayer of the Mothers”

5. Nevertheless, the Jewish safe-haven that is Israel was built on the backs of an indigenous population, one that is also Semitic, 726,000 of whom were displaced from their homes and ancestral lands when Israel declared its independence. Palestinians refer to it as al-Nakba (“The Catastrophe”). Those refugees, most living in camps—cauldrons of discontent—in Lebanon, the West Bank, Jordan, and the Gaza Strip, now total more than five million.

6. It’s true that Hamas, the political party governing Gaza, does not recognize Israel’s legitimacy as a nation state. It’s also true that the Likud Party now governing Israel is opposed in principle to the formation of a Palestinian state.

7. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Hamas “will pay a price it has never known,” likely including a ground invasion of Gaza. To get a sense of what he means, consider the last time Israel’s army entered that enclave, from 8 July until 26 August 2014. During that period, 2,251 Palestinians were killed; 1,462 of them are believed to be civilians, including 551 children and 299 women. Sixty-six Israeli soldiers and five civilians, including one child, were also killed. A half million Gazans were left homeless.

8. This past January the Times of Israel reported that “Since 2015, the [United Nations] General Assembly has adopted 140 resolutions criticizing Israel, mainly over its treatment of the Palestinians, its relationships with neighboring countries and other alleged wrongdoings. Over the same period, it has passed 68 resolutions against all other countries.”

9. Israel’s policy of settling its civilians in occupied Palestinian territory and displacing the local population, which has escalated in recent years, violates fundamental rules of international law.

10. On the West Bank, Palestinians can be arrested and indefinitely detained based on undisclosed “secret evidence.” Two in every five Palestinian men have been arrested. Since 2000, more than 12,000 children have been detained. For the last 15 years Gaza has been in virtual lock down, an open air prison.

11. Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, two of the world’s most respected human rights organized, consider Israel an apartheid state in their dealings with Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In his best-selling 2006 book, “Palestine: Not Apartheid,” former President Jimmy Carter said the same.

Hymn of intercession
“Erev Shel Shoshanim” (“Evening of Lilies [or Roses])” by
Yuval Ron Ensemble. This song, a love song well known
throughout the Middle East, is dedicated to the children of
Jerusalem, the vision of peace between Jews and Arabs,
and peace around the world.

12. Is Israel a democracy? Well, yeah, in the same way the US was a democracy when we nearly exterminated the indigenous population, endured a civil war whose body count was greater than all our other wars combined, lived with a century of Jim Crow laws and social norms, and are now threatened with massive racial and class divides along with the threat of Trumphoolery. Elections do not a democracy make. According to the Israeli 2018 “Nation-State” law, all citizens have human rights, but only Jews have “national rights.”

13. The so-called “Oslo Accords” (1993, 1995), which affirmed “the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination,” is utterly inadequate in its projected division of land. The proposed map of the Palestinian nation is more like a patchwork of reservations, each encircled by, and thus controlled by, Israel. Jewish human rights activist Jeff Halper has noted that 95% of the Occupied West Bank would be part of the new Palestinian nation is a grossly misleading statement. Inmates occupy some 95% of a prison. It’s what happens with the other 5% that matters

14. The violence of Palestinian terrorists doesn’t occur in a vacuum. “The first and worst violence,” according to Uri Avnery, former member of the Israeli Knesset, “is the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.” Virtually every major human rights organization (including B’tselem, the leading Israeli human rights body) insist that Israeli demands for Palestinians to “stop the violence” actually turns reality on its head. If both sides were to immediately cease all hostilities, the resulting “peace” would leave Israel in an overwhelmingly dominant position. Any peace agreement that refuses to acknowledge the imbalance of power is destined to harden the realities of injustice and thereby sow the seeds for the next war.

15. It is certainly true that Arab “terror networks” exist and must be opposed—just as there have been Ku Klux Klan and other terror networks in the US for much of our history. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the greatest terrorist threat to US national security is currently the homegrown variety.

Hymn of consolation
“Nami, Nami” (Arabic Lullaby), by Azam Ali

16. Theological claims that the land of ancient Palestine was promised to the Jews by God may be emotionally satisfying but cannot be privileged in a world where gods of every stripe and contour are around every corner, each claiming birthright for the few and scorn for every other. Palestinians (Christian, Muslim, and Druze) and Jews each have legitimate claims to the land, which if not shared could become a perpetual killing field. We need reminding that God’s call on Abram to forsake his home and travel to an unknown destination included this promise: “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3, emphasis added).

Israeli commentator Orly Noy, editor of the Hebrew-language news magazine “Local Call,” writes:

“It is important not to minimise or condone the heinous crimes committed by Hamas. But it is also important to remind ourselves that everything it is inflicting on us now, we have been inflicting on the Palestinians for years. . . .[V]iolence devoid of any context leads to only one possible response: revenge. And I don’t want revenge from anyone. Because revenge is the opposite of security. . . . [W]e have not only brought Gaza to the brink of starvation, we have brought it to a state of collapse. Always in the name of security. How much security did we get?”

Benediction
“Create In Me a Clean Heart (Psalm 51),”
Thingamakid children’s choir, Jacobs Jewish Summer Camp

# # #

For more see “al-Nakba: Meditation on Israel, Palestine and the calculus of power” and “House to house, field to field: Reflections on a peace mission to the West Bank“

 

 

 

 

Ken Sehested

Olive Tiller’s name will not be recognized outside a relatively small circle. But she is legendary in my universe. She died recently, at the fulsome age of 102.

Below is a short meditation on her luminous presence—written not simply in her honor but as tribute to the countless, faith-full people who will never have a Wikipedia page tribute. Theirs are the arms that uphold the universe day after day.

Let it be said of her as the Sufi mystic Rabia testified: Neither threat of hell or desire of heaven, but love’s longing alone animated by delight in the Beloved’s promise and presence and provision. Or, as Augustine wrote, “We imitate whom we adore.”

§  §  §

She didn’t look the part—if, by “part,” you mean a peacemaking, justice seeking, human rights advocating activist. No growl in her voice, rarely a furrowed brow (as the stereotype suggests).

This was a woman who attended the first public meeting of the newly-formed Baptist Pacifist Fellowship meeting in May 1940—when she was 19 years old! Decades later, she was elected the organization’s first female president.

This was a woman for whom a school dorm was named in rural Tanzania. A woman who, along with her son Bob, participated in the 1963 March on Washington and the 1965 Selma-Montgomery March (the second, aborted attempt, when a federal judge’s temporary restraining order was issued).

She participated in a World Council of Churches visit to Cambodia seeking an end to the Vietnam War. Who still had the scorecard she filled out for the 1962 Major League All-Star baseball game. Who was arrested at the South African embassy protesting apartheid.

This was a woman who, in her 70s, went to clown school and created a new persona, Bubbles the Clown, to entertain at children’s parties. Who, jointly with her husband, Carl, received the American Baptist Churches Dahlberg Peace Award. Who toured Africa with a Church Women United delegation and later worked with Bosnian refugees.

I’m speaking of Olive Tiller, a co-laborer within the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America, a friend, and source of much encouragement.

Her smile, which deserved its own copyright, was like a warm blanket on a frosty night. I’m not sure there’s such a thing as being modestly regal, but if anyone could be, it was Olive. Gently spirited, I’m not sure if she was ever tempted to turn over money-changers’ tables, but I wouldn’t put it past her.

(In a delightful-but-totally-exaggerated comment she once called me the “Oral Hershiser of peace activists.” But you would have to be of a certain age and inclination to appreciate that baseball reference.)

In a recent note, her son Bob said, “She was willing to be a leader when needed and a follower when needed.” Such virtue is among the greatest needs—but least celebrated—of our movements. Would that all our movements were teeming with such multi-abled advocates.

Among her last wishes was that friends and acquaintances contribute to the Southern Poverty Law Center in her memory.

Olive Marie Tiller died on 23 July at age 102. I still have her last Christmas card from December. In it she mentioned some of the ways age was limiting her activities, but was quick to add, “I hope you enjoy every lovely thing that this world offers.” It reminded me of that brief proverb from Frederick Buechner: “Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.”

I have no doubt that she would say to us: Instill in your young ones the confidence that beauty will outlast terror.

Olive Tiller: ¡Presente!

# # #

August 2023. A memorial service for Olive Tiller has been scheduled for 11 November at Sherwood Oaks senior living center in Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania.

 

by Ken Sehested

“Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight,
and the earth was filled with violence.”
—Genesis 6:11

§  §  §

Invocation. “Forgive the entire congregation / of the children of Yisrael / and the stranger amongst them / for the entire people sin unintentionally / Please pardon the sins of this nation / in accordance with the greatness / of Your lovingkindness. . . . / And Adonai said / ‘I have pardoned [them] as you have asked.’” —translated portion of “Kol Nidrei,” Cantor Mo Glazman, prayer sung on Yom Kippur, the most solemn day on the Jewish liturgical calendar

§  §  §

Introduction: Both of the following two things are true.

First, the attempted co-opting of one cultural or religious tradition by those of another tradition is risky, often arrogant, and a form of colonialism. Some, especially among the relatively privileged, wish to collect “experiences” like others collect stock portfolios. “Culture vultures” is an accurate naming of this usurpation.

Second, people of the Way (the adjective “Christian” would come later, from Roman persecutors), those of us who seek to orient own lives through the “pioneer and perfector” of our faith, Jesus, cannot understand our own core convictions short of knowing our tradition’s deep and abiding rootage in Judaism. And the touchstone of that revelation is Yom Kippur, the climax of the Jewish High Holy Days.

§  §  §

Hymn of intercession. “Our father our king / Bring an end to pestilence, war, and famine around us / Our father our king, / Bring an end to all trouble and oppression around us.” —English translation of lyrics to “Avinu Malkeinu,” performed by the Shira Choir featuring Shulem Lemmer. Avinu Malkeinu is a Jewish prayer recited during Jewish services on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, as well as on the Ten Days of Repentance from Rosh Hashanah through Yom Kippur.

§  §  §

Yom Kippur: the day of repentance and atonement.

Yom Kippur: the high holy day of confession and cleansing, with the ensuing ritual sealing of names in the Book of Life.

Not confession and repentance in the way many of us Christians have come to believe. Yom Kippur does not mean self-abasement. It is not a day for self-reviling and personal shame; it is not a day for groveling in the presence of the divine, as if God takes pleasure in punishing and condemning us—much less watching us punish and condemn ourselves or each other.

God is not a sadist. And the call to confession and repentance is not a form of masochism.

In Judaism, the focus of Yom Kippur’s call to repentance is not resignation and despair over our weakness and sin (great as they may be), but renewal and hope, the chance to start again.

The Beloved (who cannot be named and tamed) does not assault. The portal to such Love only opens by way of penitential tears—with the honest recognition of fearful, faithless, frail ways.

§  §  §

Hymn of petition. “And as For Me, My Prayer is for You (V’Ani S’flilosi),” from “The Days of Awe: Meditations for Selichot, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur,” David Chevan with Frank London and the Afro-Semitic Experience.

§  §  §

Conflict mediation specialist Byron Bland writes that two truths make healthy community difficult: that the past cannot be undone, and that the future cannot be controlled.

However, two counterforces are available to address these seeming inevitabilities: the practice of forgiveness, which has the power to change the logic of the past; and covenant-making, which creates islands of stability and reliability in a faithless, fickle, sometimes ruthless world.

§  §  §

The purpose of repentance is not retaliation but restoration; the focus is not on exacting revenge but on enacting repair.

There is joyful coherence between the work of penitence and the struggle for the Beloved Community: The former’s resolve is not to wallow in the prospect of loss, but to bask in the prospect of gain—not to dwell in the land of accusation, but to move forward to the land of shared bounty.

In the end, we are saved by beauty, not duty.

§  §  §

Word. The context of Yom Kippur, Day of Atonement, when one’s name is properly sealed in the Book of Life, is the story of Hagar’s weeping, having been expelled from the security of Abraham and Sarah’s abode, the life of her own son Ishmael threatened by the desert’s desolation. Hers is the first weeping recorded in the Torah, and thus the first in recorded human history. Ever since, the work of Atonement is inseparable from the capacity to hear the cries of the afflicted.” (KLS, exegetical insights from biblical scholar Pamela Tamarkin Reis)

§  §  §

Speaking here as a Christian, the purpose of repentance is clarified in this Hebrew phrase from the Talmud: “Tikkun olam,” translated as “repair of the world.”

Tikkun olam was the purpose of God in Creation.

Tikkun olam incited giving of the law, the prayers of the poets, and the clarion call of the prophets.

Tikkun olam was the mission of Jesus.

Tikkun olam is the continuing impulse of the Holy Spirit.

The practice of tikkun olam, in New Testament terms, is conveyed in Jesus’ command to love enemies.

Tikkun olam: In the words of the Apostle Paul, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

As the ancient writer observed, the root of spiritual corruption blossoms into the fruit of fleshly violence. All the Spirited testifiers of the past, and all their kin in the present, witness to the transforming power of sounding of the call to penitence as the portal to that beatific vision which bespeaks the day when, as the prophet recorded God vowed, “I will restore to you the years the locusts have eaten” (Joel 2:25); of the time, as the Revelator foretold, God’s own residence will be among mortals. . . . And God “will wipe away every tear” and “death will be no more: mourning and crying and pain will be no more” (21:3-4).

§  §  §

Hymn of longing. “Ribbons, pearls, golden flags / The Messiah, son of David, is above us / He holds a goblet in his right hand / And gives his blessing to the whole earth / Amen and amen, this is the truth / The Messiah will come this year.” —English translation of “Shnirele perele,” performed by Pharaoh’s Daughter

§  §  §

Madrone’s eyes were far away. Slowly she drew her attention back to the room, and shook her head.

“I know my destiny,” she said. “I had a dream.”

She turned to meet Bird’s eyes, and gave him a little, hesitant smile, almost like an apology.

“What kind of dream?” he asked, knowing before she spoke what she was going to say.

“That kind of a dream,” she said lightly. “The kind that messes up your life. It said, ‘Build a refuge in the heart of the enemy.'” —excerpt from “City of Refuge” by Starhawk

§  §  §

“While we were yet corrupt and violent,
Christ built a refuge in our enemy hearts.”
—KLS paraphrase of Romans 8:5

§  §  §

Benediction. “Comfort ye, Every Valley,” Handel’s Messiah, text from Isaiah 40, Gramophone Ghana Chorus feat. Ebenezer Antwi

# # #

 

Reflections on the trauma of 11 September 2001
(reprinted on the anniversary of that horrid day)

by Ken Sehested, with Kyle Childress

“How lonely sits the city that was full of people!
How like a widow has she become, she that was great
among the nations! . . . She weeps bitterly in the night. . . .” (Lamentations 1:1)

Late yesterday morning—midway through a long car trip to visit my Mom and several mentors—I awoke in the home of a good friend, in the Nacogdoches, Texas, to the news repeatedly described in media accounts as the “horrific” events in New York City and Washington, D.C. Parties yet unnamed and unknown (though suspected) hijacked our own agents of affluence to attack the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, twin symbols of global economic and military dominance.

As the details and graphic visual images flood our ears and eyes, “horrific” seems an understated refrain, and we are left repeating it, over and again, to underscore that which is too terrible for words. Knowing that my first-born and my beloved sister-in-law lived less than a mile from Manhattan’s southern shore made the shock all the more poignant.

Here I sit, in the oldest city in Texas, reflecting via ancient Scripture on the archetypal drama of human savagery. The shedding of blood begun by Cain—against his brother Abel, early in Genesis 4—was geometrically escalated, by chapter’s end, in Lamech’s threat to avenge his personal honor seventy-times-seven. God’s refusal of revenge—indeed, the Divine prohibition against human vengeance—was ignored with impunity then no less than now. It is an old story. But there is another story, indeed a counter-story, which can and must be told by the believing community.

What may we say, dare we say, in the face of such horror? Is there any hope, any healing, any harvest of mercy to be had?

There are, of course, reminders both of pastoral insight and prophetic challenge demanding our attention.

—continue reading “In the Valley of the Shadow“

Olive Tiller’s name will not be recognized outside a relatively small circle. But she is legendary in my universe. She died recently, at the fulsome age of 102.

Below is a short meditation on her luminous presence—written not simply in her honor but as tribute to the countless, faith-full people who will never have a Wikipedia page tribute. Theirs are the arms that uphold the universe day after day.

Let it be said of her as the Sufi mystic Rabia testified: Neither threat of hell or desire of heaven, but love’s longing alone animated by delight in the Beloved’s promise and presence and provision. Or, as Augustine wrote, “We imitate whom we adore.” —Ken Sehested, August 2023

§  §  §

Invocation. “Going home, going home / I’m jus’ going home / Quiet like, some still day / I’m jus’ going home / It’s not far, yes close by / Through an open door / Work all done, care laid by / Going to fear no more.” —”Going Home,” performed by Sissel Kyrkjebø, music by Antonin Dvorak from Symphony No. 9, Op. 95, lyrics by William Arms Fisher

§  §  §

She didn’t look the part—if, by “part,” you mean a peacemaking, justice seeking, human rights advocating activist. No growl in her voice, rarely a furrowed brow (as the stereotype suggests).

This was a woman who attended the first public meeting of the newly-formed Baptist Pacifist Fellowship meeting in May 1940—when she was 19 years old! Decades later, she was elected the organization’s first female president.

This was a woman for whom a school dorm was named in rural Tanzania. A woman who, along with her son Bob, participated in the 1963 March on Washington and the 1965 Selma-Montgomery March (the second, aborted attempt, when a federal judge’s temporary restraining order was issued).

She participated in a World Council of Churches visit to Cambodia seeking an end to the Vietnam War. Who still had the scorecard she filled out for the 1962 Major League All-Star baseball game. Who was arrested at the South African embassy protesting apartheid.

This was a woman who, in her 70s, went to clown school and created a new persona, Bubbles the Clown, to entertain at children’s parties. Who, jointly with her husband, Carl, received the American Baptist Churches Dahlberg Peace Award. Who toured Africa with a Church Women United delegation and later worked with Bosnian refugees.

I’m speaking of Olive Tiller, a co-laborer within the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America, a friend, and source of much encouragement.

Her smile, which deserved its own copyright, was like a warm blanket on a frosty night. I’m not sure there’s such a thing as being modestly regal, but if anyone could be, it was Olive. Gently spirited, I’m not sure if she was ever tempted to turn over money-changers’ tables, but I wouldn’t put it past her.

(In a delightful-but-totally-exaggerated comment she once called me the “Oral Hershiser of peace activists.” But you would have to be of a certain age and inclination to appreciate that reference.)

In a recent note, her son Bob said, “She was willing to be a leader when needed and a follower when needed.” Such virtue is among the greatest needs—but least celebrated—of our movements. Would that all our movements were teeming with such multi-abled advocates.

Among her last wishes was that friends and acquaintances contribute to the Southern Poverty Law Center in her memory.

Olive Marie Tiller died on 23 July at age 102. I still have her last Christmas card from December. In it she mentioned some of the ways age was limiting her activities, but was quick to add, “I hope you enjoy every lovely thing that this world offers.” It reminded me of that brief proverb from Frederick Buechner: “Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.”

I have no doubt that she would say to us: Instill in your young ones the confidence that beauty will outlast terror.

Olive Tiller: ¡Presente!

§  §  §

Benediction. “Who will watch the home place / Who will tend my heart’s dear space / Who will fill my empty place / When I am gone from here.” — “Who Will Watch The Home Place,” Laurie Lewis and Her Bluegrass Pals

# # #

A memorial service for Olive Tiller has been scheduled for 11 November at Sherwood Oaks senior living center in Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania.

Ken Sehested

Invocation. “How I Got Over,” Mahalia Jackson, the last musical performer during the August 1963 March on Washington. A shout from her (she was standing a few feet from King), “tell them about the dream, Martin,” prompted King to abandon his written script and extemporaneously launch into that part of his speech we most remember.

§  §  §

On this day, 28 August 2023, we mark the 60^th anniversary of a speech many consider the most significant of the 20^th century. Most citizens here, and many abroad, can replay from memory the mesmerizing “I have a dream” incantation Dr. King delivered.

What we don’t recall is that the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom scared the bejeezus out of federal and District of Columbia officials, and even Major League Baseball officials, leading up to that deluge of over 200,000 people coming to DC for the occasion.

As is wont to happen, though, with the passage of time, the “dream” has gotten a bit dreamy. The “dream” rhetoric has been appropriated by all manner of marketers. And sometimes with the explicit permission of the corporation controlling King’s intellectual property, Intellectual Properties Management, which in 2018 authorized King’s image for use in a Ram Truck television ad. (That ad became such an embarrassment that it was removed from social media.)

Decades ago, when I lived in Atlanta, one of my friends in the African American activist community told me of discussions he and others were having about committing civil disobedience to disrupt the upcoming King Birthday March in the city because Gen. Colin Power, Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff (the first Black to serve in that role) had been invited to be the marshal in the parade. Military bands have frequently been featured in that annual parade.

Given the times we are in, this much is clear: The “I Have a Dream” speech must be read in light of another of King’s speeches, the “Beyond Vietnam” speech he gave four years later at the Riverside Church in New York City.

§  §  §

Hymn of remembrance. “The Ballad of Martin Luther King,” by Brother Kirk, Pete Seeger and Sesame Street kids.

§  §  §

Below is a portion of my 2017 article, “When the dream gets a bit dreamy: On the 50^th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s ‘Beyond Vietnam’”

With Dr. King’s birthday now a national holiday, and his iconic profile ever present around the anniversary of the March on Washington, it’s no longer possible to be sheltered from that historic moment.

The problem with icons, of course, is that they become fixed in stone and have little capacity to get under our skin. Feral history can be tamed. Some forms of remembering work like vaccination: we become immune to prophetic fever. Putting our saints on pedestals allows us to revere their memory while reneging on their mission.

Which is why the meaning of the “I Have a Dream” speech must be read in light of Dr. King’s last major address, delivered in 1967 from the dais of The Riverside Church in New York City. It was a speech that rocked not only the enforcers of Jim Crow but the Civil Rights Movement itself.

In delivering “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence” Dr. King enlarged his challenge far beyond segregated buses and integrated lunch counters. Instead, he explicitly linked domestic oppression with international aggression, naming what he called the “giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism.”

We forget the scandal he provoked that day, 4 April 1967—precisely to the day one year before his assassination in Memphis. On that day, King referred to the US as “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.”

Afterward, King was savaged in the media. Life magazine called it “demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi.”

The Washington Post said “King has diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people.”

Reader’s Digest warned it might provoke an “insurrection.”

The New York Times ran an editorial, “Dr. King’s Error,” chiding him for linking foreign policy (the US war in Vietnam) with domestic policy.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation privately called King the “most dangerous and effective negro leader in the country.” They had already, for years, been illegally wire-tapping his phone.

In the days leading up to the March on Washington, apprehension in our nation’s capital was so intense that, in the words of historian Taylor Branch, “the federal government furloughed its workers for the day. The Pentagon deployed 20,000 paratroopers. Hospitals stockpiled plasma. Washington banned sales of alcohol, and Major League Baseball canceled not just one but two days of [Washington’s baseball games], just to be sure.”

According to Roger Mudd, who covered the March on Washington for CBS News, the Kennedy Administration drew up in advance a statement declaring martial law, in case it became necessary.

I encourage you in the coming days to set aside 54 minutes to listen to an unabridged recording of the speech. (You can hear it, and read along with the text, at this site.)

“I Have a Dream” has become a bit dreamy, the sentiment injected with high fructose corn syrup, deep fried with a heavy batter, and rolled in sprinkles. Less than three weeks after the soaring prose at the Lincoln Memorial, King had to do the funerals of slaughtered Sunday school children in Birmingham. The Riverside oration puts the “dream” back into perspective in terms of the challenges still before us.

§  §  §

Benediction. Patti Smith, “People Have the Power” [lyrics below video]

# # #

 

Recently Marc Mullinax helped me videotape a word of encouragement to the Forum for Naga Reconciliation. Next week they will be commemorating the 15 anniversary of their founding, in an ongoing effort to undo the harsh antagonism—to heal the wounds of animosity and mutual recrimination—that have gripped their people for many years.

A little background. The Naga people of far North-East India are indigenous to that mountainous region. Their written history is less than 250 years old, but they are thought to be ethnically related to the people of Tibet.

The British colonizers of India were never able to exert control over the Nagas, a fiercely independent people who, prior to the coming of missionaries, carried on a cultural practice that included headhunting. Missionaries arrived in the area in the mid-19^th century. Within a couple generations, the majority of Nagas identified as Christians, and—oddly enough—most of the Christians are Baptists.

This is an unlikely, very odd story.

During the 1990’s I was a member of the Baptist World Alliance Human Rights Commission. I was asked to address the Commission in its 1993 meeting held in Harare, Zimbabwe. What I did was tell stories of Baptist-flavored people, from around the world, involved in justice, peace, and human rights work during the previous 50 years.

One of those stories was of Rev. Longri Ao, a Naga Baptist pastor, who risked his life in the attempt to mediate the conflict between competing Naga political parties. The background to that conflict is complicated. But the roots go back to 1947 when India successfully threw off British colonial control.

Mahatma Gandhi had promised the Nagas their independence if they would cooperate in expelling the British. But the new Indian government reneged on that promise. Ever since then there has been a low-intensity conflict with Indian security forces. Attempts to create a ceasefire with the Indian government by some Naga leaders alienated others. What was one Naga party split into two, and then split again, and then again, such that an independence struggle was overlaid with a civil war.

Little did I know that one person in that Human Rights Commission audience was Dr. Wati Aier, principal of the Oriental Theological Seminary in Nagaland. He asked to speak further with me; and we ended up talking in the hotel lounge well into the night, telling me more of the Naga story and of his vision of taking up where Rev. Ao had left off in the attempt to help the Naga parties, two of which had guerilla armies, to reconcile in order to present a united front in negotiating with the Indian government.

The story gets odder still. I flew to Calcutta the following February, hoping to then fly to Nagaland. But that region was a closed military zone and required a special visa. I didn’t know until I arrived that I wasn’t given that special visa. What I ended up doing was meeting with the commander in chief of the principal Naga party, the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (or NSCN). V.S. Atem, a wanted man in India, surreptitiously came to Calcutta for this meeting.

For two solid days we sat in a hotel room and I listened to a long accounting of Naga history and struggle for independence. One of the most unusual things I learned was that the NSCN political manifesto is rife with Maoist political philosophy; but the party’s motto was “Nagaland for Christ.”

I felt a little like Alice when she wandered down that rabbit hole.

If you’ve never heard of the Naga people, you’re not alone. Few people have. The conflict in Nagaland has been said to be the most deadly social conflict largely unknown to the world.

I was able to visit Nagaland the following year, expressly to lecture at the Oriental Seminary. On my first night there, I had my hotel room searched by heavily armed members of the Indian Security Forces. I learned that of those in our previous meeting in Calcutta (now renamed Kolcuta) the year before, a Naga civil right lawyer, had been assassinated. Another, the NSCN security chief, was in prison.

In the years that followed there were further meetings in Bangkok and Chiang Mai, Thailand. Leaders of the Naga parties came to Atlanta for a series of negotiations. (In part because they wanted to visit the Jimmy Carter Library and the Martin Luther King Center.)

Eventually, I turned over coordination of our mediation projects to a colleague. But I stayed in touch with my Naga friends. Like what has happened in any contentious history, the negotiations went back and forth. Ceasefires were established several times; then fell apart for one reason or another. The Forum for Naga Reconciliation was formally established 15 years ago, and Dr. Aier continues his resolute and courageous work as a mediator.

Peace and justice activists are sometimes referred to as prophetic figures. Fact is, though, the biggest part of my work with the Baptist Peace Fellowship was pastoral in nature. I realized early on in my work as an organizer that the prophets are already out there. But they often feel alone and isolated and dispirited. What they most need is not money or influence. They need encouragement. They need to know that someone knows about and supports their work, however difficult, however meager the results. And they need to feel part of a larger network of people who share their hopes and dreams of a different world, of the day which the prophet Zechariah foresaw when the war horse will be let out to pasture, the battle bow broken, and peace be established among the nations.

Not long out of seminary an older pastor who I respected greatly mentioned that the ministry of encouragement is the most overlooked, least expensive and most effective thing we can do for each other. It takes no special training, no claim to authority or office, no brilliance of mind or eloquence of speech. Only attentiveness; an awareness that courage is contagious.

Encouragement steels resolve. It mitigates the corrosive fear of isolation. It rains honor on draught stricken lives.

Encouragement is like the lime and silica that can turn loose sand into rock hard cement.

I love the way Nancy’s sister, Abigail Hastings, writes about encouragement.

“I still believe there are words that can be said that can bring a person into being and can fortify them with a sense of belonging and safety in the world, words that can boost their emotional immune system, words to carry in their hearts, words to light a path.”

There is no getting around the fact that life delivers sorrow onto every head. And also disappointment and discouragement, when the fruit of inspired dreams are choked by weeds. I love that old hymn line—sing if with me if you know it:

“Sometimes I feel discouraged and think my work’s in vain, but then the Holy Spirit revives my soul again.”

Key to understanding the Spirit’s work is the ministry of encouragement. Every one of us has been ordained to this calling.

And the key to a ministry of encouragement is timeliness. You don’t just slather compliments all over the place. You don’t offer your praise in hopes of getting in more in return. And you don’t mouth innocuous, feeble cheeriness to someone in the midst of a crisis. You take their pain seriously. Sharing another’s sorrow is evidence that you’re paying attention. Grief is the price of love.

Instead, you look for ripe moments, unexpected occasions, even when no one else is looking or overhearing. And you offer a word of confidence, of reassurance, of generous praise or gratitude. It need not be more complicated than saying to one in the midst of tribulation, “you can do this hard thing.”

Needless to say, the practice of a ministry of encouragement does not mean we relinquish our prophetic calling to confront the systems of injustice that constantly harass the impoverished and the vulnerable. It just means there is more than one tool in our vocation as disciples.

Today’s text from Zechariah is spoken to the Hebrew people who have been released from their Babylonian captivity, returning to Jerusalem to rebuild the city. And not just the physical city, but also restoring their agency as heralds of God’s promise of flourishing to all the nations.

“Return to your stronghold you prisoners of hope.” Two things in this text stand out.

First, though the English translation loses this distinction, the command addressed to “the daughter of Zion” is an expressly feminine entity. Zion is a synonym for Jerusalem, and her destined inheritance as a beloved center from which God’s promises the overthrow of the reign of terror and bloodshed. You could paraphrase it like this: Mama’s gonna protect you from every stressful threat of carnage.

Second, what a mind-bending image that we are prisoners of hope! What a mixed metaphor! How can hope and captivity co-exist?

There is a kind of spiritual alchemy going on. We are being remade as prisoners to this world-changing hope. Despite history’s groans and sorrows and sighs—these are not the last words. We are gripped by, and animated for, a new world that is on its way—even though, from all appearances, we seem powerless to construct such a world by the sweat of our own hands.

An old cartoon comes to mind, featuring a conversation between two figures. The one asks,

“Aren’t you terrified of what [the future] could be like? Everything is so messed up. . . .”

The other responds, “I think it will bring flowers.”

The first responds, incredulously, “Yes? Why?”

Responds the other, “Because I’m planting flowers.”

Kindred, plant the flower-promising seeds of encouragement every day, in every way, in the face of fear and dismay, along every back road, every byway. So may it be. Amen.

Ken Sehested
Circle of Mercy Congregation, 9 July 2023
Text: Zechariah 9:9-12