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Signs of the Times  •  25 February 2016  •  No. 60

¶ Processional (and celebrating the rising of the women). The ceremony marks the first aboriginal women—Melanie Mark—elected to British Columbia (Canada) legislature.  (Thanks, Lee.)

¶ Photo at right. Colima Volcano in Mexico shows a powerful night explosion with lightning and incandescent rockfalls. This photo, by Velasco Garcia, took second place in the 2016 World Press Photo Contest.

¶ Invocation. “Fill my heart with song and / Let me sing for ever more / You are all I long for / All I worship and adore.” —7-year-old Angelina Jordan, from Norway, singing “Fly Me to the Moon.”

¶ Call to worship. “Let the lost rejoice in the Lamb who rules, / for the Tendering Day draws near! / When the grumbling accountants of shame / and chagrin trap the erring, / consigned to regret, / When the safeguarding coins are scattered, astray, / and tattered hearts freeze with fear and dismay.” —continue reading Ken’s Sehested “Let the lost rejoice,” a litany for worship inspired by Jesus’ parables of loss in Luke 15

¶ Good news you likely didn’t hear. Susan Dancy Aldrich, a stay-at-home mom and part-time preschool teacher in Charlotte, NC, faced a vocational fork-in-the-road when the last of her children left home. After a coffee shop chance encounter with a friend starting a new non-governmental organization (NGO) in Panama, Susan hatched the idea for what became, in 2010, “One Library at a Time,” a project to establish and strengthen libraries serving young children in underdeveloped regions of the world—mostly in Central America—building on existing linkages with various NGOs to promote sustainability and relational development with communities here in the US. Consider stirring interest in your congregation to “adopt” one of these libraries.

Left: US & Cuban flags on a balcony in Havana. Photo by Yamil Lage, Getty Images.

¶ US-Cuba relations continuing to thaw
        •US President Barack Obama has announced he will visit Cuba on 21 March, the first sitting president to travel there since Calvin Coolidge in 1928.
        •Cleber LLC, a US manufacturer of small tractors, is the first business granted permission to establish a manufacturing plant in Cuba. —Melissa Block, NPR
        •On his second day in office in 2008, President Barack Obama issued an executive order mandating the closing within one year of the Guantánamo Bay Prison. Seven years later, Obama—frustrated by Congressional obstruction—has renewed his commitment to dismantle the military prison.      
        •The present cost to US taxpayers is $4 million annually for each of the 91 prisoners at the Guantánamo prison. For more background information, see the ACLU's “Guantánamo by the Numbers.”
        •The US and Cuba signed “a civil aviation agreement in Havana [Tuesday 16 February] re-establishing air service between the two countries,” up to 20 flights per day to Havana and as many as 10 daily flights to other Cuban cities. With 10 international airports in Cuba, that means there could be as many as 110 flights daily. —Laura Wagner, NPR

¶ For more background on Cuba:
        • “Thirty-give interesting facts about Cuba and its US relations,” by Ken Sehested. 
        • “Reflections on Changes in US-Cuba Relations,” by Stan Hastey, guest columnist.

¶ For the beauty of the earth. Aerial video of Multnomah Falls, Oregon. (2:25. Thanks, Michael.) 

¶ Hymn of praise. “Ode to Joy,” James Turner, glass harp virtuoso.

¶ When praise is something else.
        •“We either praise or blame according to whether the one or the other provides the greater opportunity to let our power of judgment shine. —Friedrich Nietzsche
        •“We seldom praise anyone in good earnest, except such as admire us.” —François de La Rochefoucauld

¶ A convenient opportunity for religious literacy. Harvard University, along with its Divinity School and Wellesley College are offering a free online series on world religions.

¶ Left. Mural portrait In Baltimore of Trayvon Martin, killed in February 2012 by George Zimmerman. Martin would have been 21 this year on 5 February.

¶ Suspicion of Lenten piety. “It has been said: Our weakness is our only claim on Jesus. ‘Come to me, you who are weary. . . . For my yoke is light’ (Matthew 11:28, 30).
        “‘Aha!’ you say. ‘Just as I suspected. What God really wants is to keep us subservient and dependent! On our knees, rather than on our own two feet. This religion business is nothing more than a form of social control.’”
        “If that were true, I would say: This ‘God’ is nothing but a pimp and his disciples are but hustlers. But something else is at stake—something so subtle that it cannot be said directly but only ironically. Rather than slavery, this ‘weakness’ is the key to freedom.” —continue reading “Claim on Jesus,” a call to worship and litany inspired by Luke 15:11b-32, the story of the “prodigal son”

¶ War costs in dollars. It’s estimated that the total costs of the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will be between $4-$6 trillion, once you factor in not only the direct costs but also interest on borrowing (virtually all the war costs were put on a credit card), long-term medical care and disability compensation for wounded veterans, and supply and equipment replenishment.
        •The George W. Bush Administration forced Lawrence Lindsey to resign as head of its National Economic Council shortly before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, after he said the cost of a war with Iraq might reach $200 billion. A month later, just before the U.S. invaded Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld suggested the war’s total cost would be “something under $50 billion.” And the US, he added, would share that bill with its allies.

Right: Marine Abrams tank with the words "New Testament" painted on the barrel, Anbar Province, Iraq, 2005.

        •According to the Congressional Research Service, it costs $3.9 million annually for each American soldier in Afghanistan. —Mark Thompson, Time

        •The US war in Afghanistan has cost at least $1 trillion (1,000,000,000,000—that’s one thousand billion dollars) in direct expenses (i.e., not counting things like debt on war-expense borrowing and long-term medical costs for wounded US troops). Which mean the US, instead of invading, could have cut a $33,000 check to each of Afghanistan’s 30 million citizens. In a country where the annual average per capita income is $670, that would last nearly 50 years per citizen. (Life expectancy in Afghanistan is 60.5 years.) —Peter Apps, Reuters

¶ State of our disunion. In August 2015 the Birmingham, Alabama, city council voted to raise in two stages the minimum wage from $7.25 (the federal level—Alabama has no state law for such) to $10.10 in 2017. (Adjusted for inflation, the latter rate would be only about 10¢ higher than the federal minimum wage rate of 1970.)
        Now state Representative David Faulkner, from neighboring Mountain Home, has drafted legislation forbidding Alabama cities from setting their own standard.
        Background. The median household income in Mountain Home is $131,281; median home value is $542,800; poverty rate is 2.6%; population is 97% white. While in Birmingham: median household income is $31,445; median home value, $85,000; poverty rate, 31% (50% for children); population rate, 70% African American. —see Audie Cornish, NPR

¶ On 19 February 1942 President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. Listen to Japanese Americans—approximately 120,000, two-thirds of them naturalized US citizens—reflect on their time in internment camps during World War II. (4:02. Thanks, Ashlee.)
        •Laws preventing Asian Americans from owning land, voting, and testifying against whites in court, among other things, had already been in effect for decades.
        •“In 1940 and in early 1941, President Roosevelt secretly commissioned studies “to assess the possibility that Japanese Americans would pose a threat to U.S. security.” Both reported no credible threat, but both were ignore.”—Wikipedia
        •Here is a map of the Japanese American internment camps.

¶ Confession. “What a chimera, then, is man! What a novelty, what a monster, what a chaos, what a contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, feeble earthworm, repository of truth, sewer of uncertainty and error, the glory and the scum of the universe.” —17th century French mathematician, physicist and philosopher Blaise Pascal

¶ Words of assurance. “Even with darkness sealing us in, / We breathe Your name, / And through all the days that follow so fast, / We trust in You; / Endless Your grace, O endless Your grace, / Beyond all mortal dream.” —Stephen Paulus (from his “The Three Hermits” opera), lyrics by Michael Dennis Browne, adapted from a Russian Orthodox prayer.

¶ Preach it (in anticipating Women’s History Month in March). “Be the kind of woman that when your feet hit the floor each morning the devil says, ‘Oh crap, she's up!’" —bumper sticker

¶ Call to the table. “For with you is the source of life, in your light we see light,” (sung in Hebrew and English), David Zeller.

¶ Altar call. “I can say no to myself, I can say yes to God, and then every single day there are tests to prove whether I meant it. I may have meant it yesterday, but I would like to take it back today. Somebody has said, 'Living sacrifices keep crawling off the altar.'" —Elizabeth Elliott

¶ Lectionary for Sunday next. “Sunday school, like the ministry of reconciliation, has been tamed. In 2004, shortly after the release of gruesome photos of abuse and torture in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, a ranking U.S. Senator responded this way to a reporter’s question: “This is not Sunday school. This is interrogation. This is rough stuff.”  —read Ken Sehested’s “There is a new creation: The Apostle Paul’s vision of the ministry of reconciliation,” commentary on 2 Corinthians 5:17-19

Right: “Real life” artwork ©Brian Andreas, Storypeople

¶ Benediction. ““I believe the light that shines on you will shine on you forever . . . though I can’t guarantee there’s nothing scary hiding under your bed.” —Paul Simon, lyrics in “Father and Daughter”

¶ Recessional. “Eies irae” from Giuseppe Verdi’s “Requiem.”

¶ Just for fun. Why do we still have pennies, considering the fact that each penny costs 1.7¢ to make—and the US Mint still produces eight billion new ones each year? Watch John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight” hilarious takedown of this phenomenon and learn about, among other things, the “Americans for Common Cents” lobby, the zinc industry, and the Lincoln Library. (9:35)

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Featured this week on prayer&politiks:

• “Claim on Jesus,” a call to worship and litany inspired by Luke 15:11b-32, the story of the “prodigal son”

• “Let the lost rejoice,” a litany for worship inspired by Jesus’ parables of loss in Luke 15

• “There is a new creation: The Apostle Paul’s vision of the ministry of reconciliation,” commentary on 2 Corinthians 5:17-19

Resources for Lent

• “Fasting: Ancient practice, modern relevance”

• “Wilderness: Lenten preparation: A collection of biblical texts that speak of wilderness”

• “Lent is upon us,” a liturgy for Lent

• “Deepening the Call: A wilderness fast opposing a 'Desert Storm,'” a Lenten essay protesting the 1991 Gulf War

©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 klsehested@gmail.com.

Signs of the Times  •  18 February 2016  •  No. 59

Special themed issue: “In God We Trust”
God as national mascot
Divine patronage asserted

¶ Processional. “Star Spangled Banner,” Jimi Hendrix.

The Angel Oak Tree (right), on Johns Island near Charleston, SC, is estimated to be 400-500 years old. It is 66.5 feet tall, has a circumference of 28 feet, and its longest branch measures 187 feet in length.

¶ Call to worship. “Star Spangled Banner,” Lady Gaga.

¶ Invocation. “O, Lord, we are about to join battle with a vastly superior number of the enemy, and, Heavenly Father, we would mightily like for you to be on our side and help us. But if You can't do it, for Christ's sake don't go over to the Mexicans, but just lay low and keep in the dark, and You will see one of the dangest fights you've ever seen. Charge!" — Captain Jack Hays of the Texas Rangers during the Mexican-American War, shortly before leading his troops into battle at Palo Alto, near the modern-day town of Brownsville, Texas.

¶ Intercession—A Lenten love song, from the church to God. “Hug me, squeeze me, love me, tease me / Till I can't, till I can't, till I can't take no more of it / Take me to the water, drop me in the river / Push me in the water, drop me in the river / Washing me down, washing me down.” —“Take Me to the River,” written by Al Green and Mabon "Teenie" Hodges, performed here by Syl Johnson

¶ Confession. “Day of judgment, God is calling / On their knees the war pig's crawling / Begging mercy for their sins / Satan laughing spreads his wings / oh lord yeah!” —“War Pigs,” Black Sabbath, performed by First Aid Kit

¶ Words of assurance. “When I come to die, / When I come to die, / When I come to die, / Give me Jesus.” —“Give Me Jesus,” a cappella rendition by the Apex High School chorus

IN GOD WE TRUST

God-promotion is a recurring theme in US history, both as a response to declining confidence in the state of the nation and as an ideological struggle against enemies. What follows is a bit of background.

¶ Sheriffs in Rutherford County, NC, are but the latest to sport “In God We Trust” bumper stickers on their cruisers—in this case, donated by a local church. “Sheriff Chris Francis wanted to use the decals as a way of showing patriotism.” Similar measures have taken place in several states, and several states now have license plates with "In God We Trust" inscribed. (For more background, see Elahe Izadi’s “Why officers are putting ‘In God We Trust’ bumper stickers on their patrol cars”  and Ken Paulson’s “When police embrace ‘In God We Trust’" commentary.

¶ “In God We Trust” was adapted from the last stanza of Francis Scott Key’s “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which says, “And this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’”

¶ President Theodore Roosevelt disapproved of the motto’s appearance on coins. In The New York Times on 14 November 1907, he wrote, “My own feeling in the matter is due to my very firm conviction that to put such a motto on coins not only does no good but does positive harm, and is in effect irreverence, which comes dangerously close to sacrilege.”

¶ The US Mint stamped selected coins with “In God We Trust” during the Civil War when God’s patronage of the Union was at stake.
        The Reverend M. R. Watkinson, in a letter dated November 13, 1861, petitioned the Treasury Department to add a statement recognizing ‘Almighty God in some form in our coins" in order to "relieve us from the ignominy of heathenism.’ At least part of the motivation was to declare that God was on the Union side in the Civil War. —see Wikipedia for more background

¶ God-promotion got seriously underway in the 1930s as a way of opposing US President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” legislation. Following World War II, the movement expanded greatly—with what the courts have ruled “ceremonial deism,” encouraging school children’s “love of country,” and serving “commercial interests”—when the Soviet Union and its officially-atheistic constitution became Enemy No. 1. —See Kevin M. Kruse’s detailed documentation in his book, One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America.

¶ Gott mit uns ("God with us") is a phrase inscribed on German soldiers’ belt buckles in World War II and commonly used on armor in the German military from the German Empire to the end of the Third Reich, although its historical origins are far older. The Imperial Russian motto, "Съ нами Богъ!" ("S nami Bog!"), also translates the same.

¶ "In God we trust. On Marines we rely." —anonymous

¶ Reference to “In God We Trust” was a central element to the plot of the 1994 version of the film Miracle on 34th Street. In the final scenes of the movie, the judge decides that, since the Department of the Treasury can have faith in God with no hard evidence, the State of New York can have faith in Santa Claus with no hard evidence as well.

¶ “In God we trust. All others we virus scan.” —anonymous

¶ “By April 1953 US Postmaster General Arthur E. Summerfield found his office buried beneath an avalanche of letters and telegrams from citizens demanding the words “In God We Trust” appear on new stamps. . . . “ The phrase “had appeared once before on a 1928 stamp, which celebrated the sesquicentennial of the Valley Forge encampment with an image—quite familiar to cold warriors—of Washington kneeling in prayer. . . .” By 1954 “the Postal Service unveiled a new eight-cent stamp [the price of international postage at the time] bearing the motto in a red arch over an image of the Statue of Liberty. . . . Over 200 million ‘In God We Trust’ stamps would carry letters around the world each year, a ‘beacon of hope and opportunity to oppressed peoples everywhere,’ as Summerfield put it. —Jonathan P. Herzog, The Spiritual-Industrial Complex: America’s Religious Battle Against Communism in the Early Cold War

¶ The phrase “under God” wasn’t added to the Pledge of Allegiance until 1954. By the way, some interesting history: The U.S. Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by Rev. Francis Bellamy, a Baptist pastor and leading advocate of socialism.

¶ In 1955 Congress approved a second national motto, “In God We Trust,” to stand beside the original, “E Pluribus Unum” (“out of many, one”). Some deny that “E Pluribus Unum” was the nation’s motto since it was not explicitly approved as such by an act of Congress—though Congress did approve the Great Seal of the US, on which the phrase appears.

¶ In 1957 “In God We Trust” was added to all US currency.

¶ The “National Prayer Breakfast” (originally, a "Presidential Prayer Breakfast") tradition of bringing together political leaders began in 1953, by Abraham Vereide, who also founded, in 1935, the secretive “Fellowship” (aka “The Family” and “The International Foundation”) as one form of opposition to US President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” legislation and, since then, in support of laissez-faire economic policy (which, currently, is the meaning behind most public use of the word freedom).

¶ “In God we trust. All others pay cash.” —anonymous

¶ “In 1962, when the Supreme Court ruled (Engel v. Vitale) that government-directed prayer in public schools was unconstitutional, the Senate Judiciary Committee proposed three constitutional Amendments to protect prayer in the schools. The Cold War setting for the hearings was obvious. Virginia Senator A. Willis Robertson said that, without the Amendments, ‘there will be no material difference between our Government and that imposed upon the Soviet Union by the Politburo.’” —For more information on the use of “so help me God” in oaths of office, see David B. Parker,  “‘So Help Me God’ and the Presidential Oath,” History News Network.

¶ In 1970 the Ninth Circuit US Court of Appeals (Aronow v. United States, challenging the constitutionality of having “In God We Trust” on US currency) ruled that the phrase “in God we trust” has no “religious significance,” and its meaning is reduced to “spiritual and psychological value” of a certain “inspirational quality.” Citing an earlier court decision (Engel v. Vitale, 1962), the court affirmed that prayer in public schools and other “patriotic and ceremonial” occasions are merely an encouragement of school children “to express love for our country.”

¶ The US Fifth Circuit Court (Madalyn Murray O’Hair v. W. Michael Blumenthal, 1979) claims that the "primary purpose of the slogan [‘In God We Trust’] was secular."

¶ The phrase “ceremonial deism” was first coined by then-dean of Yale Law School Eugene Rostow and first used in a Supreme Court decision by Justice Brennan’s dissenting opinion in Lynch v. Donnelly in 1984, saying that such expressions are “protected from Establishment Clause [referring to the First Amendment to the US Constitution] scrutiny chiefly because they have lost through rote repetition any significant religious content.”

¶ In that same Supreme Court case, which involved the constitutionality of a courthouse Christmas nativity scene in Pawtucket, RI, Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote that the practice "engenders a friendly community spirit" and "serves the commercial interests" of the merchants.

¶ “In God we trust. All others will be audited.” —anonymous

¶ Just to be sure, Congress has on three separate occasions in recent years reaffirmed “In God We Trust” as the nation’s motto. In 2002 the House of Representatives approved a new law that said the old law (Section 302, Title 36, US Code) should not be changed! In 2006 the Senate reaffirmed “the concept embodied in the motto.” Then, in 2011, Rep. J. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) made the motion to reaffirm, again, “In God We Trust” as the nation’s motto and encourage its display in all public schools and government buildings, saying Americans need “that kind of inspiration” in tough economic times.

¶ Default piety. “I couldn’t think of any new prayers, so I just said the Pledge of Allegiance instead.” —“The Family Circus” cartoon character Dolly, to her mother at bedtime

¶ Lenten piety for the impious. “There’s a raucousness to God, in God, of God, by God, / that the orderly mind cannot abide. . . .” —continue reading Ken’s Sehested’s poem, “Raucous: God’s mutiny against Lenten tedium and patriotic pablum,” particularly if Lenten piety gets wearisome or politicians’ God-promotion makes atheism an attractive option

¶ Hymn of praise. “Eternal Father, Strong to Save,” the “Navy Hymn,” performed here by the U.S. Navy Band Sea Chanters.

¶ "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” —British political essayist Samuel Johnson, 1774

¶ Preach it. “This people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” —Jesus, repeating a statement from the prophet Isaiah (Mark 7:6, Matt. 15:8; cf. Is. 29:13)

¶ Lectionary for Sunday next. “The Maître D’ of Heaven commands the ’poverished-poor to table: the halt and helpless, lamed and maimed ushered up for honored seating. The Beloved’s steadfast love is like a lip-smacking feast of abundance. But the Market’s squaloring famine sows the seeds of violent harvest.” —continue reading Ken Sehested’s “Maître D’ of Heaven,” a litany for worship

¶ Call to the table—on the now-common habit of politicians’ speech-ending refrain of “God bless America.”
       "Of the 41 appearances [in the New Testament] of the Greek verb eulogeoo (literally 'speaking a good word'), only twice do we find it in the imperative mood. In neither case does it involve God. It does, however, involve us. In Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Plain he invites his disciples to 'Bless those who curse you' (Luke 6:28). These instructions are later echoed by the apostle Paul: 'Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse' (Rom 12:14). —Ched Myers, “Mixed Blessing: A Biblical Inquiry into a ‘Patriotic’ Cant”

¶ Just for fun. “Atheists Don’t Have No Songs,” by Steve Martin and Steep Canyon Rangers.

¶ Benediction. “Tell me where is the road I can call my own, / That I left, that I lost, so long ago. / All these years I have wondered, oh when will I know, / There's a way, there's a road that will lead me home.”  —“The Road Home,” Stephen Paulus, performed by Conspirare (click the “show more” button to see the lyrics)

¶ Recessional. "My country could use a little mercy now.“ —Mercy Now,” Mary Gauthier

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Featured this week on prayer&politiks:

• “Raucous: God’s mutiny against Lenten tedium and patriotic pablum,” particularly if Lenten piety gets wearisome or politician’s God-promotion makes atheism a viable option

• “Maître D’ of Heaven,” a litany for worship

Resources for Lent

• “Fasting: Ancient practice, modern relevance”

• “Wilderness: Lenten preparation: A collection of biblical texts that speak of wilderness”

• “Lent is upon us,” liturgy readings for Lent

• “Deepening the Call: A wilderness fast opposing a “Desert Storm,” a Lenten essay protesting the 1991 Gulf War

Linocut art at right by Julie Lonneman.

©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 klsehested@gmail.com.

 

Signs of the Times  •  11 February 2016  •  No. 58

¶ Processional. “They have blessings – those who ask / Jesus himself said so / Hallelujah /  Jesus himself said so. . . . / They have life. . . . / They have joy. . . . / They have faith.” —“Wana Baraka” (They have blessings), traditional Swahili hymn from Kenya, arranged by Shawn L. Kirchner.

Right: Hamilton Pool Preserve is a natural pool that was created when the dome of an underground river collapsed due to massive erosion thousands of years ago. The pool is located about 23 miles west of Austin, Texas. Photo by Dave Wilson.

¶ Invocation. “The world is God’s and it will not fall apart. The church need not live out of fear as though the gospel were not true. Instead, we are destined to live toward freedom, toward the pain of the world, toward the hurt of the world, toward the joy of the world: The hurt and pain the world does not understand and the joy the world does not anticipate.”  —continue reading “The world is God’s,” a litany for worship adapting text from Walter Brueggemann’s Living Toward a Vision

¶ Call to worship. Imagine God singing (about-and-to us) this Muddy Waters tune on Ash Wednesday. “Forty Days and Forty Nights,” performed by B.B. King.

¶ Amazing news. Today “Morocco’s king will switch on the first phase of a concentrated solar power plant that will become the world’s largest when completed. The power station on the edge of the Saharan desert will be the size of the country’s capital city by the time it is finished in 2018, and provide electricity for 1.1 million people. . . . [saving] hundreds of thousands of tonnes of carbon emissions per year.” —Arthur Neslen, The Guardian

¶ More amazing news from Morocco. In late January some 300 Muslim clerics, scholars and other leaders approved the “Marrakesh Declaration” asserting the rights of religious minorities in predominantly-Muslim communities.
        Drawing historical precedent from the 1,400 year-old “Charter of Medina” which the Prophet Mohammad drafted to govern the first Muslim state, the affirmations in the Declaration are highly significant. The question now is whether this statement, and the four-year negotiation behind it, will stimulate the conversation needed to affect policies and cultural norms.
        You can read the summary of the Marrakesh Declaration here. Here’s a brief news story from Religion News Service. Here’s a longer New York Times report.

¶ Confession (in Ash Wednesday’s imposition line). “Excuse me . . . I signed up for eternal bliss. I think I may be in the wrong line."

¶ Hymn of praise. “Feeling Good,” Nina Simone.

¶ Speaking of interfaith engagement, this is an inspiring video (1:38) of Pope Francis affirmed “we are all children of God.”

¶ Inspiring news you won’t likely hear. “Meet The Rabbi Traveling Across The Country To Fight Islamophobia,” by Justin Salhani, thinkprogress.org. (Thanks, Shanta.)

¶ Not so inspiring news. “Are we going to surround the entire State of Israel with a fence, a barrier? The answer is yes, unequivocally. In the environment in which we live we must defend ourselves from the wild beasts." —Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, announcing this week the multi-year, multi-million dollar project. Andrea Germanos, Common Dreams

¶ Words of assurance. “If your world has only done you wrong / And all you find yourself is all alone / And if there's no one there to see you through / I'll be there for you.” —The Mavericks, "Come Unto Me"

¶ “Both miraculous and terrifying.” The largest glacier calving event ever caught on video. (Thanks, Susan.)

¶ Black History Month snippet: Brief profile of Ralph Bunche, career diplomat. —Steven J. Niven, “Ralph Bunche: A Diplomat Who Would Not Negotiate on Race” (Thanks, Richard.)

¶ “Hammerin’ Hank” Aaron celebrated his 82nd birthday this week. The photo (at left), from the Negro Leagues Museum, shows the 18-year-old Aaron leaving Mobile, Alabama, in 1952 to join the Indianapolis Clowns Negro League baseball team with a salary of $200 a month. He purportedly had $1.50 in his pocket, two changes of clothes and one major league dream.

¶ This is priceless! You may have heard that on 20 January, Stacey Dash, a FOX News contributor (she was a character in the ‘90s comedy “Clueless”), said that Black History Month shouldn’t exist. The good folk at “Yes!” magazine put together a one minute video of kids’ responses.

¶ Recovery of African American history. Just down the mountain to the east of where I live is the small town of Old Fort, NC. One Sunday in September 1950 (years before the phrase “civil rights movement” was a headline) Old Fort citizens were stunned to see African American children marching down main street (see the photo at right), carrying signs like “We want our school back,” in opposition to the county’s decision to close the Catawba View Grammar School. —read more of Dawna Goode’s story

¶ More historical recovery. “Virginia’s public education then [1956] was a hotbed of white-black conflict after [the US Supreme Court’s ruling] Brown v. Board of Education. Several Virginia counties temporarily closed their schools to avoid integration. Prince Edward County resisted integration to the point that eventually, in 1959, the county shut down its public school system indefinitely. Whites-only private schools were formed, perversely supported by state funds. For five years, from 1959-1964, there was no public education for black children.” —Jerry A. Miller, Jr., Asheville Citizen-Times

¶ This, too, is to be learned in Lent. “On Judgment Day God will hold us accountable for the permitted pleasures we failed to enjoy.” —Jerusalem Talmud

¶ It is, I hope, a permitted pleasure to enjoy personal acquaintance with publicly-recognized justice-seeking, peace-making, reconciliation-building icons—in my case two of this year’s five “Public Peace Prize” recipients: Marie Dennis, co-president of Pax Christi International, and Michael Lapsley, a South African priest who works with victims as well as authors of apartheid and other forms of repression (and a recent guest preacher for my congregation). Read more about all five recipients.

¶ Lent is an especially good time to give thanks for, and encourage, hospital and hospice chaplains. One recent testimony: “In the past week, I baptized two babies—one dead, one dying. I held a chair steady for a mother collapsing in tears, and I held a trash bin for a father vomiting in grief. I prayed for children who had cancer, held hands of children who had burns, sang songs to children who had been abused.” —Keith Menhinick, hospital chaplian in NC,  “The Spiritual Practice of Poetry”

¶ Among the lessons of Lent is the limit of speech. “I am reluctant to talk about God and what God thinks and how God acts. . . . I go there, but when I do, I’m reminded of Robert Capon saying we’re like oysters trying to explain ballerinas." —Barbara Brown Taylor

¶ A prophet speaks to profit. “If Wall Street can borrow money at 0.75% interest, so can college students. We need to stop treating students as profit centers.” —Senator Elizabeth Warren

¶ Preach it, Mr. President. "What better time than these changing, tumultuous times to have Jesus standing beside us, steadying our minds, cleansing our hearts, pointing us towards what matters.
        “His love gives us the power to resist fear's temptations.
        “He gives us the courage to reach out to others across that divide, rather than push people away.
        “He gives us the courage to go against the conventional wisdom and stand up for what's right, even when it's not popular. To stand up not just to our enemies but, sometimes, to stand up to our friends.
        “He gives us the fortitude to sacrifice ourselves for a larger cause. Or to make tough decisions knowing that we can only do our best." ­—President Barack Obama, National Prayer Breakfast, Thursday 4 February 2016. You can watch a video (1:41 minutes) and read a news report of his comments at Politico.

¶ Plundering “freedom” language. “. . . religious liberty is a code word for defending the right of Christians to continue to hold cultural authority and privilege.” —John Fea, “Ted Cruz’s campaign is fueled by a dominionist vision for America,” Religion News Service

¶ “It is directly contrary to the nature of Christ Jesus . . . that throats of men should be torne out for his sake.” —Roger Williams, colonial pastor, advocate for universal protection of religious liberty, founder of Rhode Island, a haven for religious dissenters, who was referred to by Puritan leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony as “an incendiary of the Commonwealth

¶ Lectionary for Sunday next. “Those who live there make their bellies their gods, belches are their praise; all they can think of is their appetites.” —Philippians 3:19, The Message

¶ “I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic / and she said yes / I asked her if it was okay to be short / and she said it sure is / I asked her if I could wear nail polish / or not wear nail polish / and she said honey / she calls me that sometimes / she said you can do just exactly what you want to. . . .” —Kaylin Haught, “God Says Yes to Me.” Here  is a video rendition of the poem (3+ minutes).

¶ Call to the table. "We learn some things to know them; others, to do them.” —St. Augustine

¶ Benediction. “Defenseless under the night / Our world in stupor lies; / Yet, dotted everywhere, / Ironic points of light / Flash out wherever the Just / Exchange their messages: / May I, composed like them / Of Eros and of dust, / Beleaguered by the same / Negation and despair, / Show an affirming flame. —W.H. Auden, last verse of his poem “September 1, 1939”

¶ Just for fun. Comedic lip syncing Patsy Cline.

¶ Recessional. “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.” —performed by Sissel Kyrkjebø, music by Antonin Dvorak from Symphony No. 9, Op. 95, lyrics by William Arms Fisher, who wrote that “the lines . . . should take the form of a negro spiritual.”

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Featured this week on prayer&politiks:

• “Wintering over,” a call to worship in a chilly season, by Abigail Hastings

• “With courage impart,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 27.

• “The world is God’s,” a litany for worship adapting text from Walter Brueggemann’s Living Toward a Vision, edited by Ken Sehested

Resources for Lent

• “Fasting: Ancient practice, modern relevance”

• “Wilderness: Lenten preparation: A collection of biblical texts that speak of wilderness”

• “Lent is upon us,” liturgical readings for Lent

• “Deepening the Call: A wilderness fast opposing a “Desert Storm,” a Lenten essay protesting the 1991 Gulf War

©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 klsehested@gmail.com.

 

Signs of the Times  •  4 February 2016  •  No. 57

¶ Processional.  Street percussion and dance in New York City, from “To the Culture” (2:28 minutes).

Right: Shelf cloud over Sydney, Australia, photo by Richard Hirst.

¶ Invocation. “Miserere Mei, Deus" (Psalm 51),  by 17th century Italian composer Gregorio Allegri (5:44 minutes).

¶ Call to worship. “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness” (Luke 4:1) —see “Wilderness: Lenten preparation: A collection of biblical texts on wilderness”

¶ Money can’t buy you love. This past Sunday, while stumping in Iowa to corral votes prior to Monday’s caucuses, presidential candidate Donald Trump visited a non-denominational church for worship, where he attempted to put money on the communion tray. “I thought it was for the offering.” —Nick Allen and Ruth Sherlock, The Telegraph

¶ The Reverend Richard Allen, founder and first bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, founded 200 years ago in the US, is the US Postal Service’s featured portrait for their Black History Month commemorative stamp. —for more information see Adelle M. Banks, Religion News Service 

¶ Notable Nobel Prize nomination. Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC—where a Christian terrorist assassinated nine members in June 2015—has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for the way it has handled that tragedy. —Andrew Knapp, The Post and Courier

¶ “Jarena Lee (February 11, 1783–1836, pictured below right) was a 19th-century African-American woman who left behind an eloquent account of her religious experience. The publishing of her autobiography made Lee the first African American woman to have an autobiography published in the United States. She was also the first woman authorized to preach by Richard Allen, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1819. Despite Allen's blessing, Lee continued to face hostility to her ministry because she was black and a woman. She became a traveling minister, traveling thousands of miles on foot.” —Wikipedia

¶ As part of its coverage of Black History Month, The New York Times is printing a series of previously unpublished archival photos of African Americans—with new ones each day in February.

¶ Hymn of petition. “Choneni Elohim” (“Be gracious to me, O G-d”), from Psalm 51, written and performed by Christene Jackman.

¶ In memoriam—and in anticipation of the outcome of Lent’s discipline. “Freedom,” Richie Havens, who died this week at age 72, improvising “Motherless Child” at Woodstock 1969.

¶ Hymn of (amazing) praise.  Young Amira Willighagen sings Giacomo Puccini’s “O Mio Babbino Caro” (“Oh My Beloved Father”) on Dutch TV’s “Got Talent” program.

¶ Confession. “Most of our culture prefers to celebrate Valentine's Day rather than Ash Wednesday. Most are repulsed by the thought of smudging ashes on the forehead in the shape of a cross. Most, even in the church, shy away from the mark of crucifixion. Instead of the body-broken, blood-spilt meal which Jesus offered, most prefer the empty calories of candy. Valentine candy is the Gospel of our culture.” —Ken Sehested

¶ The history behind Valentine’s Day. “It is said that a jailer in a Roman prison had a daughter who was one of St. Valentine’s patients before he was arrested. He tended her for her blindness, but when he was arrested she still had not regained her sight.
       Before his execution Valentine asked the jailer for some parchment and ink, wrote the girl a note, and signed it 'From your Valentine.' When she opened the note, a yellow crocus flower fell out of the parchment and it was the first thing she had ever seen.” —Read Ken Sehested’s “St. Valentine: Remembering prisoners on his feast day.” Each year the children and youth in my congregation make homemade Valentine’s cards for prisoners, which are then distributed by local prison chaplains.

¶ “Valentine's Day is a time to spoil our beloveds, woo our secret lovers, and remember to call our mothers. It is also, to put things slightly less tenderly, a $20 billion macroeconomic stimulus aimed straight at the heart of the American chocolate-floral-lingerie industrial hydra.” —Derek Thompson, The Atlantic

¶ More children’s ministries. Circle of Mercy Congregation’s youth made several pillowcase banners in support of the #GiveRefugeesRest  campaign. Some were sent to our state’s governor, who was one of the 31 governors opposing Syrian refugee resettlement. Two were hand delivered by one of our members to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan.

¶ Why refugees matter. “The First Testament says it plainly enough: ‘You shall love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt’ (Deuteronomy 10:19, among a score of similar injunctions). In the Second Testament, the plight of strangers—the stranded, the stripped, the stricken and the strapped—is equated with the sake of Jesus himself. Thereby, and in these very days, the judicial transcript of Matthew 25 is published anew: Lord, when did we see thee. . . ?” —read Ken Sehested’s “Mamrean encounter: A meditation on the threat of refugees, the burden of strangers and the bounty of God”

¶ Words of assurance. “We're all / Born to trouble / In troubling times / This world has a way / Of wearing us down / But the earth / Keeps on turning / Night turns to day / And every new morning / Mercies come round.” —“Lay Back the Darkness,” Kate Campbell 

 ¶ “There are voices who are constantly claiming you have to choose between your identities. . . . Do not believe them. . . . You fit in here. Right here. You’re right where you belong. . . . You’re not Muslim or American, you’re Muslim and American. And don’t grow cynical.” —President Barack Obama, in his 3 February speech at the Islamic Society of Baltimore mosque. For more, see Michelle Boorstein, The Washington Post.

¶ Religious liberty for Muslims was championed by Roger Williams in colonial America, and specifically mentioned in early US constitutional wording. Thomas Jefferson, who 1786 penned Virginia’s Statue for Religious Freedom—which became the model for the religious liberty amendment to the US Constitution, approved by Congress in 1789 and ratified by the states in 1791—which extended explicit protection to “the Jew and the gentile, the Christian and the Mohametan” [the latter word meaning Muslim]. And, in fact, the Virginia legislature explicitly rejected inclusion of language recognizing “Jesus Christ” in the bill. —see Elahe Izadi, “Obama, Thomas Jefferson and the history of the fascinating history of Founding Fathers defending Muslim rights”

¶ "In the formation of the American ideal and principles of what we consider to be exceptional American values, Muslims were, at the beginning, the litmus test for whether the reach of American constitutional principles would include every believer, every kind, or not." —Denise Spellberg, author of Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an: Islam and the Founders

¶ Awesome. Listen to University of Maryland student Sabah Muktar’s introduction of President Obama prior to his speaking at the Islamic Center of Baltimore. (3:02 minutes).

¶ Twenty-five years of US combat operations against Iraq. Twenty-five years ago the US and its allies were midway through “Operation Desert Storm,” the action to expel Iraqi troops from Kuwait. —For more information, see Alan Taylor’s “Operation Desert Storm: 25 Years Since the First Guld War," The Atlantic.

¶ “Despite the prayers of millions of believers, both in this country and elsewhere, the war has begun. And it has been prosecuted on a scale never before witnessed in the history of humankind. On February 4, Major General Robert Johnston said that ‘[we have flown] approximately one bombing sortie for every minute of the Desert Storm operation.’” —read Ken Sehested’s “Deepening the Call: A wilderness fast opposing a ‘Desert Storm,’” a Lenten essay protesting the 1991 Gulf War

¶ US military strikes in Iraq have not ceased since 1991. Although a cease-fire was established 28 February 1991, the US and Britain established “no-fly” zones in southern and northern Iraq, engaging in near-daily attacks on Saddam Hussein’s forces right up until the 2003 “Shock and Awe” invasion of Iraq. US troops did not formally withdraw from Iraq until 31 December 2011, but then returned in June 2014. According to Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren, there are now “well above 4,000” US troops in Iraq, and more are expected to be deployed.

¶ “Do not bother looking for Lent in your Bible dictionary. There was no such thing in biblical times. There is some evidence that early Christians fasted 40 hours between Good Friday and Easter, but the custom of spending 40 days in prayer and self-denial did not arise until later, when the initial rush of Christian adrenaline was over and believers had gotten very ho-hum about their faith.
        “When the world did not end as Jesus himself had said it would, his followers stopped expecting so much from God or from themselves. They hung a wooden cross on the wall and settled back into their more or less comfortable routines, remembering their once passionate devotion to God the way they remembered the other enthusiasms of their youth.” —Barbara Brown Taylor, “Settling for Less: A Lenten Meditation on Luke 4:1-13

¶ Preach it. “’Fear of God’ is not cowering, frightened intimidation. Those who fear God are not wimps and are not preoccupied with excessive need to please God. They are rather those who have arrived at a fundamental vision of reality about life with God, who have enormous power, freedom, and energy to live out that vision. ‘Fear of God’ is liberating and not restrictive, because it gives confidence about the true shape of the world.” —Walter Brueggemann, Remember You Are Dust

¶ Lectionary for Sunday next. "All who dwell in the dell of the Blessed Embrace shall raise anthems of joy and grace. My fortress, my shield, by mercy concealed: O Shelter, my shiv’ring displace." —continue reading “When you call I will answer,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 91

¶ Call to the table. “Idumea (Am I Born to Die),” Doc Watson and Gaither Carlton.

¶ Altar call. “Isn’t there anything you understand? It’s from the ash heap God is seen. Always! Always from the ashes.” —character in Archibald MacLeish’s play, “J.B.”

¶ Just for fun. Bobby McFarrin and Esperanza Spalding jam at the 53rd Grammy Pre-Tel  (Thanks, Graham.)

¶ Benediction. “Abide With Me," slow jazz instrumental rendition by Charles Lloyd and The Marvels.

¶ Some recessionals are for marching with martialed courage, like those children leaving the sanctuary, in 1963, of 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, to face police dogs and fire hoses. But some are for sauntering and slow dancing like “The Shadow of Your Smile” performed here by Glenn Frey (RIP).

Right: Art ©Julie Lonneman

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Featured this week on prayer&politiks:

•“Mamrean encounter: A meditation on the threat of refugees, the burden of strangers and the bounty of God,” a poem

• “St. Valentine: Remembering prisoners on his feast day,” the history behind the holiday

• “When you call I will answer,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 91

Resources for Lent

• “Fasting: Ancient practice, modern relevance”

• “Wilderness: Lenten preparation: A collection of biblical texts that speak of wilderness”

• “Create in me a clean heart,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 51

• “Heart religion,” a litany for Ash Wednesday

• “Spirit-led and Spirit-fed,” a litany for worship inspired by Luke 4:1-13

• “Lent is upon us,” readings for Lenten liturgy

• “Deepening the Call: A wilderness fast opposing a “Desert Storm,” 25th anniversary of a Lenten essay written prior to the 1991 Gulf War

©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 klsehested@gmail.com.