If you think you're too small to be effective, you've never been in bed with a mosquito. — anonymous
by Ken Sehested
Absent now the countenance, the familiar
inflection, the identifiable measured
sound of steps, the scent of palm
and cheek. Lungs, stilled.
But breathless?
No.
Only returned to the One Breath, who
hovers still, sowing and reaping,
reaping and sowing, to the
day when all shall play
’neath vine and fig,
and none shall
be afraid.
©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org
17 September 2015 • No. 38
¶ Amazing grace. A Turkish bride and groom decided to share their joy on their wedding day by inviting 4,000 Syrian refugees to eat with them and celebrate in the southern Turkish city of Kilis. Fethullah Üzümcüoğlu and Esra Polat (at right), 
who got married in the province which is near the Syrian border last week, invited some of those refugees who have fled the country since the civil war which began four years ago. "We thought that on such a happy day, we would share the wedding party with our Syrian brothers and sisters.” —Raziye Akkoc, “Meet the Turkish couple who spent their wedding day feeding 4,000 Syrian refugees”
¶ Invocation. “Early in the morning we rise to greet You, O Gun Almighty. With all due reverence we bow before You. You alone are great. Mighty are Your deeds. Awesome is Your power. There is no one like You. In You do we place our trust.” —Read the entire “Let us all now pray to the Almighty Gun” prayer by David Gushee
¶ Call to worship. “Rosh Hashanah Rock Anthem,” (not your granddaddy's Rosh Hashanah)
¶ Intercession. “As For Me, My Prayer is for You” —Afro-Semitic jazz, by David Chevan with Frank London and the Afro-Semitic Experience, from “The Days of Awe: Meditations for Selichot, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur
¶ My lectionary imagination jumped the rails, enamored by this month’s confluence of Jewish and Islamic holy days. For Jews the ten “Days of Awe” began with Rosh Hashanah this past Sunday at dusk, stretching through next Wednesday’s Yom Kippur observance. For Muslims the annual pilgrimage to Mecca—“Hajj,” one of the five “pillars” of Islam, taking place this year from 21-26 September (calculated, as with Jewish holidays, by distinctive lunar calendars)—is expected to draw well over 2 million people from 188 countries. (Continue reading Ken Sehested’s essay, “Days of awe and Meccan pilgrimage.”)
¶ Interfaith collaboration. “Advocates for Syrian refugee resettlement found unexpected allies as major Jewish groups have called on President Obama to open America’s gates to 100,000 asylum seekers from the war-torn Arab nation. The American Jewish resettlement agency HIAS has launched a petition drive calling on Obama to resettle 100,000 Syrians in the U.S., and Reform rabbis pledged to make refugee assistance a key theme for High Holiday sermons and congregational activism.”
Thus far the US has admitted 1,500 Syrian refugees since the start of that country’s civil war in 2011. Last week President Obama pledged to up that number of 10,000. —Jacob Wirtschafter, “US advocates for Syrian resettlement find unexpected allies"
¶ Hymn of praise. Islamic “Call to prayer” —Adhaan by Ahmad Al-Nafees
“The Knotted Gun” sculpture (right), in front of the United Nations building in New York. The artist, Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd, created the sculpture as a response to the killing of his friend John Lennon. It was donated to the UN in 1988 by the government of Luxembourg.¶ Call to confession. “Lord Have Mercy” —North Mississippi Allstars
¶ Words of assurance. “The terror of God is the Risen One’s threat / to every merchant of death, every marketer’s breath, / every peddler of gun-wielding promise of power.” (Read Ken Sehested’s litany for worship, “The payback of Heaven.”)
¶ Muhammad, the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “He who unfairly treats a non-Muslim who keeps a peace treaty with Muslims, or undermines his rights or burdens him beyond his capacity, or takes something from him without his consent; then I am his opponent on the Day of Judgment.” (Abu Dawud)
¶ Can’t make this sh*t up. A company in Florida is selling a “Christian” AR-15 assault rifle with a Crusader’s cross etched on one side and Psalm 144:1 on the other: "Blessed be the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle." Named “The Crusader,” the gun also features a three setting trigger control labeled Peace, War, and God Wills It. —Henry Pierson Curtis, “Assault rifle with Bible verse to repel Muslim terrorists unveiled in Apopka”
¶ “We’re now averaging more than one mass shooting per day in 2015 (in the US).” In the first 238 days of 2015, there were 247 mass shootings in the US—a “mass” shooting defined as 4+ victims. —Christopher Ingraham
¶ Stunning stat. US military deaths since 1999: 5,273. Veteran suicides since 1999: 128,480.
¶ “In retrospect [the massacre of school children and teachers at] Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.” —Dan Hodges, news commentator, in a 19 June 2015 tweet
¶ “Problem is, gun owners’ interests are represented . . . by the National Rifle Association, an extremist gang. . . . So long as the NRA has such an outsized voice in this debate, so long as politicians, unencumbered by conscience or vertebrae, tremble to its call, and so long as many of us are silent and supine in the face of that obscenity, Hodges is right.” —Leonard Pitts, “Even the murder of children is ‘bearable’”
¶ “The untold story of mass shootings in America is one of domestic violence. It is one of men (yes, mostly men) targeting and killing their wives or ex-girlfriends or families. The victims are intimately familiar to the shooters, not random strangers.” —Melissa Jeltsen, “We’re Missing the Big Picture On Mass Shootings: Most take place inside the home”
¶ Exceptional. “The United States, according to [University of Alabama criminal justice professor Adam] Lankford’s analysis, is home to just 5% of the world’s people but 31% of its public mass shooters. Even more stunning, between 1966 and 2012, 62% of all school and workplace shooters were American.” —Sarah Kaplan, “American exceptionalism and the ‘exceptionallly American’ problem of mass shootings”
¶ “Last week a police officer in London shot and killed a man. It was the first fatal shooting by British police since 2011. Police officers in the US have killed 776 people thus far this year.” —Lauren McCauley, “UK Killing by Police Underscores Depth of Crisis in US”
¶ A new study from researchers at Harvard University obliterates nearly every single National Rifle Association talking point about guns. Not only do more guns not equal less crime, but the study shows that more guns equals more crime, including more firearm robberies, firearm assaults, and homicides by firearm. —Randa Morris, “New Harvard Study Obliterates Every Single NRA Lie About Guns”
¶ The US has 4.4 of the world’s population but almost half of the privately-owned guns. Developed countries with more privately-owned guns have more gun homicides; states in the US with more guns have more gun homicides and more gun suicides. These and a host of other facts, along with visual maps and charts, can be found at “Gun violence in America, in 17 maps and charts.” —German Lopez, Vox
¶ Preach it. “Take Up Your Glock and Follow Me: Whatever Happened to Martyrdom?” —Rev. Mark Reynolds, Shepherd’s Community United Methodist Church, Lakeland, Florida
¶ ”In the immediate aftermath of the massacre in Charleston, South Carolina, the US House of Representatives Appropriations Committee quietly rejected an amendment that would have allowed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to study the underlying causes of gun violence.” —National Public Radio
¶ News you probably didn’t hear. Following this summer’s protests against police brutality, Congress approved legislation requiring local law enforcement agencies to report every police shooting and other death at their hands. —Matt Connolly, “While No One Was Looking”
¶ A few quotes on guns.
•"If in the first act you introduce a gun, by the third act you have to use it." —Anton Chekhov, Russian playwright
•“There’s no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.” —then-California Governor Ronald Reagan, 1967
•“I do not believe in the general promiscuous toting of guns. I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licenses.” —National Rifle Association President Karl Frederick, 1934
•"More Americans have died from guns in the United States since 1968 than on battlefields of all the wars in American 
history." —Nicholas Kristof, Thursday 27 August 2015, New York Times
•”More people in this country kill themselves with guns than with all other intentional means combined.” —“Guns and Suicide: The Hidden Toll,” Harvard School of Health report
¶ The Second Amendment “has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word ‘fraud,’ on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.” —Former US Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Berger, quoted by former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, “The five extra words that can fix the Second Amendment”
¶ The Second Amendment’s provision of “the right to keep and bear arms” is a subordinate (dependent) clause governed by the main (independent) clause about the need to maintain “a well regulated militia.”
And what did “militia” mean to the framers of the Constitution? Article 6 of the Articles of Confederation had required that: “every state shall always keep up a well regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and accoutered, and shall provide and constantly have ready for use, in public stores, a due number of field pieces and tents, and a proper 
quantity of arms, ammunition and camp equipage.” —for more information, see Navy Vet Terp, “The Second Amendment Has Nothing to Do with Gun Ownership”
¶ Call to the Table. Wouldn’t you love to come to the communion table singing “La Bamba”?
English translation: “In order to dance The Bamba / You need a little bit of grace / For me, for you, higher and higher. . . . / By you I will be.”
—“La Bamba,” a Mexican folk song from Vera Cruz, Mexico (made famous in the US by Ritchie Valens—it’s the only non-English language song on The Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the “500 Greatest Songs of All Time), is played and sung here by an international cast of musicians. Created by playingforchange.org.
¶ Altar call. “Mama said the pistol is the Devil’s right hand.” —Johnny Cash performing Steve Earle’s song, “The Devil’s Right Hand.”
¶ “I tried to domesticate the bullet, / To lead her to the truth, / To wash her copper with perfumes / And replace her gun powder with sweets. / But she refused to be unlocked, / And remained dripping pus, / With poison in her breath.” —“The Bullet,” poem by anonymous Iraqi soldier
¶ Benediction. “So what I’m suggesting is that while we forge resilience about the inevitable betrayals ahead of us, try to forget that sinking feeling when you first heard the lies, misrepresentations, or tragedies of 2015. . . . Resist the notion that that’s all the world is—a series of awakenings to harsh truths. Notice instead that for every disappointment or cataclysm, there was an opening for a reaction that surprises.” —Read Abigail Hastings inaugural post on the prayer&politiks site, “The Summer of Betrayal: A roundup of things best forgotten”
# # #
Featured this week on prayer&politiks:
• “Days of awe and Meccan pilgrimage: Reflections on the confluence of Jewish and Islamic holy days”
• “The Summer of Betrayal: A roundup of things best forgotten,” by Abigail Hastings
• “Speak out clearly, pay up personally: The purpose, promise, and peril of interfaith engagement,” by Ken Sehested, Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, and Muslim chaplain Rabia Terri Harris. Excerpted from Peace Primer II: Quotes from Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Scripture & Tradition, published by the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America
• “The payback of Heaven,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 103
©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.
by Ken Sehested
My lectionary imagination jumped the rails, enamored by this month’s confluence of Jewish and Islamic holy days.
For Jews the ten “Days of Awe” began with Rosh Hashanah this past Sunday at dusk, stretching through next Wednesday’s Yom Kippur observance. For Muslims the annual pilgrimage to Mecca—“Hajj,” one of the five “pillars” of Islam, taking place this year from 21-26 September (calculated, as with Jewish holidays, by distinctive lunar calendars)—is expected to draw well over 2 million people from 188 countries.
The second day of Dhul-Hijjah (the Month of Hajj), the annual pilgrimage to Islam’s holiest site, is called the Day of Arafat, when pilgrims travel out of Mecca to the nearby Mount Arafat to celebrate Mohammed’s “Farwell Sermon.”
There are variations in the Hadith (authorized narratives of Muhammed’s teachings) of the Farewell Sermon, much like the Gospels in the Christian Testament have different accounts of Jesus’ life and words. Here are a few especially noteworthy statements from the Prophet’s final testament:
•Blood-vengeance killings are forbidden, as is usury, the practice of charging interest on loans.
• “[T]here is no superiority of an Arab over a non-Arab, nor of a non-Arab over an Arab, nor of a white over a black, nor a black over a white. . . .” (Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal)
•Similar to the “new year” theme of Rosh Hashanah in Judaism, the Farewell Sermon speaks of the celebration of creation, anticipating its present-but-still-coming fulfillment. “Time has completed its cycle [and is] as it was on the day that God created the heavens and the earth.” (Ibn Hisham's Sirah an-Nabawiyah and at-Tabari’s Tarikh)
In Judaic observance, Rosh Hashanah is commonly referred to as the Jewish New Year—Yom Teruah, literally “head of the year” and a day of “shouting/raising a noise.” It lacks the party hats, champagne and late-night carousing in Times Square, though the shofar’s trumpet-like blasts provides plenty of noise. Shared apples dipped in honey express the desire for a sweet new year. Shared blessings— “Leshanah tovah tikateiv veteichateim,” “May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year”—are reminders that life is consequential, as does the Tashlich, prayers said near a body of water recalling the verse “And You [G-d] shall cast their sins into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19). Rosh Hashanah is not just a calendar reload—it is cosmic, celebrating the creation of humankind. The theme of turning, repentance, is a recognition that God’s purpose has been thwarted, that human hubris is now the norm—but that this norm is not “natural,” is not the nature of God’s making. And God is not yet finished.
The “Days of Awe” involve an inscribing of the names of the righteous in the Book of Life on Rosh Hashanah and the sealing of that Book on Yom Kippur, the “Day of Atonement,” when the soul is afflicted to atone for the sins of the past year. Yom Kippur’s atonement is specifically between individuals and God—the work of reconciliation with neighbors is to be done beforehand. This instruction is echoed in Jesus’ command (Matthew 5:23-24) to reconcile with aggrieved neighbors prior to offering a gift at the temple altar, as well as his linkage (Matthew 6:12) of the capacity to be forgiven with the willingness to forgive.
Two things about the “Days of Awe” stand out in my mind.
First, the names of the righteous are inscribed in God’s muster-roll, the Book of Life, on Rosh Hashanah but are not sealed until Yom Kippur. In other words, life is not fated, and there is time for turning.
Second, every year on Yom Kippur afternoon the book of Jonah is read in synagogues around the world. Jonah’s is the tale of God’s unremitting mercy, a mercy so severe that it scandalizes the prophet himself, who is still stuck with the customary human assumption that you get what you earn, you reap only what you sow, your sum always equals your parts.
Life is not fated. Our past does not fully determine our future. The wounds we have suffered—or inflicted—need not define and confine the future. Because we made a mistake does not mean we are a mistake. If karma is all there is, none of us have a prayer.
The Days of Awe’s invitation to review one’s past year, indeed one’s entire life, involves a reading of history. But such readings are not primarily about the past. (As Faulkner wrote, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”) Reading history is the arguments we have with each other about the past. And whenever we argue about the past we are, in fact, making claims about the present and, thereby, about the future. Our remembrances shape our intentions. Memory—and it distortion, amnesia—shapes our politics, our vision of the commonwealth, and drives our debates over current policies and budgets.
How, for instance, can we rightly remember our slavering past? Or, more recently, the elaborate legal justification for torture?
Being reoriented toward the Commonwealth of God almost always entails something akin to having the rug pulled out from under our feet. Rabbi Abraham Heschel, when told by a student that it must be gratifying to spend his life amid “the comforts of religion” replied, “God is not nice. God is not an uncle. God is an earthquake.”
Such earthquakes may take place in a host of ways. But it always involves some sort of dislocation: from a comfort zone byway to a danger zone highway. “We should all be wearing crash helmets,” Annie Dillard wrote about fitting worship. “Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.”
For Jonah, Sign of God, it meant three days in the belly of a maritime beast. Pity that poor whale. Three days of nausea, caused by that gastritic Prophet who was foolish enough to flee from the sea’s own Cartographer.
©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org
10 September 2015 • No. 37
¶ In praise of a life fully and well lived. Amelia Boynton Robinson, who led voting drives and ran for Congress as a civil rights activist in Alabama, and whose severe beating by police during the 1965 “Bloody 
Sunday” confrontation at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., shocked the nation, died 26 August at a hospital in Montgomery, Ala. She was 104. This past March she again crossed the Pettus Bridge, in a wheelchair and holding hands with President Obama, on the 50th anniversary of that historic event. —See Andrea Germanos, “Crusader, Warrior, Fighter for Justice, Civil Rights Icon Amelia Boynton Robinson Dead at 104”
¶ Invocation. “So come on darling, feel your spirits rise; come on children, open up your eyes; God is all around, Buddha’s at the gate, Allah hears your prayers, it’s not too late.” —Mary Chapin Carpenter, “Why Shouldn’t We?”
¶ Call to worship. “Oh, a storm is threat'ning / My very life today / If I don't get some shelter / Oh yeah, I'm gonna fade away / War, children, it's just a shot away / It's just a shot away / War, children, it's just a shot away / It's just a shot away.” —“Gimme Shelter,” by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, performed here by a global cast, arranged by the creative folk at playingforchange.com
¶ Along with many of you I’ve been haunted of late by a single photograph, of 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi, from Syria, lying in the surf of a Turkish beach, lifeless, having drowned along with his brother and mother while attempting to reach Greece on a rickety boat that capsized. His body looks serene, very much like those of my own babies and grandbabies when fast asleep. Only Aylan is drenched, face down in the surf, a wave lapping at his head, breathless.
Not since the 9-year-old Vietnamese girl Phan Thị Kim Phúc was photographed running naked on a road, fleeing a napalm bomb attack, has a single picture so galvanized the attention of the world.
All week I’ve debated posting Aylan Kurdi’s photo (“Facebook Banned These Photos of Europe’s Refugee Crisis”). I think every emotionally stable person above the age of 12 should be subject to its savage disclosure. But that needs to be your choice, not mine.
In its place is one (see above) of several artists’ renderings of those tragic deaths. —See Ryan Broderick, “17 Heartbreaking Cartoons From Artists All Over the World Mourning the Drowned Syrian Boy"
¶ “The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ annual “Global Trends Report: World at War,” released on Thursday (June 18), said that worldwide displacement was at the highest level ever recorded. It 
said the number of people forcibly displaced at the end of 2014 had risen to a staggering 59.5 million compared to 51.2 million a year earlier and 37.5 million a decade ago.
“The increase represents the biggest leap ever seen in a single year. Moreover, the report said the situation was likely to worsen still further.
“Globally, one in every 122 humans is now either a refugee, internally displaced, or seeking asylum. If this were the population of a country, it would be the world's 24th biggest.” —“Worldwide displacement hits all-time high as war and persecution increase”
¶ “You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.” —anonymous
¶ Praise be. Beauty in a factorified world: Ballerina Allesandra Ferri accompanied by Sting, from El Sentido de la Musica Community.
¶ Some additional notes about the current refugee crisis:
•The United National High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that 2,500 people have died just this summer while attempting to cross the Mediterranean in rickety boats.
•This unfolding tragedy is the worst refugee crisis since World War II.
•Nearly 60% of Syria’s pre-war population of 20 million have been displaced within the country or have fled the country.
•Many wealthy allies of the US in the Middle East—including Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait Quatar and Bahrain—have taken few if any refugees.
•Altogether over the past four years the US has spent $4 billion assisting refugees in the Middle East, mostly in humanitarian aid grants to Syria’s neighboring countries struggling to copy with Syrian refugees. The Pentagon has spent about the same amount in the last year bombing ISIS positions in northern Iraq and Syria.
• See the entire list of nations’ contributions to the UN refugee fund.
¶ Hungary is building a $35 million fence along it’s 175 km (108 miles) border with Serbia to stem the flow of refugees. This week Israel announced it would do the same along its border with Jordan, which has already taken in 1.4 million Syrian refugees in the past four years.
¶ Call to confession. “Why do we build the wall, my children, my children” —Anaïs Mitchell, performed by Greg Grown
¶ “I can't stop thinking about that little boy, dead on a beach in Turkey. Just last week, I was playing with my kids, who are the same ages as Aylan and his brother, Galip, on a beach. No one was scared. Everyone was, very much, very blessedly, alive.
“My three-year-old looked over my shoulder while I was working on a post about the image of Aylan today. ‘What did they do to that boy?’ she said.
“And I could hardly answer her. All I could tell her was that she was lucky that she was born in a place where there wasn't a war going on, but that there had been a war in his country for his whole life, and that he died trying to escape it.
“And then we were all quiet for a while.” —Alisha Huber on FaceBook
¶ Hopeful notes.
•Sweden was the first EU country to take in Syrian refugees, back in 2012, and ranks highest in the number admitted as a proportion of population.
•Germany has just announced a $6.6 billion appropriation to care for the 800,000 refugees it has admitted. Watch this 2-minute video of Germany citizens welcoming refugees.
•”Hundreds of Austrians and Germans Turn Out to Welcome Refugees Arriving From Hungary”
•In Iceland a 13,000 member Facebook group is calling on its government to increase its Syrian refugee resettlement commitment from 50 to 5,000. The latter number is more than 1.5% of the country’s population of 323,000. If the US admitted that percentage, the total number would be nearly a half million—but the actual number is currently about 1,434. The US has pledged to resettle between 5,000 and 8,000 by the end of 2016.
• This past Sunday Pope Francis, speaking to pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City, called on “every parish, religious community, monastery and sanctuary to take in one refugee family.”
¶ “no one leaves home unless / home is the mouth of a shark. . . / no one puts their children in a boat / unless the water is safer than the land . . . / no one would leave home / unless home chased you to the shore / unless home told you / to quicken your legs / leave your clothes behind / crawl through the desert / wade through the oceans” —“No One Leaves Home,” Warsan Shire, Kenyan-born Somali poet, writer and educator based in London
¶ Serious yogurt. Hamdi Ulukaya, founder of Chobani, the popular Greek-style Yogurt, has pledged $700 million for humanitarian aid to refugees, especially for fellow Kurds in northern Iraq and Syria.
¶ For more background, see the relief agency MercyCorps’ “Quick facts: What you need to know about the Syrian crisis”
¶ This series of cartoons by Alisha Huber brilliantly summarizes the origins of the 5-year-old war in Syria. (Thanks, Betsy.)
¶ “5 Ways to Stand Up and Be the Church in the World’s Worst Refugee Crisis Since World War II.”
¶ “For years, the European Union kept refugees out of sight and out of mind by paying Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi's government to intercept and turn back migrants that were heading for Europe. Gadhafi was something like Europe's bouncer, helping to bar refugees and other migrants from across Africa. His methods were terrible: Libya imprisoned migrants in camps where rape and torture were widespread. But Europe was happy to have someone else worrying about the problem. When Libya's uprising and Western airstrikes ousted Gadhafi in 2011, Libya collapsed into chaos.” —Max Fisher and Amanda Taub, “The refugee crisis: 9 questions you were too embarrassed to ask”
¶ “Those who died in war were better off than those who died later, who starved slowly to death, with no food to keep them alive.” —Lamentations 4:9
¶ The gospel of our times. “In San Francisco, a billboard for an e-trading firm proclaimed, ‘Make love not war,’ and then—down at the bottom—‘Screw it, just make money.’” —Barbara Enrenreich
¶ Preach it. “There is no respectable Christian argument for fortress Europe, surrounded by a new iron curtain of razor wire to keep poor, dark-skinned people out. Indeed, the moral framework that our prime 
minister so frequently references . . . is crystal clear about the absolute priority of our obligation to refugees. For the moral imagination of the Hebrew scriptures was determined by a battered refugee people, fleeing political oppression in north Africa, and seeking a new life for themselves safe from violence and poverty.” —Giles Fraser, "Christian politicians won’t say it, but the Bible is clear: let the refugees in, every last one," British priest and contributor to The Guardian
¶ Lection for Sunday next. Ancient economic analysis of the roots of war: “Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts.” —James 4:1-2
¶ For the savvy investor, conflict can be profitable. “Let’s paint a picture of the world right now,” Epstein says. “You’ve got the Europeans worried about what the Russians are doing in their backyard; we’ve got our hands full right now in Iraq; you’ve got the Israelis with their hands full in their region; and then you have the Chinese and Japanese in the South China Sea. As an investor [in the defense industry], with this much regional conflict in the world . . . that can’t be bad.” —Bank of America analyst Ronald Epstein in Tory Newmyer, “The war on ISIS already has a winner: The defense industry”
¶ Just for fun. Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash sing “Girl From the North Country”
¶ Altar call. “When I closed my eyes so I would not see / My Lord did trouble me / When I let things stand that should not be / My Lord did trouble me / When I held my head too high too proud / My Lord did trouble me / When I raised my voice too little too loud / My Lord did trouble me?" —“Did Trouble Me,” Susan Werner
¶ Benediction. “Total Praise” by Richard Smallwood.
# # #
Featured this week on prayer&politiks:
• “We Shall Not Be Moved,” a litany inspired by Psalm 1
•”Multiply Their Presence,” a litany inspired by Psalm 1
•”Bound to this freedom,” a litany inspired by Psalm 1
•”In the valley of the shadow: Reflections on the trauma of 11 September 2001”
•”Our job is not to end war: A collection of texts on war”
•”Out of the House of Slavery: Bible study on immigration”
©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.
by Ken Sehested
Happy are you who do not heed the advice of evil ones, or take the path of deceivers, or sit in the chambers of the haughty.
But our delight is in the Way of Life; we labor along its path by day and we are wrapped in its protection by night.
Because of this, you are like trees planted by fresh streams of water, yielding your fruit in season, holding your leaves without fail. Your future is assured.
The self-centered are absorbed in empty boasts. They are driven by foul winds. They shall be scattered to distant wastelands, withering in wanton decay.
The Just-and-Merciful One is a vigilant companion of all on the Way of justice and mercy. The corrupt and vengeful trudge the path of destruction.
We are bound to this freedom road, prisoners of this hope, destined for the land where moaning and weeping are banished, destined for the land of joyous song, of laughter and dancing. And mercy, sweet mercy. May it be so. May it be so.
©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Reprinted from "In the Land of the Living: Prayers personal and public."
by Ken Sehested
Rejoice in the presence of those who resist the counsel of the arrogant, who sidestep the influence-peddlers, who refuse to participate in political payoffs.
Blessed One, multiply their presence in our midst! And may we have the courage to be among their number!
Welcome such women and men and children. Through their lives all Life is served. Like strong trees planted by the water, their fruits are abundant and their prosperity is shared by all.
Bountiful One, multiply their presence in our midst! And may we have the courage to be among their number!
Oh my people, do not be swayed by the promises of those who pit the strong against the weak; who assure that terror can be vanquished by even more terror. Their days are numbered. Like the chaff, their legacy will be scattered by the wind. Judgment awaits their reckless and ruinous schemes.
Benevolent One, grant persevering power to those who hunger and thirst for justice and mercy. Multiply their presence in our midst! And may we have the courage to be among their number!
©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org
by Ken Sehested
Our job, as Christians, is not to bring an end to war. Any more than it’s President Bush’s job to “rid the world of evil.” There is a dangerous arrogance in both sentiments.
Our calling is to speak the truth, to expose propaganda to public scrutiny, to call into question the self-serving justifications, to betray the lie of military necessity.
To those who say this is how it’s always been—and how it always will be, we say No: another future is possible.
If need be, we are prepared to back this claim with our lives. Our confidence stems from these convictions:
•that peace and justice will one day embrace
•that mercy will trump vengeance
•that, as Dr. King preached, “the moral arm of the universe is long but it bends toward justice.”
This, for Christians, is the meaning of the Resurrection.
But we have to keep reminding ourselves of these things. The pressures to conform—to believing in what Walter Wink calls “the myth of redemption violence”—is powerful.
This collection of quotes was assembled for just such a reminder.
§ You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake. —Jeanette Rankin
§ One of Bonhoeffer’s former theology students wrote him a letter from the Eastern front which tells of liquidating fifty prisoners of war in single day, of shooting women and children in the back of the neck for sneaking food to the captured and of burning down entire villages. All these action, which by Nuremberg standards would qualify as war crimes, are defended in anxious tones by Bonhoeffer’s young correspondent as having been committed because of “military necessity.” —George Hunsinger
§ Show me who makes a profit from war and I will show you how to stop war. —Henry Ford
§ I was in the East End of London (a working-class quarter) yesterday and attended a meeting of the unemployed. I listened to the wild speeches, which were just a cry for “bread! bread!” and on my way home I pondered over the scene and I became more than ever convinced of the importance of imperialism. . . . My cherished idea is a solution for the social problem, i.e. in order to save the 40,000,000 inhabitants of the United Kingdom from a bloody civil war, we colonial statesmen must acquire new markets for the goods produced in the factories and mines. The Empire, as I have always said, is a bread and butter question. If you want to avoid civil war, you must become imperialists. —Cecil Rhodes, the millionaire British capitalist for whom Rhodesia [now Zimbabwe] was named
§ No triumph of peace is quite so great as the supreme triumphs of war. —U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt
§ When the rich wage war it is the poor who die. —Jean-Paul Sartre
§ Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. —U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower
§ Every piece of this [war] is bullshit. They call this war a cloud over the land. They made the weather, then they stand in the rain and say, “Shit, it’s raining.” —Ruby Thewes (played by Renee Zellweger), in the movie Cold Mountain
§ Those who died in war were better off than those who died later, who starved slowly to death, with no food to keep them alive. —Lamentations 4:9
§ O, that we who declare war against wars, and acknowledge our trust to be in God only, may walk in the light, and therein examine our foundation and motives in holding onto money! May we look upon our estates, our treasures, the furniture of our houses, and our garments, and try whether the seeds of war have nourishment in these, our possessions. —John Woolman, 18th century Quaker
§ We're making enemies faster than we can kill them. —bumper sticker
§ We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount….Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. —General Omar Bradley
§ The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows. One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but means by which we arrive at that goal. —Martin Luther King Jr.
§ A church that is not able to take a firm stand against war is not a church which deserves to be believed. —Harvey Cox
§ In modern warfare, seven children die for every soldier. —1993 United Nations report
§ It must now be obvious that we cannot live in a free, pluralistic society, enjoying our CD players and eating at Burger King and driving cars from every point on the globe without realizing that there must be a cost for such freedom. . . . —1991 letter during the Gulf War to the editor, Memphis, TN, from a military surgeon
§ And when it was claimed / The war had ended, it had not ended. —Denise Levertov
§ When I pray for peace, I pray not only that the enemies of my own country may cease to want war, but above all that my own country will cease to do the things that make war inevitable. —Thomas Merton
§ War is not an accident. It is the logical outcome of a certain way of life. If we want to attack war, we have to attack that way of life.” —A. J. Muste
§ Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind…. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded with patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader, and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar. —William Shakespeare
§ War is good for the economy like cannibalism is nutritious. —George Bernard Shaw
§ I am sick and tired of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell. —General William Tecumseh Sherman
§ Give in to your anger. With each passing moment, you make yourself more my servant. —Emperor Palpatine in “Star Wars”
§ Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness—and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe. —Arundhati Roy, Indian novelist
§ War is God's way of teaching Americans geography. —Ambrose Bierce
§ Recalling cynically those politicians who gush on about gallantry and sacrifice in warfare, E.B. Sledge, a veteran of the World War II campaigns at Peleliu and Okinawa wrote, “The words seemed so ridiculous. Only the flies benefited.”
§ According to U.N. Development Fund for Women, 15 percent of wartime casualties in World War I were civilians. In World War II, 65 percent were civilians. By the mid ’90s, over 75 percent of wartime casualties were civilians. . . . In Iraq, for every dead U.S. soldier, there are 14 other deaths, 93 percent of them are civilian. . . . —Sr. Joan Chittister
§ Between 1800 and 1934, U.S. Marines staged 180 landings abroad. And that’s not even counting the Indian wars the army was fighting every year until 1890. —Max Boot
§ War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. —Major General Smedley Butler, US Marines (retired)
§ Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac. —George Orwell
§ Here’s what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial. And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we’re hooked on. —Kurt Vonnegut
§ We used to wonder where war lived, what it was that made it so vile. And now we realize that we know where it lives, that it is inside ourselves. —Albert Camus
§ Christians love their enemies because God does so, and commands his followers to do so. That is the only reason, and that is enough. —John Howard Yoder
§ I took part in organizing a silent worship service in the gallery of the U.S. Senate, while the legislators below us debated and voted for more funding for the war [in Vietnam]. When the vote was over, we were arrested on a charge of "praying without a permit." —David Hartsough
§ Peace is not just the absence of war. . . . Like a cathedral, peace must be constructed patiently and with unshakable faith. —"The Challenge of Peace: Gods Promise and Our Response," American Catholic Bishops pastoral letter, quoting Pope John Paul II
§ Force is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or thinks he does, as it is to its victims; the second it crushes, the first it intoxicates. The truth is, nobody really possesses it. —Simone Weil
§ Peace plans its strategy and encircles the enemy. / Peace marshals its forces and storms the gates. / Peace gathers its weapons and pierces the defense. / Peace, like war, is waged. / But Christ has turned it all around: / the weapons of peace are love, joy, goodness, long-suffering; / the arms of peace are justice, truth, patience, prayer; / the strategy of peace brings safety, welfare, happiness; / the forces of peace are the sons and daughters of God. —Walker Knight
§ What causes wars? Is it not your longings and lusts? You desire and do not have; so you kill. And your covet and cannot obtain, so you wage war. —James 4:1-2
§ Perhaps it is true that certain violent remedies employed against tyrants have put an end to certain forms of evil, but they have not eliminated evil. Evil itself will take root elsewhere, as we have seen through history. The fertilizer that stimulates its growth is yesterday’s violence. Even “just wars” and “legitimate defense” bring vengeance in their train. Fresh crimes invariably ensue. . . . But the future of the person who turns to God is not determined by the past, and therefore neither is the future of humanity. God’s forgiveness creates the possibility of an entirely new future. The cross breaks the cycle of violence. —André Trocmé
§ The "War on Terror" is like trying to eradicate cancer cells with a blow-torch. —Sir Michael Howard
§ War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.” —George Orwell
§ Then I saw a new heave and a new earth. And I heard a loud voice saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. God will wipe away every tear, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.” —Rev. 21:1-4
18 March 2007, Circle of Mercy Congregation, Asheville, NC
© Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org
3 September 2015 • No. 36
¶ Invocation. The Icelandic group Árstiðir singing a 13th century hymn “Heyr himna smiður” (“Hear, Heavenly Creator”). Go here for an English translation of the lyrics.)
¶ Pictured at right: “Rice fields in Manali,” Himachal Pradesh, India, photo by Ahmed Labib. Other stunning photos of sculpted fields in Asia can be found here.
Also: For more breathtaking photos, view the International Landscape Photographer of the Year winners. (Thanks, Norman).
¶ Call to worship. Before all time did Wisdom rhyme the depths with mountains’ frame. Before fertile field did yield its store, there Wisdom made her claim. ‘Twas in God’s design did Wisdom shine, resplendent firmament. ‘Twas in God’s delight, by day, by night, by Her the world content. (Read “The voice of Wisdom,” Ken Sehested’s litany for worship inspired by Proverbs 8.)
¶ “It is possible to read the history of this country as one long struggle to extend the liberties established in our Constitution to everyone in America.” —Political satirist Molly Ivins, blessed be her memory, on the occasion of her 30 August birth anniversary. Go here for my collection of favorite Molly-quotes.
¶ Intercession. Prayers for students and teachers, school board members, PTAs, and the day when public appreciation for educators is matched by every legislature's budgetary resolve—even if it means the Pentagon has to supplement its appropriation with bake sales.
¶ "We have more requests for this appearance than anything anybody can ever recall around here." —Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, speaking of Pope Francis’ upcoming address to a joint session of Congress on 24 September. Francis is the first Pope to receive such an invitation.
¶ Confession. “God May Forgive You—But I Won’t,” Iris DeMent.
¶ Denali officially gets its name back. This week President Obama officially returned the name of “Mount McKinley” to “Mount Denali.”
Background: Reinstating the name of the tallest peak in North America to its original Athabascan name of "Denali" 
(“The Great One”) from "McKinley" reverses what started out as a political joke. The pork-barrel name (McKinley never had any connection to Alaska) stuck even after Alaska’s legislature returned to the original name in 1980. —For more background, see “How a 19th century political ‘joke’ turned into a 119-year-long political debate” by Sarah Kaplan.
Clueless to the irony in his own statement, Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman complained that this was “yet another example of the president going around Congress."
¶ President McKinley is best known for the Spanish-American War of 1898, when the US seized control of Puerto Rico, Cuba, Guam and the Philippines. McKinley issued the infamous “Benevolent Assimilation” policy to Filippino citizens, saying:
“Finally, it should be the earnest wish and paramount aim of the military administration to win the confidence, respect, and affection of the inhabitants of the Philippines by . . . proving to them that the mission of the United States is one of benevolent assimilation substituting the mild sway of justice and right for arbitrary rule.”
When the country’s revolutionary government declared its independence, McKinley, with congressional approval, launched the Philippine-American war. Over the next 41 months as many as 300,000 Filipinos were killed. In Balangiga, after some 48 soldiers were ambushed by Filipino guerrillas, US General Jacob Smith order the execution of every male over 10 on Simar Island.
US military forces have been stationed in the Philippines ever since.
¶ Such “benevolent assimilation” wasn’t new, of course. When in 1904 a delegation from the Philippines visited US Secretary of State Elihu Root to discuss the possibility of statehood, Root responded:
“Statehood for Filipinos would add another serious problem to the one we have already. The Negroes are a cancer in our body politic, a source of constant difficulty, and we wish to avoid developing another such problem.” (Quoted in The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War, by James Bradley.)
¶ Words of assurance. “At Last,” Etta James’ classic, covered here by Beyoncé
¶ Black lives need to matter because they have been plundered for such a long time. “Nineteenth-century democracy needs no more complete vindication for its existence than the fact that it has kept for the white race the best portions of the new world’s surface.” —Theodore Roosevelt, 1897, then Assistant Secretary of the Navy who by 1901 was president of the US
¶ Hymn of praise. “One Love,” Bob Marley, performed by a collaboration of musicians from around the world, organized by playforchange.org.
¶ American Dream. “Struggle for your grandmother and grandfather, for your name. But do not struggle for the Dreamers. Hope for them. Pray for them, if you are so moved. But do not pin your struggle on their conversion. The Dreamers will have to learn to struggle themselves, to understand that the field for their 
Dream, the state where they have painted themselves white, is the deathbed of us all. The Dream is the same habit that endangers the planet. . . .” —Ta-Nehisi Coates, "Between the World and Me"
¶ As if we needed more evidence of this division. “Ten years after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita ravaged southern Louisiana, black and white residents of New Orleans are ‘starkly divided’ in their perception of the state's recovery. A recent survey found that nearly 60% of the black residents surveyed said Louisiana has ‘mostly not recovered,’ compared with 78% of white residents who said the state has ‘mostly recovered.’” —Lauren McCauley, “A Tale of Two Cities: In New Orleans, Perceptions of Recovery 'Starkly Divided' Along Racial Lines”
¶ Visualizing provides perspective. “The Best Map Ever Made of America’s Racial Segregation.”
¶ Hopeful news. “The solar industry added jobs at a rate nearly 20 times faster than the national average last year,” according to a report by the Solar Foundation, noting that “more than 31,000 new solar jobs were added in the U.S. between November 2013 and November 2014. The number of people in the U.S. with jobs related to solar power increased by 87% over the last five years. The 2014 solar industry job growth was 50% higher than that of the oil and gas pipeline construction industry and the crude oil and natural gas extraction industry.” —Katie Valentine, “The Solar Industry Created More Jobs In 2014 Than Oil And Gas Extraction”
¶ More hopeful news. “A new law recently passed in France mandates that all new buildings that are built in commercial zones in France must be partially covered in either plants or solar panels. Green roofs, as they are called, have an isolating effect which helps to reduce the amount of energy needed to heat a building during the winter or cool it in the summer.”
¶ Climate-change champions. In July the White House honored twelve faith leaders (Jewish, Hindu, Christian and Muslim) as “Champions of Change” for making a difference in the struggle against climate change.
¶ A friend recently back from a year in Cuba mentioned that the Eagles’ “Hotel California” is the most popular US song in Cuba. Here’s a rendition by the Cuban musical group Vocal Sampling, where all the instrumental parts are created by human voices. (Thanks, Stan.)
¶ On this day, 3 September 1783, the Treaty of Paris was signed by the UK and the US formally ending the Revolutionary War. Of special note, given process of resuming diplomatic relations with Cuba: The US refused the British demand to pay reparations to Loyalists who lost property in the colonies, saying only that the US Congress would encourage the various states to do so. (Hint: It didn’t happen.)
¶ Preach it. “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” —Dr. Seuss, “The Lorax”
¶ In an attempt to rebut the US Senate’s scathing report on the Central Intelligence Agency’s torture program, eight former top CIA officials are coming out with a book. Unfortunately, the man who was the CIA’s third ranking official from 201-2004 is undermining the book’s arguments even before it appears. In a BBC news program, Alvin Bernard Krongard was asked “if he thought waterboarding and putting a detainee in painful stress positions amounted to torture. ‘Well, let’s put it this way, it meant to make him as uncomfortable as possible,’ he said. ‘So I assume for, without getting into semantics, that’s torture. I’m comfortable with saying that . . . . We were told by legal authorities that we could torture people.’” —Dan Froomkim, “New Effort to Rebut Torture Report Undermined as Former Official Admits the Obvious”
¶ Just for fun. Eight-year-old Angelina Jordan from Norway channels Billie Holiday singing “What a Difference a Day Makes”
¶ Fear mongering. Since 9/11, foreign-inspired terrorism has claimed about two dozen lives in the United States. Meanwhile, more than 100,000 have been killed in gun homicides and more than 400,000 in motor-vehicle accidents. Moreover:
•You’re 2,059 times more likely to kill yourself than die at the hand of a terrorist;
•353 times more likely to fall to your death doing something idiotic than die in a terrorist attack;
•187 times more likely to die of starvation than by terrorism.
•22 times more likely to die from a brain-eating zombie parasite than a terrorist;
•4 times more likely to be struck by lightning than killed by a terrorist;
•110 times more likely to die from contaminated food than terrorism.
•More military personnel die from suicide than from terrorist attacks.
•In 2013, more people (5) were killed by toddlers wielding guns than by terrorism (3).
¶ Call to the table. “All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us, and the change is painful.” —Flannery O'Connor
¶ Altar call. “The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil. —Hannah Arendt
¶ No doubt you remember the woman climbing the flag pole on the South Carolina capitol grounds to haul down the Confederate flag after the massacre at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. Here’s an excerpt from the Essence magazine interview:
“Question: As a young girl, your grandmother saw the Klan dragging her neighbor out of a house. What did she think of you scaling that pole?
“Bree Newsome: I was kind of scared to talk to her, because I didn't want her to worry about me. So when I first told her I was in jail and she said, ‘Who made the decision that you would be the one to climb the pole?’ I thought she was upset. I said ‘I did.’ And she just broke out laughing. So she's really proud.”
¶ Benediction. We rejoice in rebellious acts of abundance in the face of every stingy arrangement. Our eyes arise for the Beloved Community’s embrace of earth’s abode and Heaven’s favor. We stand forever on the edge of death’s brutal domain. Yet hope remains while the company is true. (Read “Hope remains while the company is good,” Ken Sehested’s litany for worship.)
# # #
Featured this week on prayer&politiks:
• “Hope remains while the company is strong,” a litany for worship
• “I’m not saying it will be easy,” a litany inspired by Mark 8:27-38
• “God’s glory is on tour,” a litany inspired by Psalm 19
• “The voice of Wisdom,” a litany for worship inspired by Proverbs 8
• “Molly Ivins quotes: A brief collection of personal favorites”
©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.
My collection of favorite quotes from political commentator and satirist Molly Ivins (blessed be her memory). —Ken Sehested
•So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. ’Cause you don’t always win. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.
•It's hard to argue against cynics—they always sound smarter than optimists because they have so much evidence on their side
•I prefer someone who burns the flag and then wraps themselves up in the Constitution over someone who burns the Constitution and then wraps themselves up in the flag.
•Oh, hell, I can’t go on a spiritual journey—I'm constipated.
•We've had trickle down economics in the country for ten years now, and most of us aren't even damp yet.
•I am not anti-gun. I'm pro-knife. Consider the merits of the knife. In the first place, you have to catch up with someone in order to stab him. A general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We'd turn into a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don't ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives.
•I dearly love the state of Texas, but I consider that a harmless perversion on my part, and discuss it only with consenting adults.
•It is possible to read the history of this country as one long struggle to extend the liberties established in our Constitution to everyone in America.
# # #
by Ken Sehested
For what do we hope?
We hope for the Beloved’s Promise to overtake the world’s broken-hearted threat.
For what do we long?
We long for the moist goodness of God to outlast the parched climate of despair.
For what do we lack?
We lack for nothing—save the need for hearts enlarged by the assurance that every hostage will be freed.
For what do we strive?
We strive for lives marked by goodness, purified of deceit and malice, and hands made gentle by the tender caress of Wisdom’s approach.
For what do we struggle?
We struggle for the fate of every child whose sighs and cries are muffled by the market’s disdain.
In what do we rejoice?
We rejoice in rebellious acts of abundance in the face of every stingy arrangement.
For what prize do our eyes arise?
Our eyes arise for the Beloved Community’s embrace of earth’s abode and Heaven’s favor.
We stand forever on the edge of death’s brutal domain. Yet hope remains while the company is true.*
May the company be true, indeed!
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