Recent

Signs of the Times  •  10 December 2015  •  No. 49

¶ Processional. My favorite Hanukkah song. “Light One Candle” by Peter, Paul and Mary.

¶ Invocation. "Only those with wombs of welcome / to heaven's Annunciation / can magnify God and heal the earth." —read Ken Sehested's Advent poem, "Annunciation: Mary's song of praise."

¶ Hymn of praise. “Blagoslovi, dushe moya” (“Praise the Lord”), Sergei Rachmaninov, performed by the USSR Ministry of Culture Chamber Choir .

At right: photo by Nate Zeman, Rocky Mountain National Park

¶ We need to take steps so that in the future people like Donald Trump do not become radicalized. —New Yorker satirist Andy Borowitz

¶ Intercession. “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” Lovely new arrangement by Sarah McCoy.

¶ Words of Assurance. “Arise, you fear-confounded, attest / With Insurrection’s voice confess / Though death’s confine and terror’s darkest threat / Now govern earth’s refrain . . . and yet / Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel / Shall come to thee, O Israel!” —new lyrics to “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” by Ken Sehested

¶ When our children were in early grade school, each year before Christmas holiday break I went to their classrooms to read Cajun Night Before Christmas.

¶ Good news. “While hostility to Syrian refugees has dominated the national debate, many local leaders—among them elected officials, community advocates and direct service providers—are sending a different message by calling for compassion instead of fear. Here are seven efforts underway across the South to support Syrian refugees and fight Islamophobia.” —Allie Yee, Institute for Southern Studies

¶ Holy obedience. “The Chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ committee on migration chided the governors for ‘using this tragedy to scapegoat all refugees,’ in a statement on Nov. 17. ‘They are extremely vulnerable families, women, and children who are fleeing for their lives. We cannot and should not blame them for the actions of a terrorist organization,’ Bishop Eusebio Elizondo said. Bishops from Chicago, New York, Missouri, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and New Mexico were also among those who penned opinion pieces for local papers or open letters calling for compassion over overreaction.” —Leslie Caimi, Washington Post

¶ “It is incumbent on every public figure, elected politician, and media outlet to stand up against the ‘dangerous tide of hatred, violence, and suspicion’ taking hold in the United States, over 700 prominent organizations and people declared in a full-page ad in Thursday's New York Times. ‘We grieve the many lives that have been lost or painfully transformed in recent weeks through extreme acts of violence. And we are appalled by the surge of divisive rhetoric that sows the seeds of more violence to come.’” —Sarah Lazare, Common Dreams

¶ “Put the glove of religion on the hand of either a revolutionary or a statesman, and religion will be pulled into the dynamics of cohesion, control, acquisition and maintenance of power, and the marking of boundaries—and will more likely than not turn violent. In other words, align moral self-understanding of society, state and religion, and even most peaceful religion will become ready to ‘take up the gun.’” —Miroslav  Volf, “In light of the Paris attacks, is it time to eradicate religion?”

¶ In 2010, during her Supreme Court nomination hearings in the Senate, Elena Kagan, then the federal Solicitor General, is asked by Senator Lindsay Graham to state the rationale for indefinite detention of “enemy combatants” at the US base prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Afterwards, Graham says “That’s a good summary. The problem with this war is that there will never be a definable end to hostilities, will there?”
        Kagan responds. “That is exactly the problem, Senator.” —quoted in Shadow Proof

¶  “In May, 2013, the Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing on whether it should revise the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF). A committee member asked a senior Pentagon official, Assistant Secretary Michael Sheehan, how long the war on terror would last; his reply: ‘At least 10 to 20 years.’ At least. A Pentagon spokesperson confirmed afterward ‘that Sheehan meant the conflict is likely to last 10 to 20 more years from today — atop the 12 years that the conflict has already lasted.’ As Spencer Ackerman put it: ‘Welcome to America’s Thirty Years War,’ one which—by the Obama administration’s own reasoning—has ‘no geographic limit.’” —Tlen Greenwald, The Intercept

¶ "I think we're looking at kind of a 30-year war.” —Leon Paneta, former the Obama administration Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and then Secretary of Defense

"With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation."
— Isaiah 12:3. Photo above: WaterAid/Caroline Irby.

¶ “In great empires the people who live in the capital, and in the provinces remote from the scene of action, feel, many of them, scarce any inconveniency from the war; but enjoy, at their ease, the amusement of reading in the newspapers the exploits of their own fleets and armies. To them this amusement compensates the small difference between the taxes which they pay on account of the war, and those which they had been accustomed to pay in time of peace. They are commonly dissatisfied with the return of peace, which puts an end to their amusement, and to a thousand visionary hopes of conquest and national glory from a longer continuance of the war.” —Adam Smith, considered the “father” of modern economics, in The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776

¶ “10 Things I Wish Everyone Knew About Chanukkah,” by Rabbi Evan Moffic.

¶ The Chanukkah Candelabra is known as a Chanukkiah, not a Menorah. The Menorah is the seven-wicked candelabra that stood in the Jerusalem Temple. It became a symbol of Judaism and is carved into one of the gates of Rome as a symbol of the Roman conquest of Judea in 70 C.E.

¶ Not your grandfather’s Hanukkah music. —“Dreidel,” by Erran Baron Cohen, performed by Jules Brookes and Y-Love

At right: Pomegranate Tree Chanukiah by Yair Emanuel

¶ Is it spelled “Hanukkah” or “Chanukah”? These and more interested facts about the Jewish holiday commemorating the Maccabean victory over the Greek army in 2nd century BCE, with the temple Menorah’s miraculous store of lamp oil. —Chabad.org

¶ Here’s one way to visualize God as (in Francis Thompson’s verse) “the hound of heaven,” ever pursuing us, however fast we seek to flee from that Union of the soul which frightens yet, in fact, is so joyously ecstatic.

¶ Listen to Richard Burton’s rendition of Francis Thompson’s famous poem, “The Hound of Heaven.”

¶ “More than 1,000 people gathered in the bright sunshine on the steps of Helsinki Cathedral to sing the Finlandia hymn [“This Is My Song, O God of All the Nations,” lyrics by Lloyd Stone and, later, Georgia Harkness], one of the most popular compositions of composer Jean Sibelius, whose 150th anniversary has been celebrated nationwide. The Dec. 8 anniversary of the national composer's birth in 1865 has been marked with concerts and a 24-hour broadcast of Finnish music, mostly by Sibelius, including all seven symphonies.” Here is a video of the crowd singing.

¶ Read Ken Sehested’s new lyrics to “This Is My Song.”

¶ We cannot long survive as a democracy with these uncommonwealth indicators:
        •”The divide between the "haves" and the "have-nots" in the United States has never been so vast, with a new report out Tuesday revealing that the nation's 20 richest individuals own more wealth than the entire bottom half of the population. “
        • Half of the $176 million donated to presidential candidates thus far has been given by 158 families, along with companies they own or control. (The article’s graphic is, well, just that.) —Nicholas Confessore, Sarah Cohen and Karen Yourish, New York Times

¶ State of our disunion. “It was left to Bo Dietl, a former New York City cop, to cross the line from the simply stupid to the downright chilling, as he called for mass surveillance of mosques. ‘Let’s stop worrying about people’s rights,’ he said.” —Leonard Pitts

¶ “We love having all 16 Republicans candidates throwing crap at each other—it's great. The more they spend, the better it is for us." —Les Moonves, CBS Corporation chief executive, during a recent investor presentation

¶ Can’t make this sh*t up. “Gun company stocks surged after the latest massacre, and gun manufacturers admit behind closed doors that Sandy Hook and other atrocities have proved good for business—after, of course, adding their obligatory statements on the small bloody bodies at Newtown that "obviously we are all shocked” but hey they're obliged to “respond to market pressures.”
        A spokesperson for The Shopping Channel’s new 24/7 “Gun TV,” whose parent company is called the “Social Responsibility Network,” says “We saw an opportunity in filling a need, not creating one.” —excerpted from Abby Zimet, Common Dreams

¶ For the first time since 1920, the New York Times has placed its editorial on page 1: “It is a moral outrage and national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency.” —New York Times editorial, 4 December 2015

¶ Last week Republican senators had the opportunity to approve one common sense measure—to restrict gun sales to those on the FBI’s terror watch list. With the exception of Mark Kirk of Illinois, they all voted against it. Senator Coryn of Texas expressed concern over violation of constitutional rights. —see more at Mark Silk, Religion News Service

¶ “The front cover of the New York Daily News for Thursday takes a strong stance against how some politicians are reacting to the San Bernardino shooting with calls for prayer instead of tighter gun control laws.” —Jessica Durando, USA Today

¶ Just for fun. Andy Griffith’s famous 1953 stand-up monologue, “What It Was, Was Football” (5:39 minutes).

¶ Preach it. “Advent’s waiting is not listless. With training, death’s threat need not unnerve us. Fear not, though folded lies await.” —read Ken Sehested’s “Undo the Folded Lie: Notes on the reckless folly of our season”

¶ Altar call. “Would You Harbor Me?” Sweet Honey in the Rock.

¶ Call to the table. “Canticle of the Turning” performed by Emmaus Way.

¶ Benediction. “There's a light, there's a light in the darkness / And the black of the night cannot harm us / We can trust not to fear for our comfort is near / There's a light, there's a light in the darkness.” —“There’s a Light,” performed by Beth Nielsen Chapman, Emmylou Harris, Pat Benatar, Sheryl Crow and Shea Seger

¶ Recessional. “Simple Praise” by Joanie Madden.

¶ A word from Gerald, prayer&politiks’ guardian angel. There’s still time to contribute to the prayer&politiks fund-to-preserve-the-future. For a $52 or more contribution, we’ll send you a free copy of In the Land of the Living: Prayers personal and public. Besides early-retirement social security checks, reader contributions are our sole source of income. You can also support this work by circulating our web link to your friends and colleagues with your personal word of endorsement.

#  #  #

Featured this week on prayer&politiks:

•“Annunciation: Mary's song of praise,” a poem inspired Mary’s Magnificat

•“The Manger’s Revolt,” a sermon based on Mary’s Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55)

•“'Undo the folded lie': Notes on the reckless folly of our season”

•“This Is My Song (O God of all the nations),” new lyrics to an old hymn

©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.

 

3 December 2015  •  No. 48

¶ Processional. Beluga whales responding to cello music.

¶ Call to worship. “The Manger’s trailhead opens at / the portal of praise and genuflecting / thanks. Not because heaven arises to / piety’s incense. But because Advent’s / brush with moral flesh is a perilous journey, / fraught with insurrection’s threat, / pregnancy’s scandal, birthed from / stabled bed, and Herod’s foam and fury. / The innocents take it in the chops every time.” —continue reading Ken Sehested’s “Portal of Praise”

¶ To visualize the import of Advent, watch this NASA video (3:28 minutes, with beautiful background music) profiling the largest picture ever taken (1.5 billion pixels), requiring more than 4 GB of disk space. It is an image of the Andromeda Galaxy captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. There are 100 million stars in this one image. (Thanks, Ivan.)

¶ Song of praise. Earl Scruggs’ “Flint Hill Special,” performed by brothers Jonny Mizzone (8) on banjo, Robbie (12) on fiddle and Tommy (13) on guitar, of the Sleepy Man trio.

¶ St. Dorothy? “A proposal for Dorothy Day’s canonization was put forth publicly by the Claretian Missionaries in 1983. At the request of Cardinal John J. O'Connor, head of the diocese in which she lived, in March 2000 Pope John Paul II granted the Archdiocese of New York permission to open her cause, allowing her to be called a ‘Servant of God’ in the eyes of the Catholic Church. As canon law requires, the Archdiocese of New York submitted this cause for the endorsement of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which it received in November 2012.” —Wikipedia

¶ In truth, all human beings are called to be saints, but that just means called to be fully human, to be perfect—that is, whole, mature, fulfilled. The saints are simply those men and women who relish the event of life as a gift and who realize that the only way to honor such a gift is to give it away. —William Stringfellow

¶ The dilemma with naming saints is that we have a tendency to elevate them to pedestals, creating distance between their lives and ours. Accountability is broken—honor is offered but animation is not received.

¶ Confession in word. “We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness. We are monkeys with money and guns.” —singer/songwriter/poet Tom Waits

¶ Confession in song. “Step Right Up,” by Tom Waits.

¶ Words of assurance. “It will come / When you're broken, / When your heart is finally open, / When you're down, / Down and troubled, / When you're lost among the rubble  / Mercy, mercy, coming to you, / Feel her beauty flowing through you  / She will unbind you, set the word free. / Mercy, Mercy.” —Glen Hansard, “Her Mercy”

¶ Good news. By the end of the 19th century, Florida’s pink flamengo population were nearly eradicated due to feather and egg harvesting. “Last year, ornithologists counted a record 147 flamingos in Storm Treatment Area 2 early in the breeding season, which lasts from March to July. This year they tallied only eight, but it seems the birds are back for good.” —Amy Kraft, “Audubon”

¶ Sane sense. “I don’t want [Donald Trump] to understand Islam. . . . I want him to understand the Constituion.” —Dalia Mogahed, director of Research at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, on “Meet the Press,” 22 November 2015

¶ The faux fight for Christmas is a fool’s errand. Consider the following:

        •Instead of putting Christ back into Christmas, our nation’s Puritan ancestors wanted to remove him entirely, going so far as to outlawing seasonal cheer both in the Puritan-controlled British parliament (1643) and later in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

        •Between 1659 and 1681 any Massachusetts colonist found making merry on Christmas was fined five shillings.

        • In 1706, a Puritan mob smashed the windows of King's Chapel in Boston to disrupt an Anglicans Christmas service.

        •“If it had been the will of Christ that the anniversary of his birth have been celebrated, he would at least let us have known the day.” —Ezra Stiles, writing in 1776

        •The New Testament’s and early church’s general disinterest in dating the birth of Jesus was key to the Puritan bah-humbuggery. The earliest recorded speculation about a precise nativity date is in the late second century CE, when Clement of Alexandria surveys several then-current theories, all of which proposed spring season days.

        •It wasn’t until the 1870s that New England states embraced Christmas revelry.

        •In Scotland, Christmas wasn’t an acknowledged holiday until 1958.

        • Benjamin Franklin penned what was likely the best general assessment of the holiday, both in Britain and in the Colonies, recorded in the 1739 edition of Poor Richard’s Alamanac: “O blessed Season! Lov’d by Saints and Sinners / For long Devotions, or for longer Dinners.” —all this and more is gathered in Ken Sehested’s “Faux fight for Christmas: Backdrop on the annual year-end culture war”

¶  “For I believe, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., that there is such a thing as being too late. And when it comes to climate change, that hour is almost upon us.” —President Barack Obama at the UN Climate Change conference in Paris

¶ When bankers say it. . . . “Scientific research finds that an increasing concentration of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere is warming the planet, posing significant risks to the prosperity and growth of the global economy.” —statement from the six largest banks in the US, including JP Morgan Chase Bank, Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo, and Citibank (the four largest commercial banks) along with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the two largest investment banks, Barbara Grady, GreenBiz

¶ “It’s not news that climate change disproportionately affects the poor—but a new report from the World Bank gives us a better idea of just how stacked the deck really is. The report is one of the first to connect climate and poverty at the level of the household. According to the Bank, a warming world will send an additional 100 million people into extreme poverty (living on $1.90 per day, according to the new standard) by 2030 — and nearly half of those people will live in India.” —Clayton Aldern, Grist (Thanks, Robert)

¶ Intercession. The University of South Carolina and Clemson University bands team up to play a tribute (6:29 minutes) to members of the Emanuel AME Church and the memory of those who died in the 17 June 2015 terrorist attack.

¶ There are times when what is needed is to simply say no: No further; no more; not in my name. “Upset over new [Mormon] church policies that declare same-sex couples apostates and restrict their children from baptism and other rites,” more than 1,000 Mormons lined up in a park in Salt Lake City beside the Mormon Tabernacle for a mass resignation. —Jack Healy, New York Times

¶ “In a survey we conducted with the Police Executive Research Forum last year of 382 law enforcement agencies, 74 percent reported anti-government extremism as one of the top three terrorist threats in their jurisdiction; 39 percent listed extremism connected with Al Qaeda or like-minded terrorist organizations. And only 3 percent identified the threat from Muslim extremists as severe, compared with 7 percent for anti-government and other forms of extremism.” —Charles Kurzman and David Schanzer, “The Growing Right-Wing Terror Threat,” New York Times

¶ Preach it. “We have become so accustomed to the idea of divine love and of God’s coming at Christmas that we no longer feel the shiver of fear that God’s coming should arouse in us. We are indifferent to the message, taking only the pleasant and agreeable out of it and forgetting the serious aspect, that the God of the world draws near to the people of our little earth and lays claim to us. The coming of God is truly not only glad tidings, but first of all frightening news for everyone who has a conscience.” —Dietrich Bonhoeffer

¶ Prayer&politiks is not above printing celebrity gossip. According to the UK’s Telegraph newspaper, big screen superstar Brad Pitt has ditched his strict Southern Baptist rearing and is now a proud atheist. When people tell me they no longer believe in God, I typically say, “Tell me what god you no longer believe in—chances are I don’t believe in that one, either.”
        Want to support prayer&politiks’ persistent underreporting of celebrity news? Make a contribution to keep this site on the road to sustainability. For a gift of $52 or more, we’ll send you a free autographed copy of Ken Sehested’s In the Land of the Living: Prayers personal and public. Use the donate button on the home page or send a check to prayer&politiks, 358 Brevard Rd, Asheville NC 28806.

¶ Call to the table. Listen to this recitation of Adam Zagajewski’s poem “Try to Praise the Mutilated World.”

¶ Attention deficit loitering. A USA Today survey of 2,000 smartphone users reports that on average users check their phones 134 a day.

¶ Altar call. “Pope Francis pulled no punches and appears to be leading his very own war on Christmas. In a sermon this week, he called the decadent holiday a ‘charade’:
        "‘Christmas is approaching: there will be lights, parties, Christmas trees and nativity scenes . . . it's all a charade. The world continues to go to war. The world has not chosen a peaceful path,’ he said in a sermon. He didn’t mince words for those who wage war: ‘We should ask for the grace to weep for this world, which does not recognize the path to peace. To weep for those who live for war and have the cynicism to deny it,’ the Argentine pontiff said, adding: ‘God weeps, Jesus weeps.’” —Jen Hayden, Daily Kos

¶ Just for fun. Andy Griffith’s classic 1953 stand-up monologue, “What It Was, Was Football” (5:39 minutes).

¶ Lection for Sunday next. “John. / Spirit-drenched baptizer of repentant flesh, / exposing shameful inheritance to the Advent / of mercy and an anthem of praise. / Lonely minstrel of pledged Betrothal, announcing dawn’s infiltration / of destiny’s dark corner, / scattering death’s shadow with / the footfalls of peace.” —continue reading Ken Sehested’s poem, “The baptizer’s bargain”

¶ Benediction. “Don’t Ever Let Nobody Drag Your Spirit Down,” Eric Bibb & Maria Muldaur.

¶ Recessional. “Cantus in Memoriam of Benjamin Britten,” a short (6:56 minutes) canon in A minor, written in 1977 by the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt.

#  #  #

Featured this week on prayer&politiks:

•“Faux fight for Christmas: Backdrop on the annual year-end culture war”

• “Songs for Advent and Christmas: Old hymns, new lyrics”

•“All flesh shall see,” a litany for worship inspired by Luke 3:1-6

• “The baptizer’s bargain,” a poem inspired by the Luke 3 story of John the Baptizer

• “The Baptizer’s Bargain,” a sermon inspired by the Luke 3 story of John the Baptizer

• “Portal of praise: Praise as presage to Advent’s treason,” an Advent poem

©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.