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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 Yarmouk refugee camp for Palestinians, in Damascus, in 2014. (United Nation Relief and Works Agency/Getty Images)

        “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

“Kein mensch ist illegal” (“no human being is illegal”) by Rafael Swiniarski

¶ “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.

Vienna, Austria. 1 September 2015 — A banner is held up by a group welcoming refugees arriving from Syria and Afghanistan at Vienna Railway Station where they plan to stay overnight en route to Germany. Photo by Martin Juen. Copyright Demotix.

        •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.

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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

•”Reversal of fortunes: What if schools enjoyed pork-barrel largesse and the military depended on corporate charity?”

•”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.

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.

Left: New York Evening Journal front page, 5 May 1902, depicting General Jacob H. Smith's order to “Kill every one over ten.”

¶ 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"

New-Orleans post Katrina 2006: "America needs help" graffiti on abandoned house. (Photo: Gilbert Mercier/flickr/cc)

¶ 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.)

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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.