""If required to summarize my deepest conviction in a single sentence, it would be something like this: I believe that God is more taken with the agony of the earth than with the ecstasy of heaven."" So begins the preface to In the Land of the Living: Prayers Personal and Public by Kenneth L. Sehested. What follows from that conviction is a collection of prayers and poems, most of which are ""inspired by"" one or more particular biblical texts and many of which were originally written for use in Sehested's own congregation. Sehested's lifelong work as a justice and peace organizer informs his...