Scripture’s our sacred story,
not just any old book;
written, not to tell us what to see,
but to show us how to look.
Look not in the mirror,
your own image to admire.
Look throughout creation,
for the path of divine desire.
Look with your mind,
your heart, even your dreams.
The sacred gift of love’s wider,
deeper, and richer than it seems.
© 2024 Todd Jenkins
Rally ‘round the truth, child,
‘gainst all the ways our money,
and the power it commands,
have tilted the playing field
as if gravity is a force
that can be manipulated
by the deep pockets of those
who’ve stacked the deck
so their card is always turned first.
Rally ‘round hope, child,
so all of us, together,
can blend our hearts and voices,
crooning a song of compassion,
weaving all creation into
a tapestry that rises up.
Rally ‘round grace, child,
so all of us can finally understand
that who we are is not defined
by where we’ve come from
or what we’ve done and accomplished,
but by the one who claims us as beloved.
Rally ‘round that love, child,
so all of us can feel the warm embrace
of the divine blanket of unconditionality,
freeing us to risk our very souls
to deeply plow the soil
in every garden of the cosmos.
© 2024 Todd Jenkins
As one who usually eschews titles,
I dare to declare
that I’m a poet pastor;
though not exactly
proficient at either one;
more like a struggling soul
who awakens every morning
and steps into each moment’s circumstances
with the understanding
that my quiver only has
two functioning tools;
and if/when I can use them both
to inspire the world to act
for justice in the here and now,
with prophetic anticipation,
I just might be a small part
of what helps the earth continue
its revolution toward Hope;
after all, the earth completes
a revolution each day,
and the least that we can do
is to find a revolution of our own.
© 2024 Todd Jenkins
When Grief arrives,
barging into your life
like a thief in the night,
it feels like Love has expired,
its precious fruit gone permanently sour.
Breath, in the midst
of this train wreck,
is often in short supply.
That’s why it helps
to have others breathing
with and even for you.
The promise of Hope
is that there will come days
when respiration’s rhythm reappears,
and Love’s tender embrace returns
with a look and feel
that was heretofore unknown,
yet one whose scent
is powerfully reminiscent.
We want you to know
that we are all out here,
sitting under the stars
with Faith, breathing both
with and for you,
for as long as it takes.
1 Corinthians 13:13
And now faith, hope, and love remain,
these three, and the greatest of these is love.
© 2024 Todd Jenkins
For all of us who are sure
we are islands, inhabited or not,
remote or nearby,
there comes a time when
we’re given a glimpse
of a different reality.
Someone enters our life,
or we find ourselves in theirs,
or a whole lot of both.
First, it may only seem peninsula-like,
with but a narrow stretch of connection.
Then comes the day when
it all breaks up again;
not merely a canal trenched between us,
but a catastrophic explosion,
as life evaporates
and with it, love.
Unmoored, we seem to drift,
no rhyme or reason,
no hope or season.
Then, one day, a memory revisits
in ways unimaginable,
awakening us to the reality that
we’ve never been alone.
Both love and the one with whom
we discovered and experienced it
have accompanied us all along;
silent most days, but always there,
watching, holding, giving.
Now that we know,
it gradually becomes easier
to feel, if not see; and others
who have also experienced
the island’s isolation are pontoons,
if not bridge-builders for us,
reflecting the light of their loves
into the depths of our shadows.
© 2024 Todd Jenkins
No man is an island,
Entire of itself;
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main;
(John Donne)
What if we realized
that boundaries, borders,
societies, cultures,
economies, nationalities, and war
are all (hu)man-made hooey,
designed to stroke our
individual and collective egos,
and turn humanity into
an invasive species?
What if we examined the world around us,
realized and recognized
how all creation’s existence,
survival, and even our mutual thrival
is interdependent;
that each element of the universe
is but a thread in a grand tapestry
that is beyond our comprehension?
Would that make us
more aware of our need
to care for
and support one another,
and less inclined to become
the kudzu of the cosmos?
I sure hope so!
If not, maybe
we need to start over.
© 2024 Todd Jenkins
It’s a 3-letter ending,
sometimes thoughtlessly,
if not carelessly,
added to a word.
Little do we realize
that such a suffixing
is the epitome of idolatry,
asking, discreetly at first,
then wholeheartedly —
because it leaves
nothing pulsing within us —
then demanding that
our unquestioned loyalty,
and even life itself,
be laid upon the altar
of this ism, sacrificed
against whatever other
foundations on which
our souls have been structured.
When this alphabetic triumvirate arrives,
we must decide whether
we will surrender,
or, instead, rise up
and become the energy
from and for which
we were created.
What does the fire
in your soul tell you
we’re here to do?
© 2024 Todd Jenkins
The institutional religion
of Jesus’ day – the very religion
from which he came –
decided his ways
were too risky, too costly.
They decided that
their submissive marriage to empire,
inconvenient and messy
as it may be,
was a safer bet
than radical grace.
Their capitulation is
a vicious cycle
that tends to repeat itself.
My daily hope and prayer
is, when he shows up –
not just on some distant
day of judgment,
but every day
of my here and now –
that I will have the courage
to risk who I am
and what I have
to follow him,
not just with my words,
but also with my actions,
my resources, and
with my very breath.
© 2024 Todd Jenkins
As the supple green tines
of leafy palm branches,
laid along Sunday’s parade route
as makeshift green carpet,
begin to lose their flexibility,
creeping toward a crispy brown,
a thrice-crowing cock
points toward the vicious spikes
of Euphorbia Milii
as it’s woven into a mock,
blood-inducing crown,
pressed hard into the scalp
of one long-flogged.
Pity the strong, tall trees
felled to concoct
a heinous tool of humiliation
and public execution,
as metal pierces,
first human flesh,
then jams itself between
the tree’s skeletal ridges,
slowly torturing life
out of a body.
As darkness arrives
unexpectedly early,
and a final breath is heaved,
compassionate companions dare
to take the body,
desperately attempting
to recapture a shred of dignity,
wrapping the body
of their limp rabbi
in the gauze and scent of respect.
Into a hewn-out cave
his decaying corpse is laid,
a stone rolled across the opening,
as much to deter scavengers
as to signal finality.
They thought it was over.
Night stayed, then day returned,
but night won out again.
Vigil was all they could keep.
The next morning,
women, even though
they had been culturally marginalized,
could not stay away;
returning to the garden,
looking, hoping,
desperate for anything
to keep them afloat.
The stone was rolled away!
How?
Why?
Who is this gardener
calling us by name?
If our hearts had not been
wrapped and held
firmly by love,
surely they would have burst
from the unimaginable joy
of this gift of resurrection!
Yes; a lot can happen
in a week.
© 2024 Todd Jenkins
I am what I have done
And what I’ve left undone
And what’s been done to me
And what I wanted
That no one ever did for me
To spend my time wishing
That I could go back and redo/undo
All the hurtful parts
Is to light a fire that burns toward yesterday
Begging to undo the me that is me
In order to create a me of imagined perfection
But when I gaze deeply toward tomorrow
And see what possibilities exist
And especially when I sit
With today’s characters and stories
Lending them my ears and soul
Then I find myself sitting ’round
A campfire named Hope
© 2024 Todd Jenkins
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