Preachin’

When I started this preaching’ gig,
as a novel homiletics student,
in 1988,
before it was ‘splained to me,
I was sure my sermons
were directed (if not aimed)
toward the folks who dared —
or didn’t know better than —
to sit in the pews in front of me.

Early on, however, I heard it said,
more than once,
that I was actually preachin’
to the choir: those who knew,
or at least suspected,
they’d heard this message before,
maybe multiple times,
and were mostly onboard with it.

Then came the Sunday,
when a person who had,
during the previous week,
overtly challenged
my pastoral leadership,
didn’t bother to show up
for the sermon I had written
to chastise and correct him.

That evening, as I was mentally
rehearsing — yea, reliving —
the morning’s empty no-show,
I finally realized
that first and foremost,
if not only and always,
I am preachin’ to the pulpit;

and those who overhear
my weekly internal monologue
must decided for themselves,
each time, how much
they’re able and willing
to lay their own narratives
parallel to mine.

We are story people
who were created
by a story God.

© 2026 Todd Jenkins

Table

When they tell us
what we want to hear,
warning us to keep
our weapons near,

“Just in case…” they say
“someone else comes along
who sees the world differently;
show ’em that you’re strong!”

Just remember, our ancestors
floated across on wooden boats,
confiscated indigenous land,
silencing all the others’ votes.

So overcome were they
with their petty little fears,
they banished lifelong natives
to a bloody trail of tears.

If that weren’t horrible enough,
they bought and stole others
from their distant homelands,
erasing sisters and brothers.

Now they’ve come full circle,
claiming God & nation, too;
begging us to fall lockstep
into their limited edition zoo.

Let us be among the outcasts,
throwing caution to the wind,
as we build a larger table,
inviting everyone to come in.

© 2026 Todd Jenkins

Heaven

I dreamed that my life came to an end,
and I found myself in a place
I’d never been before,
at the intersection of three roads.

There were no signs,
no binary choice of either/or,
so I tried to figure out
which way I should go.

I walked down one road for a while,
but wasn’t sure about what I saw,
so I backtracked and took another road.

Remaining unsure, I tried all three
of the roads, in each direction,
with the same feeling each time.
Finally, I returned to where I had started.

I sat down on the ground,
leaned forward, closed my eyes,
and held my head in my hands.

After a while, I heard, then felt
someone sit beside me.

Before I could look up,
I heard a voice say,
“Life is not for earning
a ‘Get out of hell, free’ card.
It’s an opportunity to learn how to live
the realm of love while you’re alive,
so you’ll recognize it when you see it,
and so you can invite everyone you know
to live it with you, now and forevermore.”

When I looked up, I was back home,
sitting in my bed, alone;
or was I?

© 2025 Todd Jenkins

We Thought…

When tied only to
the single thread of “me”,
it’s oftentimes a winding path
that leads to deconstruction,
if not destruction.

We thought a world in which
our afflictions are comforted,
but our comforts are not afflicted,
would bring harmony and peace
to one and all.

We thought we could color
a rainbow in the clouds,
using a single crayon
the color of our own skin.

We thought politics
was inappropriate conversation
for church, so long as
our personal circumstances
aren’t being threatened;
and then Jesus comes in,
flipping the tables
of our moneychangers.

Perhaps it’s (past) time
to listen more carefully
to our neighbors,
as we think.

© 2026 Todd Jenkins

1 Climations 13

Photo by Patrice Wells

 
1 If I speak in the tongues of supply and demand,
but do not have creation’s back, I am a self-serving echo chamber.
 
2 And if I have political powers,
and tightrope across all legalities
and all eventualities, and if I have all clout,
so as to remove all barriers to productivity
and amassing, but do not have creation’s back,
I am nothing.
 
3 If I give away some of my leftovers, and if I hand over my tax deductions
so that I may boast, but do not have creation’s back,
I gain nothing.
 
4 Being a good neighbor to the environment requires patience;
it also needs kindness; it is not envious or boastful
or arrogant 5 or rude.
 
It does not insist on its own profit;
it is not irritable at the rest of the cosmos,
and doesn’t seek to consume it for personal pleasure;
 
6 it does not rejoice in deceit, but rejoices in justice.
 
7 It supports all creation, believes in possibilities,
hopes expandingly, and endures careful examination.
 
8 The climate never ends, (we hope)!
But as for economies, they will come to an end;
as for resources, they will be consumed,
perhaps faster than we imagine;
as for bank accounts, they will come to an end.
 
9 For we understand  only in part,
and we act only in part;
10 but when the complete comes,
divisions will come to an end.
 
11 When I was afraid, I spoke from anxiety,
I thought with malice, I reasoned with angst;
as love continually shows up,
I seek to put an end to fearful ways.
 
12 For now we see reflections dimly, but then
we will look one another in the eye.
 
Now I know bits and pieces;
then I will understand creation’s story,
even as mine is understood.
 
13 And now, listening, neighborhoods
and environmental care abide, these three;
and the greatest of these is care.
 
© 2016 Todd Jenkins

Empty Net

Photo by Jim Bricel

Fishing for compliments
or praise
always provides
an empty plate,
even if the net
is initially filled.

Praising yourself
provides a dish
so self-centeredly salty
that others cannot bear
to partake, even if
they are forced,
by obligation, politeness,
or pressure,
to remain at the table.

Rest assured
that God values you dearly;
seek to serve God
in all you say,
think, do, and are.

The praise you receive
will be a life lived
in joy, peace, and contentment—
things which can be diminished
neither by others’ silence
nor by their condemnation.

© 2026 Todd Jenkins

Snipe Hunt

Religion,
all on its lonesome,
completely devoid
of Faith’s inquisitive engagement,
is often little more
than a snipe hunt,
as it sends its minions
out into the wild —
AKA, the world —
to find a contrived enemy
whose existence
is nothing more
than a fabrication
designed to identify
winners and losers,
best known as
us and them.

Meanwhile,
the Galilean Rabbi
keeps encouraging us
to expand our perception
of the neighborhood,
until it
encompasses and embraces
all of creation.

Capisce?

© 2026 Todd Jenkins

Holy Ground

Somewhere between
the ripe field of the comfort
of our circumstances
and the treacherous cliffs
of anxiety from our personal
loss of control
lies an angular patch of land
turned soft by the plow of love,
pulled by the tractor of community.

The Paraclete,
breathed into existence
to walk beside us,
drops seeds of hope
from her holy and holey pockets.

Watered by the sweat of our labor
and the tears of our grief,
and coaxed by the warmth of the sun,
the shoots, leaves,
and buds of possibility
spring forth beneath our feet,
reminding us that we always
stand on holy ground.

© 2022 Todd Jenkins

Wilderness

“Wilderness is not distant. We are continually immersed in it. It is there for us to imagine, to savor, and to protect.”
[Ed Yong, in An Immense World]

Wilderness calls,
and those whose umwelt
craves to be woven
into tapestrial hope
are drawn into its wilds.

The longer we stay,
the less we say,
and the better
we can keep our light
from getting in the way,
the more we come to realize
that wilderness is not
a geographic location,
but a chance
to immerse ourselves
in a radical raison d’être
that savors Love’s awe
emanating from the marrow
of the universe.

It’s way past time
for us to “go wild”
in the zip-lipped darkness
of Creation’s deepest hope.

© 2026 Todd Jenkins

Hope’s Loaf

Photo by Frank Broyles

Life is like sourdough
bread starter.

If we hoard it all and
keep it to ourselves,
it’s wasted.

If, however, we use it
to make a loaf for someone else
on a regular basis,
and then allow
divine water and flour
to be stirred back
into what’s left,
the gift keeps spreading.

At the end of our lives,
what matters and
gives meaning and purpose,
is not how well we hoarded and
protected our starter,
but how many people tasted
Hope’s loaf because of us.

© 2026 Todd Jenkins