The Way Inn

Photo by Jennie Roberts Jenkins

 

I know I was born, because
  I've been told the story.

My brother was three years old.
  In order to assist him
  in transitioning from only child
  to older brother,
  my dad bought a football
  on the way home from the hospital
  and gave it to him.

He told him it was a present
  from me; sibling bribery.

I know each of you
  were born because
  you're reading
  or listening to this story.

I may not know any
  of the rest of your story,
  but I bet you do.

Whether you were adopted
  and much of your birth story
  is shrouded in mystery,
  or you were born in tragic
  or precarious/premature circumstances,
  or you came into this world
  pretty much according to plan,
  your birth is a miracle of sorts.

One thing is for sure.
You didn't have anything
   to do with being born.
It happened to you,
  and life is what has happened
  to you ever since.
Life is what will continue
  to happen to you
  until it doesn't;
brutal and beautiful life.

The thing that the church
  calls the Christmas story
  is our story; yours and mine.
A female said yes,
  maybe with the complicity
  of others or maybe
  with their coercion,
  and we were born.

Maybe it wasn't an angel
  who popped the question,
  and maybe no one
  considers God to be
  our mom’s baby daddy;
but all of us share the divine DNA
  of creation's stardust. 

This Emmanuel one -
  God with us -
  didn't enter time and humanity
  to show us the way out,
  but to show us the way in.

He didn't spend thirty three
  or so years
  in the particularity of Palestine
  in order to give us rules
  by which we could judge others,
  and an exit strategy.

He came to reveal to us
  God's passion for community,
  and the path of immersion
  into the particular lives
  with which we've been gifted.

Whatever else you do
  with this life
  that you've been given,
  and however much longer
  you have to live it,
  be sure that you don't miss
  the beautiful ordinariness of it,
  and be sure to open yourself
  to the gift of reconciliation.

Merry Christmas!

© 2019 Todd Jenkins

Flicker and Flow

Psalm 66:12 ...you let people 
ride over our heads;
    we went through fire 
and through water;
yet you have brought us out 
to a spacious place.

  When a spark of hope 
  glows in front 
  of your face today, 

  I pray you’ll not only 
  slow down to see it 
  and let your eyes both 
  absorb and reflect it, 

  but that you’ll also 
  recognize that the aggregate 
  of such embers 
  is what is shifting 
  the world toward love. 

  Connection begins
  as a single drop 
  of mercy and understanding 
  between one person 
  and another, 

  it’s how oceans 
  of grace get filled, 
  day after day, 
  after day. 

  The flicker and flow
  of fire and water 
  make the world revolve — 
  they’re how 
  we continue the revolution.

  © 2019 Todd Jenkins

 

Planting

Photo by Jennie Roberts Jenkins

 

  Where there is violence,
  let us sow violins.

Where there is mistrust,
let us sow, “Join us!”

  Where there is fearing,
  let us sow endearing.

Where divisiveness is the tool most-used,
let us sow, “What’s it like to walk in your shoes?”

  Where there’s them-ing and othering,
  let us sow sistering and brothering.

Where hatred flies from flame-throwers,
teach us, O God, to be hope-sowers.

  Before the next flood and between
  lightning’s flash and claps of thunder,
  whatever’s been sown before
  needs to be plowed and turned under.

Time for replanting has been here
for a long generation or more.
What, in the name of all that’s holy,
are we sitting around and waiting for?

© 2019 Todd Jenkins

Arcing

Photo by Jennie Roberts Jenkins

 

In the baking
   of a summer afternoon’s
   celestial oven,
   a surprise rain begins
  to fall, a misty fog
  of humidity momentarily
  screening us
from the heavens.

Suddenly, I look up
  and see, not one, but two
   distinct rainbows arcing
  across the now-opening sky,
forming a rounded tent of light;

brilliant colors,
   one laid upon the other,
   like a cornucopia
   of diverse friends
  piled on a single sofa,
  sharing the truth
  of who they are,
one with the other,

none afraid of how
   their own essence
  will be received
by the others.

This, brothers and sisters,
   is how the universe
   is designed to function;
   each chromatic entity
  laying itself along the others,
  unassuming and unafraid,
  working together
to illuminate hope.

It is love
  in full visual manifestation. 


© 2019 Todd Jenkins

Within

 

I wielded my club
against the enemy
I perceived
to be “out there.”

One swing,
and the mirror shattered.

Then I was left
to stare at tiny
fragments of myself
gazing back at me
from the shards.

Resisting the urge
to sweep up the mess
and buy a new mirror,
I left the sharp pieces
on the floor
to cut my bare feet
when I walk
within the fallout zone,

because I know,
all too well,
how easy it is to forget.

I picked up a small,
jagged piece of the mirror
and stuck it in my wallet.

The next time I want
to know what the one
who bears much responsibility
for my pain, and the pain
of the world looks like,
I’ll reach my finger
into the fold,
pull out what’s left
of the mirror,
wipe off the blood,
and see a sliver
of my reflection.

And then I’ll remind myself
that this staring-back one
is among the beloved
children of God,
gathered ‘round
the table of life,

and I’ll pull up a few more chairs
for all whose cracked-up lives
have been swept out the door
or under the rug.

© 2019 Todd Jenkins

Shadow

Shadow

 

Midnight is 100% shadow,
not because it is
an hour accursed,

but because every spot
on the earth finds itself
completely beyond the sun’s reach
once each day.

We would do well,
and even approach the sacred,
were we to sit in its darkness
with eyes wide open,

rather than try to build
a fire or light a lamp
to chase away
the dancing, impenetrable denseness.

Therein lies the possibility
to perceive both
the presence of the divine —
even and especially
in the times where no light exists —
as well as to make core contact
with all of creation.

© 2019 Todd Jenkins

Manifold Density

Photo by Jennie Roberts Jenkins

 

Before acknowledgement
 ever occurs,
  or reparations can
   even be considered,
    we will need to repent
   of our role
  in the mass unfolding
 of manifold density.

Forgive us, O Lord,
 for we didn’t allow
  ourselves to imagine
   that all those people
   who were here
  before us were...
 well, people.

We also didn’t bother
 to see that those folks
  from what we trembled
   to describe
    as a “dark” continent
   were as qualified
  as any of us
 to wear the label “human.”

They didn’t
 speak our languages,
  and they didn’t seem
   well-versed
    in our socioeconomic competition
   for dominance and control —
  an obsession we assumed
 indicated superior genes.

How could we
 have possibly realized
  their awe and respect
   for creation
    was holy writ,
     as much as, or more,
    even, than ours,
   and their humus-grounded economies
  were far more deeply tuned
  to the cosmos’ ecosystem
 than our prideful exploitation?

From our dearth
 of creative thinking,
  our gangly, myopic vision,
   and our utter failure
    to imagine the rich,
   expansive dynamic
  of your love,
 deliver us, O holy one.

Give us roots,
 O God, to sink
  our deepest humility
   into the garden
    of our shared humanity;
     that we may dismantle
      the cages of division
     by which we’ve conjured
    an imaginary hierarchy,
   whose head at which
  we, with much exaggerated
  and misdirected imagination,
 thought we always sat.

These, and all prayers
 we pray, through
  the one whose table
   has always been open
    to those who draw breath
     from the same sky
     as we all do;
    the one whose identity
   is incarnation —
  God with every color skin on;
  God whose love translates
 into every language.
Amen.

© 2019 Todd Jenkins

21st

Photo by Jennie Roberts Jenkins

 

  Welcome to
  21st century western fantasia,
  where the rugged individual
  is responsible for pulling himself
  up by his own bootstraps,
  without any help
  from government, God,
  or anyone else;

   but he won’t take
   any responsibility
   for the increasing speed
   at which wealth slides
   from a sharply tilted table
   into the bulging bank accounts
   of a less-than-precious few.

 Welcome to
 21st century western fantasia,
 where blame will be cast
 and goats scaped
 in any direction except
 the mirror of truth,
 creating an artificial triad
 of us, them, and the obscured,
 tiny fragment
 who orchestrate most
 of the us-ing and them-ing,
 but are, themselves,
 a third tier altogether:

  the ones behind the curtain,
  whose machinations
  are cloaked in secrecy,
  but whose egos ooze greed.

   Welcome to
   21st century western fantasia,
   a poorly written drama,
   advertised as actuality,
   but hardly so,
   where none are truly welcomed,
   and most are profiled and exploited
   in one way or three others.

  Welcome to
  21st century fantasia,
  where it’s past time,
  not merely
  to change the channel,
  but to sit down and learn
  one another’s stories.

 It’s the only reality
 that can save us
 from ourselves.

© 2019 Todd Jenkins

Dumbstruck

Photo by Jennie Roberts Jenkins

 

  As often as possible,
  despite the recognition
  that such halting and controlling
    is both futile
    and yet a barrier,
    at least for a moment,
  I try to define my surroundings
  with words.

    Not just any old words,
    mind you,
    but sharp and specific ones,
    clear and succinct,
  leaving little room
  for misinterpretation,
  or so I seek
  to convince myself.

  But then there comes —
  always there comes —
  a flash of uncontrollable light,
  if not fire itself,
    that sparks from the cosmos
    into my heart,
    conjuring both sensory
    and spiritual ruminations
    far beyond my fathoms.

  And there I am,
  dumbstruck, thank God,
  left with little more
  than groans and breath,
    gasping, somewhere
    between angst and awe,
    staring grace in the face.

  I’m like an infant
  whose every need
  has been met,
    despite my inability
    to either ask or understand.

“Likewise the Spirit 
helps us in our weakness; 
for we do not know 
how to pray as we ought, 
but that very Spirit 
intercedes with sighs 
too deep for words. 
And God, 
who searches the heart, 
knows what is the mind 
of the Spirit, 
because the Spirit intercedes 
for the saints according 
to the will of God.”
(Romans 8:26-27)

© 2019 Todd Jenkins

Cloud Generators

Photo by Jennie Roberts Jenkins

 

  How many times
are we unwitting agents
  for the propagation
of the impossible goal
  of perfection?

  Having been socioculturally trained
to find and focus
  on what didn’t go right,
and what hasn’t met our expectations,
  we perpetuate a cloud
of joyless disappointment,
  completely obscuring
the many ways grace wafts
  in and out
of our daily existence.

  There are more
than enough clouds
  that life brings our way,
without us becoming
  human fog machines.

  The sun is
seeking you, always.
  Don’t miss it
because your attention
  is on something else.

© 2019 Todd Jenkins