Forgive Us

 

Photo by Jennie Roberts Jenkins

 

Forgive us, dear Lord:

  for whitening you up
  to match our own
  mirrored reflections;

  for declaring our own
  personal experience of you
  to be normative;

  for lashing you
  to an anemic
  nationalist paranoia;

  for attempting to cleave
  our fawning over you
  from our created
  responsibility to neighbor;

  for disguising
  a self-protecting interpretation
  of holy writ
  as divine word itself;


  for confusing
  a comfortable cultural enclave
  with your cosmic community.

Forgive us, dear Lord,
and deliver us
from ourselves and
from the tiny hotbed
of hopelessness
 with which we have
surrounded ourselves!

© 2019 Todd Jenkins

Original Sin

 

And you shall hallow 
the fiftieth year and 
you shall proclaim liberty 
throughout the land 
to all its inhabitants. 
It shall be a jubilee 
for you: you shall return, 
every one of you, 
to your property 
and every one of you 
to your family.
(Leviticus 25:10)

   Pasty Euro-crackers
   dreaming of domination,
   reservationed all the natives,
   laying claim to their nation.

   With crops to be picked,
   and a dearth of willing labor;
   slaves were deftly stolen
   from our African neighbors.

   Everything was rosy
   ‘til the war that wasn’t civil,
   which opened up a can
   of enshrining racist drivel.

   A crow named Jimmy
   cawed from the field.
   His song was enacted,
   disproportioning the yield.

   More for those of us
   whose melanin is lighter.
   Power to the people
   whose skin’s a skosh whiter.

   Statues loomed, statutes passed,
   guaranteeing segregation,
   ‘til civil took a right turn
   bringing hope to the nation,

   which made the work harder
   concealing mongered fear,
   but school to prison pipelines
   grow larger by the year.

   Twixt taxation sans representation
   and for-profit quota incarceration
   lies but a stretch of generations
   and a smidge of pigmentation.

   Now we double-down
   on both language and skin,
   exploiting neighbors to the south
   for cheap labor once again.

   As hate’s become accepted,
   rising to a whole new level,
   we’ve become a poster nation
   for dancing with the devil.

   Make no mistake about it,
   this undercurrent’s strong,
   ‘cause it’s never gone away,
   and it’s still as wrong as wrong.

   Can we join our hearts and voices,
   confessing as a nation,
   that our sin runs to the core
   and it’s past time for reparations?

   © 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

Shifting

 

Isn’t that the way
seismic shift usually begins,
with institutional insiders
convincing themselves
they have a lock on something:
knowledge, wisdom, morality,
or even God?

Then, as the universe trembles
at this proprietary hoarding,
insiders fortify the walls
of their structure,
inserting the rebar
of tribe and language,
or creed and doctrine,
stitched together
with rigid ritual and rubric.

All the while,
the earth cleaves
wider and deeper,
until the whole sordid mess
is swallowed and pulled
toward the magma
of refiner’s fire.

What remains is an empty crater,
around which the outcasts gather,
starting over
for the umpteenth time,
breathing, singing, and sharing
their nascent faith once more. 

© 2019 Todd Jenkins

Our Father

 

Our Father in heaven,
You, who are obviously 
tied to us by DNA, 
spiritually and physically, 
yet fully transcendent,

hallowed be your name.
we search for lyrical 
and lofty words 
to appropriately address you;

Your kingdom come, your will be done,
you have, not just a plan, 
but THE plan, 
for how we are to create and live 
in peaceful social and community structure,

on earth as it is in heaven.
and your grand plan 
stretches across the cosmos. 

Give us this day our daily bread.
We often think our menu 
and our physical satisfaction 
are within our own hands and power, 
but who are we kidding?

And forgive us our debts,
    as we also have forgiven our debtors.
We know we are indebted to you, 
and are dependent on your mercy, 
so we can only hope 
that we are learning 
to reciprocate forgiveness 
with our neighbors. 

And do not bring us to the time of trial,
    but rescue us from the evil one.
Many are the detours, O God, 
down which we are prone to wander, 
in search of a lost chord. 
Help us to find 
and croon the tune 
of deliverance before we slip 
into the abyss 
of unfettered selfishness. 

For thine is the kingdom, 
    forever and ever. Amen.
The whole cosmos is yours, 
O great I Am. 
It always was, 
is steadfastly now, 
and will continue to be 
for eternity. So be it.

© 2019 Todd Jenkins

Violation

Photo by Jennie Roberts Jenkins

 

Your courage is inspiring.
Never underestimate
or forget that.

  I feel a fire.
  At first I believe
  it is yours only;
  the coals of anger
  and rage, fueled
  by violations
  and their attempts
  to dehumanize you.

    After I stand uncomfortably
    near the heat
    for a while,
    my bare feet blistered
    from its remnants,
    I realize that I do not
    want it to be yours alone.

  I want — I need —
  for it to be mine;
  not because doing so
  will reveal the depth
  of your ache in ways
  I can fully comprehend;

but because a candle
flickers in my dreams,
dawning on me,
like the sun rising
across distant mountains,

  casting both light and shadows
  on my own identity,
  revealing a painting
  of worth and healing
  that is inextricably woven
  into this inferno.

    In morning’s light,
    I realize that we
    must have worth together,
    or we will have
    no worth at all.

  I know that my tears
  will not cool, much less
  extinguish the blaze,

but I also know
that their flow
is the path
that connects us,
not only to one another,
but also to the selves
of dignity and respect
for which we were created.

© 2018 Todd Jenkins

Commitment

Photo by DeEtta Harris Jenkins

 

    I’d offer you a fluffy basketful
   of thoughts and prayers,
  but I’m pretty sure
 you’ve had a bate
of shallow nothingness.

     I’d offer you
    unfettered second amendment
   and total gun confiscation,
  but I can tell
 we’ve all suffered enough
from artificial binary limitations.

     I’d offer you
    religious extremism
   and mental illness,
  but it seems like
 there’s already a glut
of selective blame and projection.

  In digging through
 the closet, in search
of something else to offer,

   there, at the back,
  I find an old table
 and lots of chairs,
all covered with cobwebs.

  Let’s take them out,
 dust them off,
and all pull up a seat.

   Let’s leave the bank accounts
  and the campaign contributions
 at home,
and have a genuine discussion

     about who needs what
    and how to make changes
   that’ll significantly slow down
  the filling up of cemeteries
 with the bullet-riddled bodies
of our loved ones.

    Let’s let everyone
   have a say,
  and then commit ourselves
 to making this a safer place
to live together.

© 2018 Todd Jenkins

 

Reflexive

(when Psalm 22 stares back at you from the mirror)

 

"My sons and daughters,
why have you forsaken them?
Why are you so far from responding
to the their cries and groanings?

They beseech you in daylight,
wailing at the wall you’ve constructed
to separate their lives
from your comfort and security.

By night, their pleas waft
on smoldering embers
of their deconstruction."

The victors have constructed
a lovely narrative of deliverance;
their cry, God’s response;
like a sacred vending machine,
fed with the coin of deserving.

But what of those who are judged
to be subpar, those whose DNA,
language, or faith heritage
come from beyond
the 23&me dream package?

What of those who showed up
for work or school or worship,
oblivious to the call to pack heat
for self-preservation;
those who trusted that
the least of these, the lambs,
would be protected
by the Great Shepherd’s shepherds?

They counted on us to carry them;
to be there, not just in the delivery room,
but at the grocery store checkout,
the public library, the classroom,
the youth group meeting, the job fair.

Is our absence because
we don’t really care, or because
we’re actually the carnivores
circling ‘round them?

Their tongues glue to the roof
of their mouths, like jerky
dried for consumption,
salted with the tears of their anguish.

Their skin taut, revealing
a cadaverous collection of bones.

The coyotes circle,
yipping and nipping,
casting lots for what little remains.

The dream we sold them
promised they’d have a shot;
guaranteed dignity, respect,
even opportunity;
but the fine print and disclaimer
excluded them for myriad reasons,
mostly because we feared
that including them
would cost us too much.

We are slow to catch on, O Lord;
blind and deaf and too scared
to realize that tossing them
to the curb is infinitely more costly
than we ever dreamed,
because it has cost us our very souls.

Is there still time, still hope,
still opportunity to pull
more chairs ‘round the table?

If we feed those who’ve been starved,
welcome those who’ve been exiled,
humble ourselves before you and pray,
will you make your light shine 
upon us all, once again?

We wrap ourselves
with the sackcloth of confession,
and dust ourselves
with the ash of contrition,
O holy one, in hopes
that our forsaking
will not become our forsakenness.

Deliver us, we pray,
that we may live
to proclaim your story
to generations yet to come.

© 2018 Todd Jenkins

 

Death-Defying

Photo by Gay Jenkins Howell

The truth of Adam and Eve,
a friend told me, is
"A fig leaf is no substitute
for a therapist."

So much here to feast on;
so much here to run from;
so much here too real to face,
yet too close to reject.

Let us dare to live and breathe
in a naked now, O holy one,
not as tawdry exploitation
of bodies as objects,

but as death-defying risk
of abandonment to no less
and no more than our light-reflecting
and shadow-casting selves;

for the truth of creation's story
cannot be told
without such revealing.

Let both our poetry
and our prose
stand and fall
as blood-pumping gamble
of allowing the narrative
of who we are
to pulse out of
our own woundedness,

for it is in and from
our stories that we'll live
and die and be resurrected,
not just in the end,
but also in the breath
of their telling.

© 2017 Todd Jenkins

Prophets

             Photo by Gay Jenkins Kallschmidt


The prophets of old
stand with and for
the widow, orphan, and sojourner, 
just to name a few,
still speaking truth
to my power
and your power,

not because they had
psychic ability
to see into the future,

but because power's
seduction and anesthesia
have been the same since Eden.

The gospel calls us
to not only accept
this truth about the ways
we have lived
with privilege unawares,
unquestioned, unexamined,

but also to speak
this societal truth ourselves,
not just in our worship,
but in the marketplace,
in the schoolhouse,
in the courthouse,  
in the statehouse, and
in the neighborhoods.

It calls us to stand against
exploitation and oppression;
to live and breathe
justice and dignity
in ways that make them
a reality in the lives
of all our communities.

Let us not just be the
gathered religious community,
but let us also dare
to become the sent prophets.

© 2016 Todd Jenkins