Here and Now

Photo by Jennie Roberts Jenkins

 

Do we think damnation
 is a distant future
  of afterworld punishment
   reserved for those
    whose conduct
    is unbecoming
    to a divine scorekeeper;

a retribution
 which might possibly
  be escaped by either
   a deathbed conversion
    or a cultural/religious
    “Get out of hell, free!” card?

Guess again!

It’s the pervasive
 nausea, hypertension,
  and malignancy constructed
   with the anxiety and fear
    of competition, comparison,
    and a divisive isolation
    of self-elevation
    and othering.

The smoke we smell,
 the angst we feel,
  the empty ache
   we cannot fill,
    are manifestations
    of the torment
    we have self-constructed
    and are currently living.

There is but one antidote;
 a priceless elixir
  our insurance is
   incapable of covering,
    our coffers are
    unable to procure.

It is grace.
 It is gift,
  for all of us.

Let’s go ahead
 and open it 
  here and now.

© 2020 Todd Jenkins

Howling

 

The wind is unrelenting today,
  swaying everything and everyone
  whose core is incapable
    of maintaining rigidity,
    if not uprightness.

It’s as if she has misplaced
  something of value,
  turning over every leaf
    in search of her mind’s focus,
    if not her heart’s desire.

For those of us in her path,
  it feels like a gale-force unsettling,
  as gravity seems
    to randomly shift its pull
    on a dime.

All I can think of
  is how it is affecting me,
  distracting and distancing me
    from the plans I had
    for comfortable locomotion.

Seldom do I pause
  to consider the benefits
    of her powerful breath;

the seed that needs
  to distance itself
  from its birth,
    in order to thrive and stretch
    into intended purpose;

the ground, once smothered
  by a heavy blanket of leaves,
  longing to feel
    the light and warmth
    of the sun;

the timid soul,
  whose fearful tether
  needs to be be snapped,
  in order to open
    a portal of possibility
    not yet imagined.

Now that I’ve had
  a little time to consider,
    go ahead and blow, mama, blow.

I’ll just pretend I’m dancing
  to your windsong,
  and hope to find my way
    toward your dreams for me.

© 2020 Todd Jenkins

Could There Be?

 

Could there be a cosmos
  where hope
  is not wishful thinking,
  but prophetic imagining?

Could there be a world
  where kindness
  is not weakness,
  but strength?

Could there be a nation
  where neighbor
  is not feared,
  but revered?

Could there be a community
  where compassion
  is not suspect,
  but practiced?

Could there be a family
  where forgiveness
  is not withheld,
  but freely poured?

Could there be a heart
  where grace
  is not earned,
  but gifted?

Could there be a God
  who lavishly unfolds love,
  not as reward
  for obedience,
  but as nourishment
  for transformation?

  Yes.
Yes.
  Yes.
Yes.
  Yes.
Yes.
  Yes.

Yes!

© 2020 Todd Jenkins

Pain’s Path

 

Here’s hoping,
 here’s praying,
  here’s throwing everything
   at my disposal
   toward a major reroute
   of the traffic jam
   of screaming ambulances
   of pain that are racing
   back and forth
   on the Nerve Freeway
  between the unauthorized construction site
 of your debilitated body,
and your brain.

May there be a major reroute,
 pronto, by which
  these minions of malice
   are led down
   a remote dirt road
  to nowhere,
 and left to dwindle
into obscurity.

So let it be written;
 so let it be read;
  so let it be imagined;
so let it be felt.

© 2020 Todd Jenkins

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

Forgotten Doors

Photo by Jennie Roberts Jenkins

 

   Do you sometimes feel
   as if you live behind
   forgotten doors;
   hidden from sight,
   blocked from memory,
   by all that’s fresh, new,
   and the current rage?

I’ve got good news for you:
despite the optics,
and our culture’s penchant
for promoting the latest
as the greatest,
the thread that connects us,
and that will outlast
every fad and all fairy tales,
including the fountain of youth,

   is woven with stories;
   narratives of love and loss,
   of forgiveness and grief,
   of joy and sorrow,
   of waves ridden
   and storms weathered.

Let us, then,
spend less of what we have
patching and smoothing over
the cracks of our experiences,
and more of who we are
claiming the journey
of our own history
and the rich tapestry
of grace by which
we are surrounded.

   Let us learn how
   to more fully listen to
   the narrative of others;
   as this is the path
   down which love pulls us.

© 2019 Todd Jenkins

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

Worth

Photo by Jennie Roberts Jenkins

 

  We long for a world
  where knees are not
  the feet of people
  who have the gargantuan weight
  of their own sociocultural insignificance
  piled upon them,

   where knees are not
   the shoes of those whose backs
   are crimson-striped
   with the whip of oppression.

    Show us, O divine hoper,
    a table ‘round which
    all gather and voluntarily kneel
    because their collective soul
    has felt its worth,
    a priceless gift birthed
    in community.



“O holy night, the stars are brightly shining;
It is the night of the dear Savior’s birth!
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
‘Til He appeared and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope, the weary soul rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees…”

© 2019 Todd Jenkins

Fading

 

Here we sit,
betrayed by circumstances,

  or at least befuddled
  by the way
  our breaking hearts
  and crumbling souls
  have abandoned us
  in the turmoil
  of our cultural angst.

    Here we sit,
    birthing shallow longings
    propped up with little more
    than the toothpicks
    of greed and graft,

  piling temporal resources
  into our luggage
  as if these peccadillos
  bear any resemblance
  to the eternal fires
  of love that burn
  deep in our marrow,
  refusing to be extinguished,
  no matter how long
  hope seems to have
  delayed its arrival.

Here we sit.
We can do no other,
until the silence gives way
to recognition
of a kindred pulse
keeping time with ours,
slowly raising us
from the tomb
of our disbelief.

© 2019 Todd Jenkins

House of Bread

Do you know the tune for “Here I Am to Worship” 
from Hillsong Worship’s “Hope” album?

House of Bread
(Translation of the Hebrew word “Bethlehem”)

Bethlehem babe, you were born in a manger,
Bread for our life from the start.
Emmanuel, you are God living with us,
Salvation pumps through your heart.


We bring our imperfections,
Bring our broken dreams and
Bring our fears to lay them at your feet.
You call us to Communion, call us to forgiveness,
Call us to consume your flesh and blood.

Table of Grace, you prepare our redemption;
Loaf with the cup freely shared;
Give us the courage to eat, drink, and go out
Nourished and fully prepared.

We bring our imperfections,
Bring our broken dreams and
Bring our fears to lay them at your feet.
You call us to Communion, call us to forgiveness,
Call us to consume your flesh and blood.

In bread and cup we find the call
To serve in love and give our all.
In bread and cup we find the call
To serve in love and give our all.

We bring our imperfections,
Bring our broken dreams and
Bring our fears to lay them at your feet.
You call us to Communion, call us to forgiveness,
Call us to consume your flesh and blood.
You call us to Communion.

© 2008 Todd Jenkins