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

These Three

Photo by Jennie Roberts Jenkins

 

...yet because this widow
 keeps bothering me, 
I will grant her justice, 
so that she may not wear me out 
by continually coming. (Luke 18:5)



What if
  the persistent widow
  is actually God,
  continually tossing pebbles
  at our upstairs window,
  softly singing love songs
  in the front yard,
even though
  we’re too busy
  or too certain
  or too judgmental
  or too afraid
  to open the window
  and be serenaded
  by grace?

What if
  prayer is not
  something we choose
  to do on occasion,
but is, instead,
  the very breath of God
  pursuing us daily,
  continuously enveloping us,
  noticed or not?

What if
  silence, contemplation, and meditation
  are simply tools
  for becoming aware
  of the deep, rich atmosphere
  of hope with which
  we have always been
  both filled and surrounded?

What would happen
  if we lived as if
  these three
  were all true?

Let’s try it!

© 2019 Todd Jenkins

Fireside

Photo by Jennie Roberts Jenkins

When our hearts tremble,
  and language ceases 
  to be a healing salve,
  O God; 

when we feel 
  ourselves falling through 
  the cavernous cracks 
  of grief or any number 
  of deconstruction’s 
  shape-shifting forms; 

when we’re neck-high 
  in a soul-deep ache, 

we pray you’d send us 
  folks whose own brokenness 
  is forming them 
  into wounded healers, 

and give them 
  wisdom and courage 
  to sit with us,
  close to the fire, 

less afraid of melting,
  and more concerned 
  about becoming 
  the chalices of grace 
  for which we’re all created. 

© 2019 Todd Jenkins

Diminutive

 

  “I’ll say a little prayer
  for you.” she offers,
  as if there’s anything
  diminutive about
  sincerely opening
  the divine-human portal
  with the risky duos
  of mind and heart,
  words and silence.

   As she intones
   this seemingly innocuous statement,
   and I see a flame
   dancing in the deep pools
   of her pupils,
   I’m made keenly aware
   that this is as far
   from the political pablum
   of “thoughts and prayers”
   as fire is from ice.

    That’s when a string
    at the center
    of the instrument
    that is most fully me
    vibrates at a pitch
    that can only be described
    as ethereal.

     It’s when I realize
     the limitless possibilities
     of grace.

  “You do that
  and it’ll change
  the whole game;”
  the song
  in my gut declares,
  “because nothing
  and no one else
  will ever be the same!”

   Always remember,
   I’m saying little prayers
   for you.

© 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

Let the Spirits Fly

 

        Stop the words now.
         Open the window 
   in the center of your chest,
 and let the spirits fly in and out.
       (Jalaluddin Rumi)

I think this is the room
  where, regularly,
  I go to rest,
  in sessions
  (Or is it seasons?)
  of silent prayer.

  When I return
    from my flight,
    the muse regales me
    with the story
    of the music she heard
    while I was gone,

and our words lean hard
  toward whatever instrument
  is nearby, hoping
  to reach a staff,
  treble or base,
  it doesn’t matter.

  For a while, which seems
    both like forever
    and yet an instant,
    we draw imaginary circles,
    some open,
    some bubbled-in,
    some stemmed,
    some flagged,
    with rests of varying lengths
    scattered throughout,
    attempting to hang them
    on whatever walls we can find.

Eventually,
  when our fingers are hoarse,
  we resolve ourselves
  to simply relish
  the music’s echo.

      Music is what words 
       want to become 
     but can never be. 
     (John O'Donahue)

© 2019 Todd Jenkins

New Chapters

For all of you who’ve had to hang out at the Chemo Bar for too long, thinking you’d already heard “Last call!”, but now have learned you need “One more round.”

 

The previous chapters
weren’t all that bad;
in fact, many
of them quite delightful.

  Yes, there were parts
  we’d like to have rewritten;
  but the boat’s no longer
  in that bend of the river,
  and we’re using our fresh ink
  on here and now.

    Though we had hoped
    not to write
    another one that includes chemo,
    it looks like that’s the story
    that still needs to be lived.

      So, in its living,
      we will write.

    We’ll write about care,
    for it will be taken.

  We’ll write about love,
  for it is the craft
  in which we’re carried.
  We’ll write about grace,
  for it is the river.
  We’ll write about hope,
  for it is tomorrow’s memory,
  slipping into our dreams at night,
  calling us toward one another.

For this and every chapter,
O God, we give you thanks.
Amen.

© 2018 Todd Jenkins

Bite by Bite

 

The way I hear it,
  the elephant’s great desire
    is to be consumed,
    bite by bite,
  gray, wrinkled skin chewed,
one mouthful at a time.

Here’s a fire,
  offered from a distance,
    merely hoping
    to keep darkness
  at bay
until the sun rises again:

O flinger of both
  nighttime’s stars
    and daytime’s ball of fire,
  show us the love
of divine presence;

both in the light of day,
  as well as
    midnight’s deepest shadows,
    that we may find
  steadfast and stalwart comfort
in your tenacious presence.

Give medical professionals
  the capacity to strike a match
    into our shadowed existence,
  through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

© 2018 Todd Jenkins

Prostrate Psalm

 

Here we lay, prostrate —
  not because it’s our choice —
  but because the kick
    in the gut
    of this teenager’s suicide
    has knee-capped
    our expectations of reality,
  and our dreams
  of how it’s supposed to be.

Cower, with our lips
  in the dirt,
  or crane our necks
    toward starless heavens,
    seem to be our only options.

If it’s all the same with you,
  O one whose claims
  to fame include
    the entirety
    of the cosmos’s creation,
    I think we’ll grovel
    for a while,
    grinding our teeth
    against the grit
  of what might have been —
  what could have been.

After our molars
  have been worn down,
  long in the tooth on grief,
    when we once again
    find the emotional wherewithal
  to turn our spirits
  toward the heavens,

we pray you’ll hold us
  in your strong but tender palm,
  opening to us
    the vast universe of hope,
    undergirding us
  with the fabric of love,
  washing our tear-stained cheeks
  from the fountain of grace.

If you won’t do that,
  don’t bother to attempt
  anything else.

Selah.

© 2018 Todd Jenkins

Unfolding

Photo by Gay Jenkins Howell

 

    We cast our prayers,
    O God, toward
    the bank of the river
    that seems most solid,
    most under control;

   and then earth shakes,
   and water surges,
   swirling us toward
   unstable stacks
   of unknowns
   and uncontrollables.

  Give us courage
  to float toward
  whatever happens,
  confident in your
  in-the-flesh promise
  to be present
  to and with us
  no matter what unfolds.

 These, and all prayers,
 we offer in the name
 of God-with-skin-on,
 Jesus, the Christ. Amen.

© 2018 Todd Jenkins