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

Inky Shadows

 

When those of us
who’re lacking melanin
toss ‘round texts
that speak
of darkness and light,

  where the absence
  of incandescence
  is associated
  with chaos and evil,

    but luminescence
    ushers in the flesh
    of hope itself,

    we need, forthwith,
    to acknowledge the truth
    of life’s journey:

  the sun’s refraction
  has the capacity
  to clarify creation’s intentions;
  but the utter, blind density
  of midnight’s cloak
  is every bit,
  if not more, a revelation
  of divine love’s whisper.

Truth be told,
grace permeates
all strata of visual acuity;
often recognized most fully
in the inky shadows.

© 2020 Todd Jenkins

Redemptive Journey

 

We remember well —
all too well,
if we’re allowing truth
to seep through —
how much it hurts
to give our deepest feelings
a seat at the table.

They dance
as everybody’s watching,
brazenly swaying
to a beat
beyond aural comprehension,
in the recesses
of our parents’ basement,
where the exuberance
of our adolescence spills
its embarrassing awkwardness.

Hexed by rampant anxiety,
we have neither control
nor understanding.

All we can do is sit,
nervously gaping
at the unfolding drama.

Sure that our emotes are,
among all, most cringeworthy,
the glacial shift
from attempted suppression
to willing ownership
is painstaking;

but it is also redemptive;

and in the journey,
our honesty has the potential
to cut a rug or at least
a swath broad enough
along which others can follow.

© 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

10-8

 

Injustice is war
in its most clandestine
and heinous form,

where suffocation
slowly chokes the breath
out of all whose place
has been deemed
to lay beneath dignity,

whether from differences
of language, ethnicity,
religion, nationality, or
some other contrived metric;

all baptized beneath the flags
of sociocultural acceptance,
legal justification,
and economic necessity.

When the echo
of this violence circles ‘round,
splattering blood on our faces,
let us dare to recognize it
as a call to action.

Let us risk our very lives
to be among the dismantlers
of hate’s shackles,
and the reconstructors
of hope’s house.

   ***

Jesus is on the mainline
Tell Him what you want
Jesus is on the mainline
Tell Him what you want
Call Him, call him
Tell Him what you want

“Jesus on the Mainline”

© 2019 Todd Jenkins

Paralysis

Photo by Jennie Roberts Jenkins

 

My sense is
that the church’s paralysis
is largely a result
of the fear/grief
from mainline Protestantism’s
decline in influence,

as culture and society
give more credence
to a plethora
of competing claims.

There is often
a general response
of either anger toward those
who no longer participate
in institutional religion,

or a desire
to invest considerable
energy and resources
in wooing them back;

but rarely
is there much
introspection into why
an entrenched modus operandi
has become insufficient.

Is not our task now
to grieve well and
begin moving forward
toward a more genuine gospel
that is free
from the encumbrances
of empire and privilege?

© 2019 Todd Jenkins

Borrowed

 

When is the last time
you borrowed something;
a cup of sugar,
a tool or piece of equipment
from a neighbor;
a book
from the local library?

The sugar was used,
but the neighbor knows
you’ll return the favor
when it’s needed.

The tool or book,
though, was treated
with respect and returned
in good working condition.

That’s what
good neighbors do.

Our grandchildren
and great grandchildren
called the other day
to remind us
that we’re borrowing
the earth from them.

They’ll be along
to borrow it
from their descendants
in due time.

Let’s all be sure it’s
still fully functional.

© 2019 Todd Jenkins

Peace at Last

Photo by Jennie Roberts Jenkins

 

      Sometimes, perhaps
         more often
  than I’d like to admit,
violence — sometimes known
as the absence of peace —
comes from the rejection
   of where and who I am.

          Expecting to be
           somewhere else
      and/or someone else,
            I resent
        my current reality
with a friction-fueling passion.

       Peace at last,
peace at last, comes,
       not from being
       where and whom
        I want to be,
 but from truly being
wherever and whomever
         I am.

     Only there and them —
    that is, here and me —
am I capable of recognizing
  how to breathe and listen
  toward a purposeful life.

© 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

The Heart of the Matter

Photo by Jennie Roberts Jenkins

 

In the midst of everything,
  isn’t most of humanity’s
  systemic othering
  really about exploitation
  for economic purposes?

If the bottom line
  is a number,
  indicating cash/profit
  in a bank account,
  or stockholder dividends,

I can justify
  taking all I want
  from your labor,
  leaving you
  with a pittance;

I can lock you in chains,
  or even completely erase you,
  via outright degradation
  and the questioning 
  of your very humanity.

When we get to the core
  of relationships and community,
  we will find ourselves,
  not at the bottom line, but
  at the heart of the matter,
  where loving people
  and using things —
  not the other way around —
  is the divine order
  of creation.

  © 2019 Todd Jenkins