So, a friend says to me, “Why are your poetry/prayers—always about depressing stuff?” This is not the first time I’ve heard this question. It made me think, because I do not really know why.
That led me to an earlier conversation with someone else, who had inquired as to the source for a recent prayer for someone dealing with cancer. My reply was, “There is often a particular event or story that triggers the Muse’s flow, but each piece carries the accumulation of many people and stories.” I have figured out at least this much.
As a pastor, I hear many stories and receive many requests for prayer regarding all sorts of tragedies and dire life-circumstances. That’s when people most often find and claim their own true faith: in the midst of challenging and threatening times. It stands to reason, then, that empathy and compassion are often centered around difficulty.
Hope—the kind of expectation that transforms lives through and beyond the valley of difficulty’s dark shadow—most often comes from the bottom. The deepest and darkest places are the ones from which light and life eventually spring. The most authentic and long-lasting experiences of joy can arise, not from abundance and providence, but rather from nothingness and absence. It is often in the midst of emptiness that we first find the gift that truly fills.
In my younger days, I did some SCUBA diving. I’ll never forget the feeling when I first went 100 feet below the surface of a spring. After we got our bearings and settled in the bottom of the cavern, we turned out our lights. There, with the multiplied pressure of atmospheres squeezing in on me, in the blackest darkness I could ever imagine, I felt a great peace.
I would be lying if I said that there was not a simultaneous sense of panic trying to gain my attention. But, trusting my instructor and my equipment, I set aside the panic and gave in to the peace. When I hear and immerse myself in others’ stories of injury, illness, disease, pain, and suffering, I feel as if I am back in that cavern. I know that panic and fear are lurking. But I also know that peace and hope are available. In my prayers and poems, I try to realistically describe our human condition—including its inevitable suffering—and then find a connection to the place where hope springs eternal and grace abounds.
© 2009 Todd Jenkins
That led me to an earlier conversation with someone else, who had inquired as to the source for a recent prayer for someone dealing with cancer. My reply was, “There is often a particular event or story that triggers the Muse’s flow, but each piece carries the accumulation of many people and stories.” I have figured out at least this much.
As a pastor, I hear many stories and receive many requests for prayer regarding all sorts of tragedies and dire life-circumstances. That’s when people most often find and claim their own true faith: in the midst of challenging and threatening times. It stands to reason, then, that empathy and compassion are often centered around difficulty.
Hope—the kind of expectation that transforms lives through and beyond the valley of difficulty’s dark shadow—most often comes from the bottom. The deepest and darkest places are the ones from which light and life eventually spring. The most authentic and long-lasting experiences of joy can arise, not from abundance and providence, but rather from nothingness and absence. It is often in the midst of emptiness that we first find the gift that truly fills.
In my younger days, I did some SCUBA diving. I’ll never forget the feeling when I first went 100 feet below the surface of a spring. After we got our bearings and settled in the bottom of the cavern, we turned out our lights. There, with the multiplied pressure of atmospheres squeezing in on me, in the blackest darkness I could ever imagine, I felt a great peace.
I would be lying if I said that there was not a simultaneous sense of panic trying to gain my attention. But, trusting my instructor and my equipment, I set aside the panic and gave in to the peace. When I hear and immerse myself in others’ stories of injury, illness, disease, pain, and suffering, I feel as if I am back in that cavern. I know that panic and fear are lurking. But I also know that peace and hope are available. In my prayers and poems, I try to realistically describe our human condition—including its inevitable suffering—and then find a connection to the place where hope springs eternal and grace abounds.
© 2009 Todd Jenkins
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