Cliff Hanging

From cliffs of our own choosing,

from cliffs that sneak-up on us,

from cliffs that we approach

pedantically with eyes wide shut,

please deliver us, good Lord!

Deliver us with common sense

that vanishes as cliffs appear.

Deliver us with wisdom

hiding in the face of fear.

Deliver us vision to see

beyond smoke and mirrors.

Show us how to fill the chasm

with castaway angst and greed,

to marshal discipline and courage

and rein the frothing steed.

Fill us with confidence, not in

our own plan, but your purposes;

with trust not in our provision,

but in your holy providence.

Show us the facade of self-protection,

the depth and riches of your glories,

the grand design of connection

through our universal stories.

© 2012 Todd Jenkins

What Child?

What child is this,

whose manger lies

beneath the dark

cold Bethl’em skies?

Child of wonder,

child of woe,

child whose heart

will not let go

of pain and suf’ring,

war and strife,

of that which burdens

all of life.

Child whose heart

breaks hard and true

for that which God

desires to do:

bring light to darkness,

salve to pain;

bring hope to those

who know but bane.

Child whose simple

gifts unfold

grace’s promise

ancient told:

“Who you are

and whom you’ll be,

designed at

dawned eternity;

live into hope,

love into being,

and Christmas’ gift

you will be seeing!”

Join angel’s, shepherd’s,

Magi’s voice;

for Emmanuel’s tent,

and pitching rejoice.

May Christmas’ joy

in your life abound;

may you live its gift

the whole year ‘round!

© 2012 Todd Jenkins

Three Elephants

Guns don't kill people,

but people with untreated and

stigmatized mental illness in a

society that glorifies violence and infamy

who have easy access to powerful weapons will,

too often, use guns to kill many other people

in their final act of fear and frustration.

That puts three elephants in the room:

(1) mental illness stigmatized and swept under the rug;

(2) virtual and actual violence as the answer for everything;

(3) rarely-questioned levels of public access to weapons

designed specifically to extinguish multiple lives in an instant - though the NRA has long held a Hogwarts-worthy

Invisibility Cloak over this third beast.

Any one of these three will crush

our culture if we continue to ignore it.

All three of them have clearly demonstrated

societal rogue-tendencies over and over.

Where is the pachyderm-whisperer

who can subdue these beasts so that

meaningful conversation and reform can begin?

© 2012 Todd Jenkins

Invitation

A prophet does not visit the future

and return to the present

to predict what will happen.

She rests near the heart of God,

returning with images too deep

for words, and tries, anyway, to paint

a linguistic picture of divine desire,

inviting the world to acquiesce,

if not ascend to hope's promise.

© 2012 Todd Jenkins

Stranded

Take this week’s strains

of our cold and broken hallelujahs

and braid them into a cord that is

both soft enough and strong enough

to support all of creation.

Pull this world back from its dangerous swing –

not over the imaginary fiscal cliff that has turned

national leaders into party puppets

behaving like petty junior-high kids –

but the precarious swing of lost innocence

over the chasm of unimaginable violence

in China, Las Vegas, Kansas City, Oregon, and Connecticut,

just to name a few headline-grabbers,

not even mentioning the senseless deaths

that occur daily around the world.

Help us step back from all that we have tightly squeezed

as sacred and true and ask the Immanuel questions:

“What does it mean to live, not as if

we’ve got it all figured out, under control,

and are fully operating according to God’s plan,

but rather to live as those whose faith

mortars the vast expanse between

tiny bricks of understanding?”

“What does it mean to live

‘Immanuel’ – God with us?”

© 2012 Todd Jenkins

Peace

Shattered

Violation shatters all pretense

of order and ordinary, shocking us

into anger that boils the heart;

an abomination beyond

a kid in its mother’s milk (EX 23:19).

Let our rage burn not just your ears,

O God, but also your sense of justice!

Vengeance, the only item on our menu;

hatred, the weed overwhelming our garden.

Give us courage to trust your providence,

tenderness to recognize your presence in the dark,

wisdom to acquiesce to your retribution.

Grant us the redemption of your healing,

the hope of your promised restoration,

the grace of our own resurrection now!

© 2012 Todd Jenkins

Christmas Presence

It’s the gift you’ve hoped for,

even if you’re clueless regarding

its absence or how to find it.

If you make it through the holidays

in one piece, or at least in few enough

pieces to fit in one basket,

and you’re still wondering whether you

“did” Christmas “right” again

or for the first time this year,

I’ve got a revelation for you –

a gift, if you will.

It’s really all about God,

about God’s gift, about you and I

learning that the true meaning of life,

year-round and life-long,

can be found in surrendering

our worth-by-work, our value-by-morality,

and our reduction-of-anxiety-by-control

to God’s acceptance-before-and-in-spite-of-labor,

God’s love-no-matter-the-behavior, God’s peace-by-release.

Yeah, it’s all about stepping back

from “That’s how we roll!” and

recognizing both God’s eminent presence

as well as God’s imminent arrival.

© 2012 Todd Jenkins

Rage

Prayers for your children, O God!

You know exactly what it’s like to have

the life of someone you love threatened.

When we’re the ones feeling the cold chill

of cancer’s senseless insistence,

putting death on speed-dial

as if it doesn’t matter to anyone,

we must rage in your presence.

We must cry out in

anger, disbelief, and fear.

We must beg for healing, wholeness,

and courage for the journey

that lies before us.

Give us the courage to do it

honestly with you because you are

the one whose love for us is so pure

and unconditional, and our honesty

intensifies our comprehension of your love;

because not being honest with you

may cause us to unleash that rage

on someone else we love,

and hurting another person we love

is exactly what we DON’T need right now.

Hold us – hold these dear ones –

in your strong but tender hand, O God,

and let them feel the comfort of your promise

as these storm clouds try

to frighten them out of your presence. Amen.

© 2012 Todd Jenkins

Holy Holiday

When we lament the distancing

of “Christ” from “Christmas”

we might want to rethink how that works.

Beyond respectful bowing to a plurality

that prays and worships differently,

and the way that unilateral freedom for some

inevitably suffocates freedom for all,

the separation of nativity from the

nauseating consumption frenzy

into which our culture's December descends

might be seen as a theological statement,

but only if we actually declare –

with our actions more than our words –

that the gift of Incarnation/Immanuel elicits

nothing more and nothing less

than spontaneous joy and generosity.

So, why don’t we focus less on

shoehorning “Christ” into everything,

and more on living as if his arrival transforms us?

© 2012 Todd Jenkins