Epiphany

Was Jesus born on hospice care,

propelled toward his earthly demise

from the moment Mary and Joseph

unwrapped the magi's myrrh?

Is that what incarnation –

being in-the-flesh – is all about;

preparing for death

by learning how to live,

and preparing for life

by learning how to die?

When my mother was

on her death bed,

with less than 24 hours left,

brain tumor ravishing her body,

we arrived home to find her asleep.

She woke up and asked,

in childlike innocence,

“What have you been doing?”

Answering from a place deeper

than my 26 year-old self

knew existed, I replied,

“We’ve been playing at work.”

Ever since that day,

both haunted and propelled

by the mystery of that exchange,

I’ve caught glimpses

of the hospice care

with which my life's surrounded:

love, support, and nurture

that strengthen and encourage me

to breathe deeply of each moment,

savor people, treasure the journey,

and give grace free flow to rush in

and out of my broken places,

washing fear and anxiety away.

These are the gifts of the one

who was calm and secure in both

his going out and his coming in,

inhaling death and exhaling life.

© 2014 Todd Jenkins

Gallowed

Drama is the byproduct

of a tortured, ingrown soul,

no longer seeing himself

in true relationship

with the rest of creation.

He solves crimes all by himself,

beginning with the verdict,

and working backwards;

fabricating facts,

embellishing evidence,

and tailoring testimony.

Forever the victim,

all who stand between him

and what he wants will

eventually become perpetrators.

Stand clear of his path

to the gallows. When he

finishes dragging everyone else,

he will inevitably make

one final trek, alone.

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

Journey

That life is a spiritual journey –

not in part, but the whole –

doesn't occur to us

very easily or early.

Growing into the physicality

of humanness is such

a fascinating, self-absorbed process,

that we are often capable

of looking right past

the larger truths of our existence.

It is only when our focus

is directed far enough beyond

our own particularity

that we catch glimpses

 of the universe's grand scheme.

Perspective, then,

is one of the keys

for awakening

to our inherent spirituality.

Listen! Do you hear

our souls calling?

 

Photo by Lee Lindsey McKinney

© 2014 Todd Jenkins

Christmas Eve

Call to Worship

 [males] For better or worse, the time is nearly past for preparation.  Christmas morning is only hours away.

[females] But we have made this last appointment, setting aside our concern for all on our social calendar and shopping list that we did not accomplish, choosing instead to gather for worship on the eve of the celebration of Christ’s birth.

[males] Let us accept the prelude’s musical invitation to slowly and deeply inhale God’s promised peace, and to firmly and completely exhale the stress that holiday busyness has accumulated in our bodies, minds, and spirits.

[females] Let us relive the Advent journey of candle lighting; refreshing ourselves with holy anticipation, sacred preparation, and birthing joy.

[all] Let us open ourselves to the arrival of the manger-born messiah!

Prayer of Confession:

We confess, O God, that Christmas, as we’ve planned and worked it so far, has worn us out. The glitz, the gatherings, the buying, and the fixing have ground us down. Forgive the degree to which we have allowed ourselves to get sucked into commercialism; forgive the ways that the genuine spirit of Christmas have been sucked out of us.

By the resurrecting power of your Holy Spirit, renew our hope in your promise; give us eyes, ears, and hearts to ponder the gift of Emmanuel—God with us—beginning tonight, and every day of our lives. Give us the wisdom, compassion, and focus to recognize your coming in each face along the journey; through the grace of the Bethlehem babe who became Messiah. Amen.

© 2014 Todd Jenkins

............................................Tender Care...................................

Sitting in the presence

of another's pain and grief,

stripped clean and hard

of all but your unadorned self,

is a physically exhausting undertaking.

In such a state

of weakness and despair,

it's not hard to recognize

another presence there;

the gentle strength of Love

that holds us all with tender care,

and breathes hope

into lungs scorched and sooted

by a fire named Fear.

© 2014 Todd Jenkins

Path

The paths we trod and daily beat,

though we are convinced

are constructed with our own

good efforts to reach God,

may well turn out to be

the clearing of the vines

and brambles that separate us

from the selves we've settled for

and the ones we've spent

our lives convincing others

are the real us.

It just might be that,

once we journey

through the wilderness

to our honest selves,

we will find that God

has been there all along,

patiently waiting for us

to show up to the life

for which we were created.

Wouldn't that be

a joyful homecoming?

© 2014 Todd Jenkins

Spiritual DNA

The math of inhumanity to humanity

is zero sum in the worst sense,

though nothing about it resembles a game

where anything remotely near winning

can take place, unless you've convinced yourself

that there is a measuring stick for life

and your ranking is clearly superior

to the lives you're devaluing and destroying,

which is pretty much the same

as declaring yourself to be God.

In this case, even our animal instincts

are betrayed, as community is jilted

for the shrinking self of individual,

and nothing of our spiritual DNA

is allowed to grow and bloom.

Holly J. Williams reading one of her "Peanut" books to students at Ralph Askins

© 2014 Todd Jenkins

Rebel Tears

These rebel tears you've cried,

I say, tell me of the depths

from which they flow.

Tell me of the salt they left

upon your cheeks of rose.

Tell me of the stories

that flashed across

your heart's big screen;

and how you, at once wished

to do them all over again,

yet knew that this would rewrite

too much of who you are.

Tell me how you simply came

to know that grace applied

from wells deeper than your own

would change your world

in far more valuable ways

than a lifetime full

of re-attempts at perfection.

Tell me this and more.

I've heard it whispered

from places deeper than

I knew I had, but long

to hear its joyous regale

from the cracks and creeks

of other hearts, because

I know its gift is far

too great a pearl to hide.

 

Decatur, GA 1966

© 2014 Todd Jenkins

Dividend

What do you do

when complementary

is not at all complimentary;

when the conversation

reveals diversified opinion,

and the rift threatens

to become a continental divide?

What is the common core

that can hold us together;

the knot that can

keep us from unraveling?

Hope placed in anything less

than the self of God,

faith raised in anything but

divine mystery's recipe,

cannot withstand life's storms.

A willingness to recognize

our own personal shortcomings;

an openness to learn the stories

of those who feel mostly "other";

these are the threads

that weave us together

into the drama that will

one day become a narrative

of unconditional love.

© 2014 Todd Jenkins

Hue

All creation is woven together

into a work of art so complex

and so beautiful that,

if we are awake and

attuned to the moment,

surprises us and takes

our breath away

at each intersection,

every day of our lives.

How then, in this

glorious interconnectedness,

can we dare to believe

that we were put here

to isolate and elevate ourselves

based on privileged elements

of our circumstances,

most of which are constructed

by the accident of our birth?

It is as if a single hue

in a vast masterpiece

has declared itself superior

to all others because

it sees itself, reflected in the mirror,

as the painting's focal point.

© 2014 Todd Jenkins

Which?

Looking at your calendar,

you may imagine that you

don't have time to pray;

that you've got too many

things to do, places to be,

and people to see.

You may even believe

that you're "prayed up"

with a surplus of

divine-human conversation

at the spiritual level.

Or that you'll set aside

some quiet time later

to seek a merging

with God-frequency.

Here's the face-smacked

truth of it: you're more likely

too confident; resting assured

that your own plans,

holy-infused as they may be

and feel, are the equivalent

of God-entered GPS mapping.

I dare to make this accusation

only because I know, all too well,

this wilderness wandering,

with its milk and honey overlay.

Turn around, don't plow ahead

through these deceptive deeps.

Better yet, stop, drop, and breathe.

© 2014 Todd Jenkins

Enough

Our blessings are legion,

O Lord, but that doesn't mean

that demons aren't

swirling in our lives,

attempting to possess us.

We find ourselves surrounded

by Consumption and Greed,

by Comparison and Indifference,

by Judgment and Fear.

Cast out all of these

who would influence us

to want more and love less,

 to hoard more and give less.

Show us the lie

of Scarcity that we

may live the truth

of your Abundance.

Into the places where Hurt

and Anxiety creep,

pour in your Grace

that it may seep

all the way to the marrow

of our souls, and we

may find the truth of Enough.

 

Guatemala, November 2014

© 2014 Todd Jenkins

Shoes

I thought I was walking

in the ones you've been given,

until I realized that they were

only my most uncomfortable ones,

which probably look

and feel very different from

the ones you're wearing.

And it really wasn't a mile;

more like a brief nightmare

from which I could wake

and assure myself that such things

could never happen in real life.

At least not in mine.

Lord, have mercy!

© 2014 Todd Jenkins

Healing

Not broken or

declared defective,

or thrown on the trash pile;

not even repaired,

or replaced, or refurbished,

or recalled;

but healed is what

God has declared

we will become.

Healing with beautiful scars

and glorious stretch marks

to remind everyone,

ourselves included,

that the cuts and bruises,

cracks and crumblings

are not so much evidence

of our mistakes and failures,

as necessary entry points

and exit ports for Grace.

They are stained glass slivers

through which light

is able to shine and refract

into all the people and places

the sun has yet to reach.

© 2014 Todd Jenkins

Whole Life

It doesn't mean there are no broken pieces;

won’t guarantee that you’ll be put together

like you were, or like you dreamed,

or like somebody else told you that you should be.

It’s not a pristine book with gilded pages

un-smudged as the day it rolled off the press.

It’s not a policy that guarantees protection from harm,

or even reimbursement for the inevitability of death.

It has been fully lived, including the good, bad, and ugly;

dead ends, re-routings, pain, suffering, and grief.

Cracks abound, with no attempt to disguise them;

savored, instead, in humility and gratitude

because they have created you,

both in the breaking and in the re-forming.

To jettison or judge is to discard essential parts

of who you are, to plea-bargain for a knock-off.

The world needs all of you, past and present,

in order to move toward the abundant life

that Grace is preparing for our future.

© 2014 Todd Jenkins

Mirror

Friends are familiarity

breeding anything but contempt.

They alert us to the comfort

that therapy's mirror

need not reflect a solo portrait.

The very best of them

can be found beside us;

their body language

and facial expressions
often mimicking our own;

this camaraderie is often

the path from pity to party,

lament to laughter.

Photo by Lee Lindsey McKinney

© 2014 Todd Jenkins

Tangible

Grace becomes a tangible reality, 

and a true driver 

in the universe's market, 

when we begin to realize 

that the only thing our lives

should be compared against 

is God's freely offered 

and overflowing love. 

In this measuring cup, 

no one and no thing

are a threat to living joyfully; 

peace becomes a byproduct 

of breathing; and others 

become our sisters and brothers. 

Photo by DeEtta H. Jenkins

© 2014 Todd Jenkins