Religious & Spiritual

Photo by Jennie Roberts Jenkins

At its – and our – best,

religion is a community and

a window through which

people glimpse, desire, and

pursue spiritual journey.

The true test of religion's

cultural component comes when,

at ever-changing locations

on a spiritual path,

we are challenged to continue

gathering with people

who both reside in and travel  

to a place named Other.

It is here the Kenyan

proverb speaks her truth:

"If you want to go fast,

go alone. If you want

to go far, go together."

Photo by Jennie Roberts Jenkins

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

Within

Photo by Jerry Gorman

When I didn't give you

   what you wanted,

      it wasn't because

         I didn't want to or

            I don't love you.

            Whether or not

         it was what you needed –

      an important distinction

   you need to make –

it was not mine to give.

Whatever it is you think

   will make you happy,

      or even bring you joy,

         you'll have to

            give it to yourself, or

               at least accept it in yourself.

               Here's the great mystery of life:

            IT is already within you,

         and always has been;

      that divine spark of love

   with which you were graced

before you were born.

Your mistake is

   to believe ego's lie

      that whatever you've done

         and whomever you've been

            or become has somehow

               extinguished that fire.

            You're not that powerful,

         love has no such weakness,

      and grace is exponentially

   larger than that.

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

By the River

Photo by Jerry Gorman

There we sat, singing first

   the songs we knew,

      then ones we’d only heard once,

         and, finally, as the horizon

      swallowed the red ball of fire,

   we sang new songs –

ones we’d never even heard.

It wasn’t Babylon, but it

   might as well have been.

      We were learning to let go

         of parts of what we’d always

      known to be true; kinds of things

   that, when squeezed tightly,

keep you from seeing bigger truths.

Our open hands trembled

   as the water washed across them,

      baptizing us with a hope

   we now knew more deeply

than we ever imagined possible.

We arrived with filters and magic –

   or technology as we’ve named

      and tamed it all these years –

   yet found ourselves wrapped

in a shawl far more holy and life-giving.

The stories, new friends, lives shared

   freely and without hesitation,

      all caused the water to flow like grace,

   into and out of our own brokenness,

“Safe water for a generation!”

Living Waters for the World

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

Feelings

Photo by Jennie Roberts Jenkins

The feels we have are filtered ones,

always subject, like UV,

to the glasses of the life we've lived;

each as unique as our particular story;

none even close to a carbon copy.

Yours are yours, mine are mine,

no one authorized to invalidate them,

including our very own selves.

The best we can do – the way forward –

is to give them free reign deep inside;

to let them unfurl, unhindered,

within the confines of our soul.

Give them the pen/keyboard,

so they may fully convey

deepest and richest passion

to our narrative's protagonist.

Then read the story again.

When we find the earlier chapters

from which they are foreshadowed,

and the already-trod ground

from which they're fertilized,

we will begin to see how

they may be woven into

this week's chapter healthfully.

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

History

         It's been said that

         the prize of victory

         includes the privilege

         of writing history.

   In many cases, this is true,

   especially when international conflict

   ends in total surrender.

But one of the strange consequences

from the hellish incivility

of the mid-nineteenth century war

waged within our nation's bowels,

   brother against brother,

   is that each side had the opportunity

   to write its own version –

   at least the white sides.

      And now, 150 years later,

      the aftermath of these dueling histories,

      along with the stories still-buried,

      from those middle-caught, voiceless,

      is the bitter fruit of both

      our silence and our discord;

   waving in flags of defeated battlefields

   resurrected when history taught 

   bumps up against reality altered,

   and Emancipation’s lament

   marches us farther down Justice’s road.

Peace remains in the hallway,

whispering her plea for ears

willing to listen, daring us to hear

others’ stories, even when

their truth challenges our own.

Photo by Joe Stephenson

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

Leftovers

Photo by Owen Jenkins

We confess, O God,

   that we have become accustomed

      to making do with the baskets

         of leftover bread and fish

            taken up after your gracious feast.

All the while, our senses

   have become oblivious

      to your Holy Spirit

         pulling fresh-baked loaves

            out of the oven,

               right under our noses,

                  all day long.

Awaken us, O Lord,

   that we might once again

      learn how to see, hear, touch,

         smell, and taste the bread of life

            that's piled on the banquet tables

               of our lives every day.

Give us hearts of generosity,

   that we might learn to live

      the ways of your amazing grace,

         through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

Grow & Turn

One of PowerPoint's

animation styles

is named "Grow & Turn".

It allows you to call attention

to newly-appearing text

by having the selected portion

begin tiny and vertical,

and then rotate to

a horizontal position

as it also enlarges.

The text, then, actually appears

to both grow and turn

as it settles and becomes legible.

I cannot help but think

of the life of faith

in relationship to this phrase.

The Greek word that we translate

as repent literally means to turn.

Faith is a journey on which

we are continually learning,

 forever stretching, and

constantly recalculating (turning).

Can't you just hear Jesus

inviting the disciples (and us)

to so animate our lives –

to "Grow & Turn"?

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

Sacred/Scared

If our ecclesial vision

is limited to a corporate model

of planning our work

and working our plan;

    if it's little more than a strategy

    to go where we want to go

    – where we feel comfortable going – 

    then we have missed out

    on God and gospel altogether.

Vision, as it defines the church,

is about settling down long enough

to imagine all of creation

through God's heart and eyes;

    about peering through divine lenses

    long enough to be frightened

    by God's plans, but also long enough

to be drawn toward a daunting dream

by the mystery of God that is

anchored in the deep places

where only love and grace

have fully taken root.

    If we're not quaking in our boots,

    and swallowing our hearts,

    we have probably missed the mark.

  

Photo by Joe Stephenson

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

Forward

We often believe others will recognize their behavior toward us as unacceptable if we mirror it back to them, so they can feel the pain. Here's the secret: they've already felt that pain, and probably know it all too well, because they learned it from someone who treated them the same way. What we all need to feel more of is unconditional love.

 

Photo by Jerry Gorman

If you want them – and you – to grow beyond transactional and reflective relationships, show them what it feels like to be appreciated for little things, to be given the benefit of the doubt, to be believed without interrogation, to be accepted – not because they flawlessly meet another’s expectation – but because they share an imperfect desire to be loved as they are; and through this acceptance, to be nurtured toward more.

These are signposts along the journey toward joy. They are the gifts we can daily unwrap; the manna on which we can mutually feast in our relationships.  

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

Crumbling

Institutional religion

isn't gasping for air.

It is at another crossroads,

for sure; an opportunity fraught

with both risk and possibility.

When, in times like these,

we (re)turn to our narrative

of the incarnate Word

in search of discernment,

we would do well to notice

that the gospel is not so much

spread, and grace not so much

revealed by telling others

where we think they are failing

and how to find God

via the path that found us,

as by people living

and revealing love to others

in their everyday lives.

Love, you see (and Love you see),

is a story that compels us

to set aside differences

trying to divide us, in favor

of commonalities connecting us.

Faith is not a talk, but a walk.

Words, when their time arrives,

must fit within the framework

of already-engaged interaction.

Photo by Mary Dumas Sgarlato

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

Reality

For all our church-up lives we have bumped up against forgiveness.  We are told, not only that forgiveness is basic and immutable divine nature, but also that God's forgiveness is offered directly and specifically for and to us. Until we allow this promise to be true, there is no plausible hope of forgiveness extending through us, toward others.

Once it begins to flow – once the joy of our own forgiven selves is revealed in the ordinary and painful circumstances of our daily lives – we begin to comprehend, little by little, how much freedom and peace there is in letting go of all the unforgiveness that weighs heavily on our lives. As this mountain of forgiving grace raises us above anxiety and distress, we come to a place where we can begin to trade our own expectations for something larger.

This expansive exchange is the place where hope is born. Not a lesser hope of our own little expectations dressed-up in their Sunday best, but the grand unfolding of creation's intricate promise. It is here that we must be willing to forgive the final burden to our joy: reality.

That's right. Until we can allow the unpredictable, sometimes-painful, and always-surprising nature of our own particular reality’s carpet to roll out without judgment or condemnation, forgiveness' ultimate gift will continue to remain just beyond our reach. The amazing paradox of forgiving reality is that it is both an end and a beginning; for when we can find a path toward forgiving reality, all other forgiveness is woven into and enriched through this journey.

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

Calliope

Photo by Joe Stephenson

“Where DID those words come from?” I first asked myself this question during the last conversation I had with my mother. It was Friday afternoon, April 18, 1986, and Jennie and I had just arrived at my parents’ home in Perry, FL. We were there because dad called me, mid-morning, while I was on my Snap-On Tool route in Valdosta, GA, and said, “You need to come home. Your mother’s not going to last much longer.”

It had been almost six weeks – precisely what the Dr. predicted – since her diagnosis of an inoperable, malignant, frontal lobe tumor. She was at home, in bed, as she had been for the past few weeks; sleeping more and more, taking more and more pain medicine to dull the pressure of the growing tumor on her brain.

Dad woke her when we arrived. He had to gently shake her to get her to open her eyes. “Baby, look who’s here to see you!” he said. Her eyes opened brightly, revealing a glow I hadn’t seen since I don’t know when. With the simplicity, reverence, and passion of a five year-old, she spoke quietly.

“What have y’all been doing?”

Without skipping a beat or even thinking, I responded, “We’ve been playing at work.” It was all I could do to keep my vocal chords from vibrating again with, “Where did THOSE words come from?”

She responded, “Well, I’m glad you’re here now.”

About 24 hours later, she breathed another one of those infrequent and desperate gasps for air, and then there were no more breaths to follow. She was gone.

It was years later before I remembered my final conversation with mom, but now I can almost hear it out loud. I’m not sure, but I believe the conversation’s return to my memory may have been triggered by another experience similar to the feeling I had after my answer to mom’s question surprised me, and I thought, “Where did THOSE words come from?”

Only this time, it wasn’t words creating sound waves picked up by nearby eardrums, but words written on the pages of a prayer journal. The more I engaged in and was engaged by contemplative prayer, the more my writings seemed to come from a place that was separate from my brain.

I would hear these words inside me and write them down, but when I went back to re-read them, I had no idea what they meant and no clue from whence they came. It was like my hand was forming the words and sentences without the conscious guidance of my brain.

The collection of thoughts, ideas, and writings began to pile up. When I began to transfer them to digital form, and then use the keyboard to create new ones, their numbers multiplied. First, there were dozens of pages, then hundreds, not including the ones I thought I had figured out enough to share with a group of 140 or so acquaintances via a weekly email I call “Tuesday’s Muse.”

I could sense a presence – a place from which it seemed these words came – and this presence has a life that seems independent from me, despite the fact that I could hear and feel it within me. That’s the source for the word “Muse”, and Tuesday became the default day of the week for the email distribution of these ideas.

Early on in this process, I began to notice my writings were often about things I hadn’t quite figured out. Sometimes, I’m not anywhere near figuring them out, so I go back to them over and over, re-reading them until some event, conversation, or circumstance in my life helps me to make sense of them. Some of these ideas are still works in progress within my life.

In hindsight, I am sometimes able to see, not only that the words precede my understanding, but they even lay the framework for the place where my heart and mind need to travel in order to find peace. It’s like an invitation to a party I know I want to attend, a destination toward which I have yet to discern navigation. The words articulate understanding, and my mind and heart are drawn, by them, toward places I didn’t know existed. These are often places I’ve dreamed about, but need help finding my way to in waking – in living, breathing, and loving.

You might call the voice laying these literary bread crumbs the Holy Spirit. I think that would be a prime suspect in this mystery. Do you know Calliope? 

         "Here rise to life again, dead poetry!

         Let it, O holy Muses, for I am yours,

         And here Calliope, strike a higher key,

         Accompanying my song with that sweet air

         which made the wretched Magpies feel a blow

         that turned all hope of pardon to despair."

                    (Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, Purgatorio, Canto I,l.7 to 12)

Detail of “The Muses Urania and Calliope” by Simon Vouet

Whatever name we use to describe this voice, my hope is that its trail leads us to places where we can find and fulfill our created purpose, and where we can more richly share in the joyful abundance of one another’s lives.

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

Real

“Real isn't how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.” (Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit)

It's the nourishment for which

we hunger most deeply,

the thirst we so passionately

long to have quenched.

The world is full of pretenders,

both those who know better

and are manipulating perception

to assuage their deepest fear,

as well as those who tread

gingerly through life,

afraid of knowing anyone

or anything – especially themselves –

at levels deeper than surface;

and most of us spend far too long

as apprentices to this deception

in one of its forms or another.

When we recognize it, especially

for the first time most intimately,

it can be as frightening

as our worst nightmares;

but once it's gone, the emptiness

becomes less anxiety and more ache.

The road toward Real

is a journey named Hope,

and the farther we navigate away

from the anxiety and toward the ache,

the more comfortable and courageous

we become in our own skin.

When you or I overtake

the other along this trail,

I pray we'll have the heart

to walk together for a story or three.

© 2015 Todd Jenkins