If Only

Photo by Anne Shurley

History is much colder

than you ever imagined,

far warmer than you’ve dreamed,

   more dangerous than you ever thought,

   less glamorous than we’ve written it,

   and even more boring

   than the latest generation sees it.

To be sure, there are many lessons

to be learned from its study;

but we dare not fool ourselves

into believing the version currently playing

at the Rialto of Memory Lane

is any less a fairy tale than the stories

we read to our grandchildren.

   When we see ourselves

   as its preservationists,

   we would do well to remember

   that the thing to which we naturally cling

   is mostly a figment of skewed reminiscence;

that our own constitutions

would likely wilt beneath the weight

of its actual ancient burden;

and that its primary purpose

is to give us wisdom and courage

to move forward, not to seduce us,

siren-like, to wistfully turn back.

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

Prodigal Chorus

Photo by Jerry Gorman

Hallelujah! You're not the only one.

Hallelujah! We're all on the run.

Some of us from life,

and some of us from love.

All of us slopping our chosen hogs.

Each of us throwing life to the dogs.

All of us practice the groveling speech.

Each of us feeling out of reach.

All of us trudging toward a home place.

Each of us longing for his embrace.

Hallelujah! I see Pops coming on the run.

Hallelujah! Like I'm the only one.

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

Even Closer

Photo by Jennie Roberts Jenkins

I thought you weren't there

   because I couldn't feel you

      for the intensity of my circumstances.

The feelings of your gentle, general

   presence were wiped away

      by the trauma I faced.

As I learn to read the story

   over again, I see you are everywhere

      so close and surrounding me,

         especially when night's at its darkest.

What I thought and felt

   as your absence was

      an intensity of presence

         for which I had no reference point.

"Trust" you whisper. "Hold on,

   because I'll never let go of you."

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

Unfathomed

Photo by Jason Goodman

         Once you catch even

         the tiniest fragmentary glimpse

         of divine mystery,

      it becomes crystal clear

      that all methods,

      measurements, and paradigms

   for describing God

   are woefully inadequate

   to carry the meaning

   of Love and Grace

   all by themselves.

Even if we piled every

current understanding

on top of all the holy

descriptions of history,

they still wouldn't reach

half way up Grace's hillside.

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

Other

The greatest seduction

in seeking solutions

to our problems –

collectively and individually –

is wedging enough

visible difference between

our shared humanity

to create an other

onto whom we can offload

all blame and responsibility.

Politics, religion, and

most institutions succumb

to this temptation all too often,

neglecting two components

of hope and resolution:

our own complicity

in the story, and

our universal need

for and responsibility

to one another.

Reconciliation and way forward

require cessation of divisiveness,

greasing of the gate hinges, and

rekindling of community's flame.

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

Student

Photo by Lee Lindsey McKinney

“I’m a student of life!”

she proclaims, as if

graduation were the farthest

thing from her mind –

or at least from her heart.

   How does this attitude work

   in the real world,

   where “control issues”

   pop-up at every corner,

   insisting we get a grip?

      In life’s adolescence –

      a period not necessarily confined

      to years ending in “teen” –

      hands and minds squeeze racquetballs

      in order to strengthen their clench.

   Suffocation begins when

   a fourth and fifth “R” –

   Relationships and Religion –

   succumb to the hands of control;

   there is no room for love,

   much less for God, if we’re unable

   to liberate the marionette strings.

Learning to relax and release

is a lifelong course;

a crucial one for receiving

a degree of/in Grace.

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

Quarter Note

Music's math has the ability

   to expand the reach of poetry.

Melodies and harmonies

   are divine magic by themselves,

      but add the surprise

         of lyrics' overlay, and fresh air

            breathes in and out

               of places we've forgotten exist.

The notes' fractional pacing,

   woven with poetry's minimalism,

      lets words be absorbed

         in our core, storying hope and

            healing in ways surpassing amazing.

A good 3-5 minute song,

   with a depth of both tune

      and lyrics, can deliver

         gospel truth in 1/4 the time,

            and often more effectively,

               than a decent sermon.

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

Adapt-Olympics

Photo by Owen Jenkins

Somewhere around my fifth birthday, my older brother and I received a Pitch-Back as a gift. It's a trampoline of sorts that sits at an upright angle. When a ball is thrown against the mesh netting, the recoil action bounces the ball back to the thrower. Woven into the center of the netting is a rectangular target, or strike zone.

Over a five or six year period, I honed my pitching skill and my imagination in our back yard. Stepping off the proper distance between the plate and mound for Little League, I spent countless afternoons striking out the likes of Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, and even Babe Ruth, in my mind. Though I didn't understand the science of it, my body’s pitching motion was developing muscle memory, which still allows me, to this day, to throw a baseball with considerable consistency.

Throughout my life, I've learned to throw many things with accuracy. It's a game my brother and I often played. We'd grab a dirty shirt or pair of socks from the floor, wad them into a "ball", step across the room, and see who could most accurately toss them into the hamper. We'd do the same thing, competing to see who could ring the trash can with crumpled paper, bottles, cans, and pretty much anything we could find.

I usually won. Of course, my brother is not around to contradict me, but it's true anyway; not because I was a superior athlete, but because I spent more than five years of my life in the back yard with the Pitch-Back. And because my brain seems to have a pretty good auto-calculation function that adjusts for things like weight, distance, and even drag/wind-resistance.

What difference does this make? Unless the International Olympic Committee decides to create an adaptability event, where athletes toss random objects from varying distances into a variety of goals and cups, this particular skill seems to be superfluous. But it's not.

Okay, the physical skill itself probably has extremely limited application. But the concept translates well into organizational leadership, especially in the church. Though the church you serve and call home may not overzealously embrace a "We've always done it this way!" vision for the future, such an approach is a common and comfortable mode in institutional religion.

To quote an old hymn, many denominations and congregations rally 'round the cry, "It was good for Paul and Silas, and it's good enough for me." without realizing that Paul and Silas practiced the gospel in ways that were specific to their culture and context, neither of which are similar to twenty-first century USA.

Changes in technology and culture are both accelerating and unsettling. In order for the church to remain faithful and relevant, a balance between tradition and adaptation must be maintained. Here are some of the key questions we need to ask:

• What are the core components of our faith?
• How do we practice these?
• Why do we practice these?
• How can we best convey these first three answers to the current generation?
• With respect to the gospel, what's the difference between the method and the message?

I believe a solid grounding in our faith practices is what provides us with spiritual muscle memory to effectively proclaim the message, and an openness to flexibility and creativity will allow us to adapt the method so that it reaches people in our current culture.

Let the conversation begin, or continue, whichever the case may be!

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

Government

"Let our hearts not be hardened 
to those living on the margin.
There is room at the table for everyone.
This is where it all begins, 
this is how we gather in.
There is room at the table for everyone."
(from Carrie Newcomer's "Room at the Table")

Why do we need it?

How much is enough?

The irony of our current

political climate's disdain

for government is this:

the more ruthless and self-serving

the monetarily-motivated become,

the more government we need

to prevent mortal pillaging

of the powerless and voiceless;

and the more government

complexity/bureaucracy we have,

the less flexible and

efficient it becomes.

Privatization for profit

is not the answer.

Public discourse and

community restoration,

where all are invited

to the table, are.

Where is the off-button

for our escalating insanity?

Will we find both it and

the courage to act

more responsibly before

an implosion point is reached?

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

3 Strands

A church on the way

   toward healing, wholeness,

      and stretching toward holiness,

has a three-strand cord,

   or maybe it's a three-string chord,

      by which it both swings and sings

         toward its sacred calling.

First, is the story belonging

   to each of its congregants.

      It is their unique history;

their personal narrative

   of love and loss,

      holding and hurting,

         joy and sorrow,

            a story needing to be

               fully known and owned.

Second, a congregational novel:

   ways the gathering souls

      have tried to become

the blessed, broken,

   poured out, and shared

      body of Christ in a

         particular place, spanning

            the entirety of their existence,

               also becoming readily repeatable.

Photo by Mary Lou Dumas Sgarlato

 The third, a story whispered

   by the Holy Spirit

      into the listening ear

         of the people as they

            worship and serve together,

as their spirits are marinated

   in the Word made flesh's story,

      love daily unfolding

         into their living, breathing.

As this third tale materializes,

   the other two are healed,

      softening their strands and stanzas,

         so the trio can be braided

            into an autobiography of grace,

               singing a new adventure of hope.

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

Prayetry

I write. It’s what I do, but it’s also who I am. In response to contemplative prayer, scripture’s study, devotional readings, news reports, and life itself, I write.

It used to be exclusively prose; long paragraphs and thorough explanations. I thought more detail was better; that others would understand more fully if I painted the whole verbal mural for them. Then, about 15 years ago, words began to overwhelm me; my words, others’ words, books, magazines, journals, newsfeeds, TV. Too many words!

Then came things I needed to say but for which I didn’t have all the necessary words. Hard things; heart things; holy things. One day – I can’t remember exactly when – less words became enough. There was punctuation and blank space all around my words, and I could hear the words breathe. It was a sigh of relief from an exhausted mule, tired of plowing solo.

My words took the shape of poetry. Not so much in its traditional form. More like prayers, slowly breathed, in-between silence. And in the expansive room created by less wordiness I heard other people’s hearts beating, other stories filling in the blanks.

It was prayer, but also poetry. One day when I was poking my veins for a way to describe it, I wrote “prayer poetry”, then took my pen, marking through the middle four letters: 

prayer poetry. Prayetry was left.

You’ll usually find photos with my shared prayetry, because pictures both speak and beckon us to speak so many words left unsaid.

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

Nourished

Earlier today, I had a wonderful opportunity to sit with a diverse group including scholars, chaplains, pastors, theologians, and writers. We were around the dining table in a friend’s house. It was like being in church, before church was defined by buildings, programs, doctrine, and dogma. It was a holy place, space, and time. We were nourished.

When invitation to the table comes,

even hell and high water aren't excuse.

Hospitality is a gifter who knows

neighbor’s way as far superior

to highway, and kinder than my way.

Agua fresca’s agave and honeydew

refreshed and invited our introductions.

What did we eat, I wonder?

Platters and plates heaped

with more than mere nutrition;

the true pièce de résistance

was the Word, peeled, shared.

Not pieced and parsed, mind you,

but spoken as sacred cuisine,

from which our nourishment is sourced.

Fruit of meaning was melon

reminding us that reading the menu

pales compared to actually partaking.

Garden vegetables crunched,

succulent with summer’s wealth,

giving us the vitamins of discourse.

Chocolate, dark, fire and all,

sweetened and enlivened our conversation,

revealing surprising subtleties.

Elijah went forty days into the wilderness

on the strength of hot-stone bread and water.

I will surely last as long.

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

Empath

It's a road leading

to a place seemingly

impossible to reach;

a person who has

learned how self's pain,

as unique and

incomprehensible as it is,

still has the ability

to connect with another's anguish;

a heart whose cracks learn

to let Grace's living water

ingress and egress

with healing honesty;

a gift from above

opening within

to mediate incarnation

in its simplest form.

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

Trinity

Photo by Cassie Hutchins

The spiritual path opens us

    to pay attention to the sacred

        in every ordinary moment,

to see our own reflection

    and the divine reflection

        in every face, and

to find our own narrative

    and the divine narrative

        in every person’s story.

These three are

    the holy trinity of life:

        moments, faces, stories;

through them, on them,

    and by them, the realm

        of paradise is woven.

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

Go Home

Mark 2:11 “I say to you, stand up, 
take your mat and go to your home."

   Jesus spoke these words

   to a paralyzed man

   who was lowered

   through the roof by friends.

      It was a declaration

      of freedom, proclaimed

      to a man who had no idea

      he'd already been set free.

         Can you imagine

         how unburdening

         these words were?

         If not for gravity,

         he might have floated away.

      I long for the day

      when all water saints

      hear those words.

  

   "Initiating Partners, take up

   your luggage and go home,

   the world is water-safe

   for all God's children."

"Operating Partners, continue

to take up your water bottles

and deliver them

to all the homes

where safe water is needed.

You are the healing and

sustaining arms of hope."

So let it be written;

so let it be lived and loved!

© 2015 Todd Jenkins