Borrowers

There are a lot of things

that work perfectly well

when they're borrowed:

your neighbor's lawn mower,

your mom's wedding dress,

lunch money, a good book,

or your roommate's jacket.

Then there are borrowing disasters:

anyone's identity, 
someone else's dignity,

a vocation for which

you have no passion.

And the thing which is entirely

beyond the realm of borrowing:

another's theology.

I don't just mean your parents'

or your grandparents' or

your neighbor's.

I also mean a church's or

a long-dead theologian's.

Theology is from two Greek words,

"theos" which means God,

and "logos" which means

words or talk.

It's a conversation, then,

between you and God –

an ongoing dialogue about

your particular here-and-now life:

why you are where you are

and what you can do

to make the world around you –

including your very own self –

not just more tolerable,

but also more joy-filled.

Learn from others' God-conversations,

but never try to convince yourself

that their words/circumstances are yours.

Listen.

Talk.

Listen some more.

Grow.

It's what we're here to do;

how we're meant to be.

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

Serving God

Prayer Before the Meal

Middle Tennessee Presbytery Peacemakers Banquet

October 29, 2015

Plowing God, we are sore in need of your clod-busting. For all the ways you break apart the rigid surface of our comfort and security, turning us under and into the fertile mixture of creation’s humus, so that we might find our existential purpose, we sing to you our alleluias. 

Hear our prayer, O plowing God!

Planting God, we are eternally grateful to have been created in your image, imprinted with holy DNA. For the mystery and miracle of agriculture, both literal and metaphorical, as we are sunk into the places for which you created us, allowing us to bear fruit worthy of your name, we weave our thanksgiving. 

Hear our prayer, O planting God!

Watering God, we are parched by the distractions and detours we have experienced in the wilderness of fear and the deserts of our own choosing. For the flow of life-giving water that quenches thirst of body, mind, and spirit, we pour our gratitude. 

Hear our prayer, O watering God!

Warming God, without the BTUs of your infinite compassion, we would be frozen solid, completely incapable of life, much less of reflecting your light. For the ways you shine hope into the shadows of our lives and world, we give you thanks. 

Hear our prayer, O warming God!

Weeding God, we are easily choked by the vine of material possessions, convinced of our blessedness and quick to hide and hoard. For the tug of your love, uprooting all that separates us from your nurturing presence, we lift our hearts in praise. 

Hear our prayer, O weeding God!

Gathering God, we are blessed to count ourselves among your gatherings. Like a harvest tended all season, pruned and prepared for just such a time as this, brought together with one another to celebrate your gracious gifts, we bring the joy of your gift to the table. 

Hear our prayer, O gathering God!

Spicing God, we are amazed at the ways you blend myriad portions of your creation into savory dishes. For the ways you surprise us with subtle mixtures and pairings we’d never imagine on our own, with enough of your sacred abundance to satisfy the world’s hunger at every level, we rejoice in your recipes. 

Hear our prayer, O spicing God!

Simmering God, we are in constant need of your culinary fire. For your steady heat, softening hearts and minds to see the unifying nature of our holy purpose, gently stirring us so we don’t stick and burn, we waft the steam of our acquiescence. 

Hear our prayer, O simmering God!

Serving God, we continually need reminding to turn and look outward. For the rhythmic cadence of your call to share your shalom, be your peace, and live your salam, we lift our overflowing hearts. 

Hear our prayer, O serving God! Amen. 

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

Sinking

Photo by Joe Stephenson

         The river feels wide;

         Mississippi-wide.

  

      I cannot see the bottom,

      but I know it must

      also be deep.

   As I sit on its bank, I see

   a ship coming downstream.

   Something's wrong.

   The ship is listing.

If I knew the distinction

between starboard and port,

I could tell you

which way it was leaning.

   Whichever way it is,

   it must not be port

   because this vessel isn't going

   to make it to shore.

      There is one person

      visible on deck.

      I strain my eyes

      to identify him.

      It is me.

         Have you ever

         watched yourself sink?

      Helpless, or so it seems,

      the journey you always thought

      you were on is ending,

      not as the brochure described it,

      in some glorious destination,

      but at the bottom of the river

      in the middle of nowhere.

   He -- that is, me --

   is standing there,

   holding firmly to the rail,

   defying gravity as the water level

   rises and consumes him --

   that is, me --

   at a surreal angle.

At first, I panic, knowing full well

that I'm drowning.

Then I realize that the ship

is not my life.

   It's just my dream;

   the plan that's danced

   on and off the stage of my heart

   for the last 28 years.

      Have you ever noticed

      how the word "just"

      often feels like

      a slap in the face?

         A while back, someone told me

         I could breathe underwater.

         I tried not to laugh, because

         I thought she meant it.

         Now, I'm hoping she was serious;

         praying she isn't delusional.

      I look down at my

      on-the-river-bank self.

      My clothes are soaking wet;

      muddy, too.

      Apparently, I can breathe

      underwater. I am.

   I'm going to sit here

   and let the wind dry me.

   I hear another ship

   rounding the bend.

Where do you think

this one's going?

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

Inauguration

Photo by Ben Padgett

In its Latin roots lie

a penciled sketch

of prophetic proportions;

signaling an arrival of one

with ears and eyes

attuned to divine whisper;

one who studies history,

neither to advocate its worship

nor avoid its repetition;

but to pull us toward tomorrow's chapter

by grounding us in

a narrative of holy presence.

Weave us, O inaugurated one,

into an institution with dreams

of grace's realm; speak us into leaders

with gospel courage and compassion;

walk with us into a resurrected church;

where forgiveness overflows,

love is deeply breathed, and

hope's well quenches all thirst.

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

Wealth

Bow to it.

   Wink at it.

      Envy it.

         Fear it.

            Lust for it.

These are but five facets

   of the same pentagon:

      Worship.

Recognize it as

   a gift from creation,

      a tool for doing good,

         a responsibility to community.

These are the trinity of hope.

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

Past Tense

When people bring up

   our past, using it

      as a substitute for

         the here-and-now us,

      they are attempting

   to create tension

out of history.

Never mind that they've

   never considered who they were

      and what they believed,

         said, and did way-back-when.

If who we were long ago

   is who we are now,

      we've probably wasted

   all those years; but

if we've learned differently

   and better, if we've grown

      and become both more giving

   and forgiving, then grace

has seen the light of our days.

Don't let the dredging

   of past tense pull you

      back out to sea

   by its undertow.

Swim across, not against

   the riptide, and let

      grace’s waves bring you

   to love’s secure shore.

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

Zoo Keeping

Photo by Joe Stephenson

      We are forever wanting

      to abduct history’s great imaginations,

      safely domesticating them;

   but in so doing,

   we ​cage them

   in intellectual zoos,

square-pegging them

into safe, round holes

of our own digging,

   completely destroying

   their untamed strength,

   denaturing their virility,

      eventually suffocating them

      with the noose

      of our own interpretation.

   The ideas themselves

   cannot be so captured,

   because they are wild and free,

   roaming the universe’s cerebral plains.

All our attempts squeeze

only a single elucidation,

and that, only for a moment,

   itself no more representative

   of the whole than stick figures

   against the wildebeest

   in its natural element.

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

No Bananas

 

Photo by Allen Black

As I sit by the river,

dangling my feet

in the cool water,

longing to refresh my heart

by quieting my mind,

I hear them coming 
around the upstream bend;

finally catching sight 
of a single monkey,

in a flimsy canoe.

Strong-arming his paddle,

perpendicular to the flow,

he slowly drifts toward me,

eyes pleading.

He is followed by a larger vessel

with several monkeys on board.

They kill the outboard motor

and engage the trolling motor,

drifting sideways, so that

I can look directly into

their insatiable eyes.

The final craft in this flotilla

is a large river paddleboat.

Knowing that I would be here,

its captain has already

let the paddle wheel

cease its forward churn.

I stare into a sea

of starving primate pupils,

each one begging.

This is the arrival 
of negative monkeys 
each morning;

haunting, hungry, beseeching.

I used to try to kill them;

dreaming of picking them off,

one by one, centering them

in the crosshairs of my zeal.

Each time I did, they morphed

into clones of righteous indignation

that I grabbed to club

others’ naysaying monkeys,

wincing as my own blood flowed.

This day, I wave and smile,

showing them my empty hands.

My heart whispers,

“I have no bananas for you,

but I wish you peace

as the river carries you downstream.”

Most days they circle back,

sometimes once more,

other times twice or thrice,

disbelieving that I will not

offer them nourishment.

Finally, disappointed and unfed, 
they set their faces

toward the ocean.

Mine tilts toward hope;

toward a holy “yes”.

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

Patriot

“You keep saying that word. I do not think it means 

what you think it means.” (“The Princess Bride”)

 

Photo by Ben Padgett

It's not someone who clings

   to a past interpretation

      of national identity,

         withdrawing amendments

      1 or 2 or both, worshiping them

   as if they are, in static interpretation,

the be-all and end-all of our existence.

It's not a force field we can activate,

   protecting us from present

      or future examination

   of our actions or interpretations

re our country's founding documents.

If we want to hitch our wagons

   to those who carved this word

   out of their selfless actions

and into their collective identities,

we're going to have to let

   our own energy and enterprise

      be examined in the harsh candlelight

   of the present and the withering

starlight of the future.

History is the root

   of today's loyalty,

not its fruit.

We are gardening

   for patriotism's grapes,

not digging for its peanuts.

The future will judge us,

   not for how we held our ground

      through hell and high water,

   but by how freely we tended

and pruned the vine of hope.

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

More

Dissociation is an

adolescent form of identity,

whether manifested

in individuals or institutions.

Most teenagers, one way

or another and sooner or later,

figure out that,

"I'm not like you!"

neither gives us

a sense of moral or

other superiority, 

nor tells us who we really are.

Once this threshold

is reached, where the emptiness

of difference-shaming is revealed,

the way forward

is through expanding community;

by realizing our differences

are much smaller and

far less consequential

than our simpler selves imagined.

© 2015 Todd Jenkins

The End of Yourself

Photo by Owen Jenkins

If anything but

"I don't know."

is what you find

at the end of yourself,

   I'm pretty sure you

   haven't reached the end,

   but only found a safe place

   to pull over for a while;

      because divine mass and velocity

      are forever at our limits,

      and "I don't know."

      is the truest part

      of our margins.

   A local church marquee

   recently quoted Fr. Cavanaugh

   from the movie, “Rudy”:

   "There is a God

   and I am not Him."

Yep; that pretty much

sums it up.

When you've experienced this,

you're ready to become an artist,

   creating with and from your very life

   the metaphors and imaginings

   of your richest dreams,

   both waking and sleeping.

      Take courage.

      All the brave ones have painted

      this truth without embellishing.

   © 2015 Todd Jenkins