Advent Urgency

Advent urgency: a faithful attitudinal posture that avoids the polar-opposite pitfalls of complacency and anxiety. Complacency is fueled by certitude regarding most of life’s mysteries, and a cocksureness that this understanding has earned us a well-deserved rest and deliverance from the chaos and foibles of mere mortals. It is a satisfaction with our "place" that is built on the perception that this place is above most, if not all, other people.

Fear, on the other hand, is the empty-caloried food that nourishes anxiety and starves hope, focusing our attention and energy on the host of destructive possibilities in the universe, and projects them as an unconquerable monster on the big screen of the psyche.  Fear is the place where, instead of the noble eagle riding currents of wind/spirit wherever it takes her, we are much more likely to see the buzzard, hard-banking in ever-shrinking circles ‘round a decaying mass of flesh.  Advent urgency is the hope that stems from the anticipation that God’s promise is not only true, but also arriving.

 © 2011 Todd Jenkins

Thanks for Giving

Thanks for giving: I’ve got a boatload of it; can’t seem to get rid of it all. Every time I think I’ve given it all away, I find more! I’ve also got a boatload of other stuff (actually more like a house-full and a storage unit full), and finding ways to give it away also adds to that never-ending pile of thanks for giving. Is it just me, or does it seem that way to you, too?

But I know that even those of us who have boatloads and houses full also have empty, hurting places that ooze pain and seep tears. The Norman Rockwell holiday dream that we’re sold only adds to the seepage. May we find the courage to be no less and no more than our true selves, the grace to accept the true selves of our blood and kin, the wisdom to avoid further injury, and the hope to live with more anticipation and less expectation.

© 2011 Todd Jenkins

Small World

A GE TV commercial says, “We are building (aircraft) engines that make the world smaller.” Larger airplanes with larger engines with greater range are not what make the world smaller. Our continued addiction to fossil fuel may indeed make the world smaller, but not in the way we had hoped.

The thing that makes the world smaller in a good way is conversation. People sitting down and finding out enough about one another to realize that our commonalities far outweigh our differences—this will make the world smaller. Learning that we are all interconnected and that the decisions that one person makes in freedom have the potential to place thousands, if not millions, in peril will make the world smaller.

These are the conversations that create barriers to war, fear, mistrust, and hatred. These are the connections that put us in touch with common denominators that open doors and windows to the kind of math that Jesus practiced—not zero-sum math, but invitational math. Jesus must have liked fresh air and sunlight, because he spent most of his time opening doors, windows, and letting people rip open the roof.

What doors, windows, and roofs have opened in your conversations?

© 2011 Todd Jenkins

Upside Down House

Strange as it may seem, the only house that can withstand the crush of all the chaos that life has to offer is the house of religion whose foundation is faith.  More often than not, we build our houses upside down, using religion as a foundation, trying to decorate with faith.  When faith feels less like your foundation and more like your decor, it’s time to keep digging.

 © 2011 Todd Jenkins

Veterans Day

Let us refuse to allow Veterans Day to be limited to a 24-hour catch-up for 364 days of taking for granted all of the men and women who chose (or were drafted) and choose to give of themselves and their families in military service to our nation. Let us, instead, use this Veterans Day to commit ourselves to a lifetime of respect, support, and appreciation for all veterans. Let us refuse to allow them to become pawns of politics or jesters of jingoistic patriotism. Let us demand that all veterans be provided the physical, psychological, intellectual, and vocational support necessary to regain their lives when their service is completed. Let us insist that both the cost of and the effect on particular human lives be a legitimate participant in every conversation about war's possibility, direction, and duration. To do any less would be to dishonor veterans and Veterans Day. 

© 2011 Todd Jenkins

Grace

We are not sultans of grace—absolute rulers or despots who control its depth and distribution—but we are among those whose lives have been eastered-up out of sin’s primordial ooze from the universe’s fiery core of hope. Let it flow, let it glow, let it show! 

Distilled Inverted Pyramid

 When fathomless places of another

spill out onto my being,

causing deep to soak to deep,

there comes a time and place

when feelings just won’t keep.

 Words with their emotions pour

onto napkin, keyboard, page,

leave impressions on my being:

overwhelming joy, grief, outrage.

 Word piles into line and verse,

first in droves but then

descending; much more terse.

 Until the end is finally found,

and all that’s left upon the ground:

 a single line of hope distilled.

© 2011 Todd Jenkins