Inside-Out

"Judge not, lest ye be judged."

doesn't feel so much like

a free-for-all in which

everyone can get away

with anything, as it does

a reminder that each of us sees

the world through the filter of self;

and when we pretend that we don't –

when we decide and declare

that the most important changes

needed in the world should come from

and be most costly to others –

we are completely ignoring both

our greatest challenge 
and our finest opportunity

to make the world a better place.

Transformation from within

is both possible and essential,

not because we are capable

or holy on our own, but because

we are created from and with divine breath.

Resurrection is a gift from God

that rests at the core of our being.

We can spend our time expecting

someone else to bring us joy –

to rescue us from loneliness and discontent –

keeping a tight lid on the spark within,

or we can practice setting self aside

and getting out of the way

so resurrection overflows.

It's an inside-out reaction

that turns grace loose and sets hope free.

© 2013 Todd Jenkins

Neighbor

In Dependence

Though it may feel like

a courageously climbed mountain,

independence is more

of a slippery slope.

Each of its manifestations comes

with a price; each release

attaches a sometimes-invisible tether.

Country to country,

economy to economy,

people to people;

no piper goes unpaid.

There's really only one

freedom that's free –

that doesn't entangle the universe

in a throat-grasping imbalance of desperation.

It's not the freedom

to choose what others can’t,

not the freedom

to have what others don't.

It's the freedom to be

who others can't:

the one true, connected self

of voluntary gifting and dependence

for which God created you.

© 2013 Todd Jenkins

Freedom

It really has no thumbnail view;

won’t be found where “me and mine”

live in homogenously gated communities;

bolts unannounced with claustrophobia

when its definition is squeezed

into the privatized closet of self.

Violence and control are temporary.

The forces of the universe can only

be held at bay for so long before

cracks in the dam of possessiveness

begin to leak the world back into balance.

Freedom resides outside the walls,

beyond the cliffs, near the beach,

where the sea of humanity steadily

and gently laps against earth’s shore.

That’s where the hungry are fed,

the naked clothed, the sick healed,

and the dead laid to rest in peace.

It knows no borders, fears no differences,

sleeps with neither medicine nor anxiety;

is possessed by God and possesses not.

© 2013 Todd Jenkins

Born on Third

(Living the American Dream)

I must have hit a triple,

'cause here I am on third.

Of course I wasn't born here;

that whole idea's absurd!

Daddy is the umpire,

mama cooks the books;

but isn't that the way

everybody's life looks?

It's true what they say,

"It's lonely at the top."

When all your views are down,

it's really hard to stop.

I've got more stuff than friends;

that doesn't really matter.

It's hard to let your guard down

when your wallet's getting fatter.

One day I'm going to slow down

and be that kind of guy

people want to hang with;

for now I'm kind of shy.

I worry what they're thinking

about the things I say,

and whether they will judge me

or try to take my pay.

It's hard to feel normal

when you're such a special guy.

I do my best to fake it;

I'm usually pretty sly.

Tried ordinary once

but then I got burned.

No one would acknowledge

the luxuries I'd earned.

It's nice here on third;

I'm such a go-getter.

When I steal home,

it'll be even better!

© 2013 Todd Jenkins

Tabernacle

Revelation 21:3 uses  σκηνή,

or "tabernacle" two times,

describing God's abode (noun) 

and abiding (verb) in our midst.

God is completely mobile and holy;

two essential characteristics

of  amazing grace and love.

Mobility transcends the single location

of our worship sanctuaries.

Holy is the divine spice that infuses

every element of the universe.

Together, these two inseparable qualities

assure God's abiding in every time,

place, and circumstance of human existence.

Profane, then, becomes nothing more

than our refusal to recognize

the presence of the holy tabernacler.

© 2013 Todd Jenkins

Obsession

Information is our culture's new drug of choice.

Convinced that more will get us higher

and overdosing is impossible,

we demand ever-larger syringes-full

and smoke it like it's going out of style.

Giddy with increasingly useless varieties,

we no longer care about quality or purpose.

Self-absorbed, we are sots filled only with

the numbing repetition of data

insulating us from reality. 

Our minds and spirits saturated with trash

equivalent to Sterno strained through a loaf of bread,

we're neither capable of connecting

with narratives nor people.

All we can do is spout irrelevance in random patterns,

the synapses of communion long-since atrophied.

So insidious is this hallucinogenic that we

completely fail to appreciate the logical disconnect

between our appetite for it and our paranoia

regarding broad distribution of our personal data.

Deliver us, O Lord, from this addiction

and its accompanying implosion.

Clear our caches that we might once again

store and retrieve sagas of community.

Gather our fragmented bytes that

they might be archived by love.

Show us again the miracle of stillness,

the healing of silence, the grace of space,

that we relearn the art of interfacing

our memoirs with yours and others',

through the unifying gift of our risen storyteller.

© 2013 Todd Jenkins