Beatitudes Blog

A Listener’s Prayer

A Listener’s Prayer

A Listener’s Prayer J. Marshall Jenkins My Lord God, With a holy heart broken for me, you heal me by breaking my heart for others. Another child of yours sits before me. With the mind of Christ, I put myself aside. We pan this child’s words until we find gold, a...

What Every Heart Needs (poem)

What Every Heart Needs (poem)

  What Every Heart Needs J. Marshall Jenkins   Every heart needs a witness: hidden enough as it is, it needs to be known, cannot remain invisible, yet it can only be seen by its own. Every heart needs tears lest it shrivel and harden like a forgotten raisin...

Praying Through Depression (poem)

Praying Through Depression (poem)

Praying Through Depression by J. Marshall Jenkins   My Lord God, when the cares of the world distract me from the gift of breath, and my worries insist they are as real as the moment’s pain, when regrets come home to crowd and clamor my memory, and the future...

Heart Like an Oyster (poem)

Heart Like an Oyster (poem)

Heart Like an Oyster J. Marshall Jenkins   Your heart is no mere blue thistle surprise on an altar with lilacs, lilies, and leaves, all of which will die soon after the church service ends. No, your heart is an oyster among oysters resting on coral and sharp...

Taking Wind As Love

Taking Wind As Love

Taking Wind As Love J. Marshall Jenkins I remember the wind that caressed my brow when I could not yet walk well. Sitting in the stroller in hot, sticky Montgomery, I watched the air until it moved, which I took as love without hands, without a face, without words,...

The Formerly Blind Man Remembers

The Formerly Blind Man Remembers

The Formerly Blind Man Remembers (poem) by J. Marshall Jenkins “Tell no one,” he insisted after spitting on dust and rubbing the mud in my eyes until I saw, before anything else, his face. Now I understand: Time ripens like a fig, does no good plucked too soon, no...

As a psychotherapist and spiritual director, I bring well-honed insight and skill to these posts; yet, my vulnerability plays a more important part, for more than advice from experts, serious people of faith need resonance with fellow travelers.

In my writing and in your reading and comments, may we face our challenges in God’s compassionate presence rather than in a private dressing room where we try in vain to make ourselves presentable to God at an appointed meeting. God meets us where we are.

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