Liz Cooledge Jenkins

Category: Poems

  • Calling all with a “Grand Mother spirit”

    Hi friends, This week I want to offer you two poems. (Well, one’s definitely a poem; the other is debatable, but it’s not not a poem. So I’ll just be calling them “two poems” for short.) We talked about both of them in the “God, Gender, Power” class I’ve been facilitating at my church for…

  • On Palm Sunday (a poem)

    Hi friends, Reflecting on Palm Sunday, when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey greeted by crowds crying “Hosanna!” (meaning “Save us!”), I wrote a poem about some of the things we might need salvation from (and for). If you connect with any of it, or have something you’d like to add, I’d love to…

  • Advent prayer: Soul

    An Advent poem/prayer on the theme of “soul.” Soul God, I want to live and move out of the depths of my soul. I want to see soul in everyone I meet. I want to be connected with my soul. So many forces have tried to break this connection. Sometimes it feels like they have…

  • Advent prayer: Release

    A poem/prayer, reflecting on the theme “release.” I’ve been reading an indigenous memoir called The Woman Who Watches Over the World, by Linda Hogan. One of the things Hogan says happened when she was in the hospital recovering from a traumatic brain injury was that she asked all the questions that had gone unasked and…

  • Advent prayer: Favor

    A poem/prayer on the theme “favor.” Perhaps a loaded word depending on the church-y circles you may have been in. I’m wrestling with that here, as well as more generally what favor could mean in an unjust world. Favor God, I don’t want the kind of favor where I have more and someone else has…

  • Advent prayer: Wisdom

    Continuing with the theme of “Advent poem/prayers from 2021 that I’m still feeling”… The word for this one is “wisdom.” Wisdom God, There is wisdom in our souls, deep down. There is so much we don’t know. We carry some wisdom and we need other humans for the rest. We need the whole of creation…

  • Advent prayer: Open

    Last Advent season, in 2021, I wrote a bunch of poem/prayers, responding to different daily one-word prompts offered by my church. This Advent season felt like a good time to revisit these prayers and share some of the ones that still resonate. This one is on theme: open. Open God, I want to be open…

  • Fourth grade child, crucified

    Processing the grief and horror of the school shooting in Uvalde, TX with a poem. God, have mercy. Fourth Grade Child, Crucified Fourth grade child on the cross, you did not choose this. There is nothing in you nor your family, friends, or schoolmates that deserved this. All forever changed without consent. Where was Christ…

  • Reflections from a Lenten porch sit practice

    For Lent this year I thought I’d add a daily practice of sitting on our back porch for ten minutes, doing nothing. I didn’t actually end up doing this every day. Maybe about half the days total. But hey, twenty-ish days of porch sits are better than no days of porch sits, right? I don’t…

  • Place of Manna, Place of Silence (a Good Friday poem)

    This poem sits somewhere at the intersection of Jesus’ crucifixion on Good Friday, and George Floyd’s murder at the hands of Derek Chauvin, and the reflective wilderness-themed space currently set up in the sanctuary at my church. Place of Manna, Place of Silence Wilderness spaces forlorn places take a rock  and toss it in the…