Poems and readings to reflect on and shape your faith
How to use Faith Shapers:
- Click on ROOMS to pick a theme
- Search for an author/poet by name
- Explore more by using the tags
- Feel free to share Faith Shapers
USE FAITH SHAPERS FOR:
- Prayer or in time of personal need
- Resource for a group meeting
- Illustrations for a devotional address
- Material for a church study course
Latest Posts
Our Father: Hallowed on Earth as in Heaven
May Magnificent
All things rising, all things sizing Mary sees, sympathising With that world of good, Nature's motherhood. Their magnifying of each its kind With delight calls to mind How she did in her stored Magnify the Lord. Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-89), The May...
Let God and Let Go!
I have had worse partings, but none that so Gnaws at my mind still. Perhaps it is roughly Saying what God alone could perfectly show – How selfhood begins with a walking away, And love is proved in the letting go. Cecil Day-Lewis (1904-72), Walking Away ...
Felled
O if we but knew what we do When we delve or hew - Hack and rack the growing green! Since country is so tender…. Where we, even where we mean To mend her we end her, When we hew or delve: After-comers cannot guess the beauty been. Ten or twelve, only ten or...
May Magnificent
All things rising, all things sizing Mary sees, sympathising With that world of good, Nature's motherhood. Their magnifying of each its kind With delight calls to mind How she did in her stored Magnify the Lord. Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-89), The May...
The Bible: Bestowed Word of God
Majestic like the Sun
The Spirit breathes upon the Word, And brings the truth to sight; Precepts and promises afford, A sanctifying light. A glory gilds the sacred page, Majestic, like the sun: It gives a light to every age, It gives, but borrows none. The Hand that gave it...
Born among the trees and leaves
O who will show me those delights on high Echo. I Thou echo, thou art mortal, all men know. Echo. No Wert thou not born among the trees and leaves? Echo. Leaves. And are there any leaves that still abide? Echo. Bide. What leaves are they? Impart the matter wholly....
This book of stars lights to eternal bliss
Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine, And the configurations of their glory! Seeing not only how each verse doth shine, But all the constellations of the story.... Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good, And comments on thee: for in every thing Thy...
Majestic like the Sun
The Spirit breathes upon the Word, And brings the truth to sight; Precepts and promises afford, A sanctifying light. A glory gilds the sacred page, Majestic, like the sun: It gives a light to every age, It gives, but borrows none. The Hand that gave it...
Jesus Christ: Crucified God in Person
Christ is Truth
But ah, bright forelock, cluster that you are Of favoured make and mind and health and youth, Where lies your landmark, sea mark, or soul's star? There's none but truth can stead you. Christ is truth. There's none but good can be good, both for you And what...
Longing!
Under the dark trees, there he stands, there he stands; shall he not draw my eyes? I thought I knew a little how he compels, beyond all things, but now he stands there in the shadows. It will be Oh, such a daybreak, such bright morning, when I shall wake to see him as...
Speak! One Word
‘Thou art a God that hidest Thyself’ (Isaiah 45:15) ... Till Thou givest that sense beyond, To shew Thee that Thou art, and near, Let patience with her chastening wand Dispel the doubt and dry the tear; And lead me child-like by the hand If still in darkness...
Christ is Truth
But ah, bright forelock, cluster that you are Of favoured make and mind and health and youth, Where lies your landmark, sea mark, or soul's star? There's none but truth can stead you. Christ is truth. There's none but good can be good, both for you And what...
Humankind: Sinful, Rebellious and Faithless
My Dragon?
The times are nightfall, look, their light grows less; The times are winter, watch, a world undone.... And I not help.... Or what is else? There is your world within. There rid the dragons, root out there the sin. ’’Your will is law in that small commonweal....
Christmas Check Out
"I'm not looking forward to Christmas," The lass on the store check-out cries, Pinging the goods on the rumbling belt - The bread, and the wine, and the pies. I watch, as I stand in the fidgety queue As the lassie enlightens us all. "The fuss and the...
Stop the Clocks
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone. Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message He is...
My Dragon?
The times are nightfall, look, their light grows less; The times are winter, watch, a world undone.... And I not help.... Or what is else? There is your world within. There rid the dragons, root out there the sin. ’’Your will is law in that small commonweal....
The Grace of God: Justifying and Converting
Homecoming
Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back, Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning, If I lacked anything. ‘A guest’, I answered, ‘worthy to be here.’ Love said,...
God’s Better Beauty
To what serves mortal beauty? Dangerous; does set dancing blood.... What do then? How meet beauty? Merely meet it; own, home at heart, heaven's sweet gift; then leave, let that alone, Yea, wish that though, wish all, God's better beauty, grace. Gerard...
My Trumpetry
From all my lame defeats and oh much more From all the victories that I seemed to score; From cleverness shot forth on thy behalf At which, while angels weep, the audience laugh; From all my proofs of thy divinity, Thou, who wouldst give no sign, deliver me. ...
Homecoming
Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back, Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning, If I lacked anything. ‘A guest’, I answered, ‘worthy to be here.’ Love said,...
Christ-likeness: Progressive Christian Living
Reborn
And now in age I bud again, After so many deaths I live and write; I once more smell the dew and rain, And relish versing. Oh my only light, It cannot be That I am he On whom thy tempests fell all night. George Herbert (1593-1633). The...
Never Too Late
So I go out: my little sweet is done: I have drawn heat from this contagious sun: To not ungentle death now forth I run…. Now I am minded to take pipe in hand And yield a song to the decaying year... So late the hoar green chestnut breaks a bud, And...
Ring it Out and In
... The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true. Ring out the grief that saps the mind For those that here we see no more; Ring out the feud of rich and poor, Ring in redress to all mankind. Ring out a slowly dying cause, And ancient...
Reborn
And now in age I bud again, After so many deaths I live and write; I once more smell the dew and rain, And relish versing. Oh my only light, It cannot be That I am he On whom thy tempests fell all night. George Herbert (1593-1633). The...
Holy Spirit: in Christian Experience
Winged Life
My tender Age in sorrow did begin And still with sicknesses and shame Thou didst so punish sin That I became Most thin. With thee Let me combine, And feel this day thy victory: For if I imp (graft) my wing on thine, Affliction shall advance the flight in me....
Sing Hosanna
Holy Spirit, New-Life Giver, Rushing wind, and gentle inner flame, Come, inspire us, strengthen, fire us, to the glory of your name. Find the riches of Christ in the stranger In the poor and those without...
Hope in the storms of life
Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without words, And never stops at all. And sweetest in the gale is heard; And sore must be the storm That could abash the little bird That kept so many warm. I’ve heard it in the chilliest...
Winged Life
My tender Age in sorrow did begin And still with sicknesses and shame Thou didst so punish sin That I became Most thin. With thee Let me combine, And feel this day thy victory: For if I imp (graft) my wing on thine, Affliction shall advance the flight in me....
Believers: Assured, Called and Prayerful
Only a Watcher!
Honour is flashed off exploit, so we say; And those strokes once that gashed flesh or galled shield Should tongue that time now, trumpet now that field, And, on the fighter, forge his glorious day. On Christ they do and on the martyr may; But be the war within, the...
Big Decision
To every man there openeth A Way, and Ways, and a Way. And the High Soul climbs the High way, And the Low Soul gropes the Low, And in between, on the misty flats, The rest drift to and fro. But to every man there openeth A High Way, and a Low. And every man decideth...
Caged Skylark?
As a dare-gale skylark scanted in a dull cage Man's mounting spirit in his bone-house, mean house, dwells - That bird beyond the remembering his free fells, This in drudgery, day-labouring-out life's age.... Not that the sweet-fowl, song-fowl, needs no rest -...
Only a Watcher!
Honour is flashed off exploit, so we say; And those strokes once that gashed flesh or galled shield Should tongue that time now, trumpet now that field, And, on the fighter, forge his glorious day. On Christ they do and on the martyr may; But be the war within, the...
The Church: Provisional but Necessary
Restore Us
Where our walls Are broken down Rebuild us God Where streets Are neither safe nor sound redeem Rekindle fires of once strong praise Rebound your joys in tone and phrase From ancient stones of walls Once raised for you… Return Messiah King Let these stones sing...
Low Sunday?
Often I try to analyse the quality of its silences. Is this where God hides from my searching?... These are the hard ribs of a body that our prayers have failed to animate. Shadows advance from their corners to take possession of places the light held for an...
You’re Welcome
You're welcome until you're homeless. Until you're drugged up, or drug dealing. Welcome until you're angry, or angsty, or anything other than sane.... Welcome until it's harder to let you in than keep you out. Until the questions you carry are a gospel of...
Restore Us
Where our walls Are broken down Rebuild us God Where streets Are neither safe nor sound redeem Rekindle fires of once strong praise Rebound your joys in tone and phrase From ancient stones of walls Once raised for you… Return Messiah King Let these stones sing...
The Mission of God
Begin Again
Nor can you long be, what you now are, called fair, Do what you may do, what, do what you may, And wisdom is early to despair: Be beginning; since, no, nothing can be done To keep at bay Age and age's evils, hoar hair, Ruck and wrinkle, drooping, dying, death's worst,...
Peace
When will you ever, Peace, wilddove, shy wings shut, You round me roaming end, and under be my boughs? When, Peace, will you Peace? I'll not play hypocrite To own my heart: I yield you do come sometimes; but That piecemeal peace is poor peace. What pure peace allows...
Tell the Truth
Tell all the truth but tell it slant — Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth's superb surprise As Lightning to the Children eased With explanation kind The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind — Emily Dickinson...
Begin Again
Nor can you long be, what you now are, called fair, Do what you may do, what, do what you may, And wisdom is early to despair: Be beginning; since, no, nothing can be done To keep at bay Age and age's evils, hoar hair, Ruck and wrinkle, drooping, dying, death's worst,...
Moral Justice: a Vision of God’s Kingdom
Don’t Retreat
Do not retreat into your private world, That place of safety, sheltered from the storm, Where you may tend your garden, seek your soul, And rest with loved ones where the fire burns warm. To tend a garden is a precious thing But dearer still the one where all...
Victory?
Professional Sports The endless carnival of those sports constitutes a dramatic affirmation of power, wealth and virility in which victory is accomplished by many abusive exploitations, all in pursuit of winning and being top of the heap of the money game....
Human Being!
Human beings are members of a whole, in creation of one essence and soul. If one member is afflicted with pain, other members uneasy will remain. If you have no sympathy for human pain, the name of human you cannot retain. Sa'adi Shirazi (d. c.1291/1292), On the wall...
Don’t Retreat
Do not retreat into your private world, That place of safety, sheltered from the storm, Where you may tend your garden, seek your soul, And rest with loved ones where the fire burns warm. To tend a garden is a precious thing But dearer still the one where all...
Glory: Now and Then, Here and There
World Without End
This world is not conclusion; A sequel stands beyond, Invisible, as music, But positive, as sound. It beckons and it baffles; Philosophies don’t know, And through a riddle, at the last, Sagacity must go. To guess it puzzles scholars; To gain it, men have...
Autumnal
Mars burns bright and close this October: I watch it through the window, as I lie, too-awake, in the dark. Drawn-in under covers as the cold bites, I shrink, foetal-shaped but old-fleshed, frail. I am autumnal: dry-leaved, mud-under-foot, dark-dayed,...
SKYLIGHT
You were the one for skylights. I opposed Cutting into the seasoned tongue-and-groove Of pitch pine. I liked it low and closed, Its claustrophobic, nest-up-in-the-roof Effect. I liked the snuff-dry feeling, The perfect, trunk-lid fit of the old ceiling. Under there,...
World Without End
This world is not conclusion; A sequel stands beyond, Invisible, as music, But positive, as sound. It beckons and it baffles; Philosophies don’t know, And through a riddle, at the last, Sagacity must go. To guess it puzzles scholars; To gain it, men have...