The tree of salvation for me

The tree of salvation for me

Christ died for God and me               Upon the crucifixion tree For God a spoken word               For me a sword For God a hymn of praise               For me eternal days For God an explanation               For me salvation.   Stevie Smith (1902-71),...
I notice the sign and wonder why

I notice the sign and wonder why

Some of us run, some loiter; Some of us turn aside   To erect the Calvary That is our signpost, arms   Pointing in opposite directions To bring us in the end   To the same place, so impossible Is it to escape love….   R.S. Thomas (1913-2000), Mass for Hard Times,...
I am the live God

I am the live God

              … These people know me only in the thin hymns of the mind, in the arid sermons and prayers. I am the live God, nailed fast to the old tree of a nation by its unreal tears. I thirst, I thirst for the spring water. Draw it up for me from your heart’s well...

Recovered Greenness

How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean Are thy returns! ev’n as the flowers of spring; To which, beside their own demean, The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring. Grief melts away Like snow in May, As if there were no such thing.   Who would have thought my...
My Jesus: God in man made visible

My Jesus: God in man made visible

Earth cannot, with all its trinkets’ Slake my longings at this hour; They were captured, they were widened, When my Jesus showed his power. None but he can now content me, He, the Incomprehensible; O to gaze upon his Person, God in man made visible.   Ann Griffiths...