‘Do you believe in a God who can change the course of events on earth?’ ‘No, just the ordinary one.’ A laugh, But not so stupid: events He does not, it seems, determine for the most part. Whether He could is not to the point; it is not stupid to believe in a God who...
I come in the little things, Saith the Lord: Not borne on morning wings Of majesty, but I have set my feet Amidst the delicate and blade of wheat That springs triumphant in the furrowed sod. There do I dwell, in weakness and in power: Not broken or divided, saith our...
At once a voice outburst among The bleak twigs overhead In a full-hearted evensong Of joy unlimited; An aged thrush, frail, gaunt and small, An blast-beruffled plume, Had chosen thus to fling his soul Upon the growing gloom. So little cause for carollings Of such...
Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure; What entered into thee, That was, is, and shall be: Time’s wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure Robert Browning (1812-89).
Why do we buy a newspaper For it’s plain for us to see The pulp that it is made of Was better as a tree? George Knowles, Pit to Priest, Hucknall, May 2007.
I think that I shall never see A billboard lovely as a tree. Perhaps unless the billboards fall, I’ll never see a tree at all. Ogden Nash (1902 – 71), Song of the Open Road, 1933.
Suddenly after long silence he has become voluble. He addresses me from a myriad directions with fluency of water, the articulateness of green leaves: and in the genes, too, the components of my existence. The rock, so long speechless, is the library of his poetry. He...
And God is the weight that bends the bough of the young tree gently as spring snow. He is the lightness of the summer flower, of the bee’s touch, and his the power that tames the sea and poises like a feather or a loose leaf the world. He threads together the stars...
The poet must carve a path out of the world’s stone that leads up to the word of God. And this without knowing whether his words have the fine engraved edges of words in a monument or the movement you see in the travelling stars or opening flowers. In a child’s...
Shall I collect together all the words that praise your holy name? Shall I give you all the names of this world, you, the unnameable? Shall I call you, “God of my life, meaning of my existence, hallowing of my acts, my journey’s end, bitterness of my bitter hours,...
It is not far to go For you are near, It is not far to go For you are here. And not by travelling, Lord, We come to you, But by the way of love, And we love you. Amy Wilson Carmichael (1867-1951), Edges of His Ways, 1980.
And every common bush aflame with God But only he who sees takes off his shoes, The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries. Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-61), Aurora Leigh.