Poems and readings to reflect on and shape your faith
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Faith-shaping Poets
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Our Father: Hallowed on Earth as in Heaven
Almost a Successful Failure
It was the first failure (Mons Officer Training Unit, Aldershot) I’d ever had, but it was salutary. I had begun my National Service as a committed Christian, a Conservative and, I’m sure, a prig. Now priggishness apart, I was none of these things quite, and though I...
What Now?
Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze...
Tomorrow Morning
Here dies another day, During which I have had eyes, ears, hands And the great world around me; And with tomorrow begins another. Why am I allowed two? G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936).
Feeling 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,...
The Bible: Bestowed Word of God
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The abstract answer and the incarnate mystery
The windless northern surge, the sea-gull’s scream And Calvin’s kirk crowning the barren brae…. The Word made flesh here is made word again, A word made word in flourish and arrogant crook. See here King Calvin with his iron pen, And God three angry letters in a book...
Jesus Christ: Crucified God in Person
I bet my life on Christ
…. I bet my life on beauty, truth, And love! Not abstract, but incarnate truth; Not beauty’s passing shadow, but its self, Its very self made flesh – love realized. I bet my life on Christ, Christ crucified. Behold your God! My soul cries out. He hangs, Serenely...
a gambler who won
And, sitting down, they watched him there, The soldiers did; There, while they played with dice, And, sitting down, they watched him there, The soldiers did; There, while they played with dice, He made his sacrifice, And died upon the cross to rid God’s world of sin....
Where has he Gone?
Make no mistake If he rose at all It was as his body; If the cells’ dissolution did not reverse’ The molecules reknit, the amino acids rekindle, the church will fall. It was not the flowers, Each soft Spring recurrent; It was not as his spirit in the mouths and...
No Shore in Sight
If you can stay in the midst of the turmoil unperplexed and calm because you see Jesus, that is God's plan in your life. Not that you may be able to say, 'I have done this and now it's alright.' We have an idea that God is leading us to a certain goal, a desired...
Humankind: Sinful, Rebellious and Faithless
Halts by me that footfall
I fled him down the nights and down the days. I fled him down the arches of the years; I fled him down the labyrinthine ways Of my own mind; and, in the midst of tears I hid from him, and under running laughter. Up vistaed slopes I sped; And shot precipitated, Adown...
Worthless fame
No not to us, O Lord! The praise or glory be Of any deed or word; For in thy judgement lies To crown or bring to nought All knowledge or device That man has reached or wrought. And we confess our blame – How all too high we hold That noise which men call fame, That...
The little devil
He makes the dust to rise from the earth with his swagger; He adds his loud voice to every word that I utter; He is my own little self, my Lord, he knows no shame; But I am ashamed to come to thy door in his company. Rabindranath Tagore...
Twisted Religion
I have pretended long, in loyalty. I had a childhood hurt for five harsh years, I let it wound my good fragility And over decades I've shed many tears And sometimes wished that I were wholly free Of faith because it was to me all fears, Unhappiness and, yes,...
The Grace of God: Justifying and Converting
Grandfather
Grandfather sits and begins breakfast, Staring into is coffee cup…. He is a Calvinist to be sure, sound and wise if settled in his ways. He believes in hell, and firmly in damnation, but will not call it down. He sees himself growing out of this world: trying hard not...
View me Lord, a work of thine
In thy word, Lord, is my trust, To thy mercies fast I fly; Though I am but clay and dust, Yet thy grace can lift me high. View me Lord, a work of thine: Shall I then lie drowned in night? Might thy grace in me but shine, I should seem made all of light…....
Lord for ever mine
My God, how perfect are thy ways! But mine polluted are; Sin twines itself around my praise, And slides into my prayer. When I would speak what thou hast done To save me from my sin, I cannot make thy mercies known But self-applause creeps in. Divine desire, that holy...
Sin where I begun
Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun, Which was my sin, though it were done before? Wilt thou forgive that sin through which I run, And do run still, though still I do deplore? When thou hast done, thou hast not done, For I have more. Wilt thou forgive that sin...
Christ-likeness: Progressive Christian Living
Power must subserve wisdom
Power and Wisdom But what is strength without a double share Of wisdom? Vast, unwieldy, burdensome, Proudly secure, yet liable to fall By weakest subtleties; not made to rule, But to subserve where wisdom bears command. John Milton (1608-74), Samson...
Let the voice of conscience be heard
Strange fondness of the human heart, Enamoured of its harm! Strange world, that costs it so much smart, And still has power to charm. Whence has the world her magic power? Why deem we Death a foe? Recoil from weary life’s best hour, And covet longer woe? ...
The just man justices
I say more: the just man justices; Keeps grace: that keeps his goings graces; acts in God’s eyes what in God’s eyes he is – Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places, lovely in limbs and lovely in eyes not his to the Father through the features of men’s faces....
Fulfilled
Human persons in every age, always and everywhere, whether they realise and reflect upon it or not, are in relationship with the unutterable mystery of human life that we call God. Looking at Jesus Christ the crucified and risen one, we can have the hope that now in...
Holy Spirit: in Christian Experience
Time passes, waiting
… Young I pronounced you. Older I still do, but seldomer now, leaning far out over an immense depth, letting your name go and waiting, somewhere between faith and doubt for the echoes of its arrival. R.S. Thomas (1913-2000), Frequencies,...
Setting others free
Drained is love in making full; Bound in setting others free; Poor in making many rich; Weak in giving power to be. W.H. Vanstone (1923-99), Love’s Endeavour, Love’s Expense.
A Christian of sorts
I’m a Christian in my way; How it’s difficult to say; I’ve the haziest sort of notion What I mean by my devotion. Clichés clutter in my head, Catch words are my daily bread, Exquisitely undefined is the thing I call my mind. David Elton Trueblood...
Unless I catch fire
Unless the eye catch fire The God will not be seen. Unless the ear catch fire The God will not be heard. Unless the tongue catch fire The God will not be named Unless the heart catch fire The God will not be...
Believers: Assured, Called and Prayerful
Unwrap our Darkness
We can scarcely believe it, God, this story of your birth in the world. We rationalize and reason, we read the headlines and we doubt, and still, we hope, desperately, that it just might be true. If we have lost faith in the promise of change, unwrap our doubt to make...
First Love
You have broken my heart. I cannot stop thinking about you. I love you even though I have met you only once. Others may have given up on you not realizing your potential but I see something in you. You made me cry but you have helped me to realize what is important in...
A flash of rare delight
Though I believe the resurrection truth, that good triumphant in the end is known. Yet all of life seems twisted so by grief that joy and sorrow have together grown. So to endure is all that I can give. Enjoyment is a flash of rare delight. While only Christ...
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...
The Church: Provisional but Necessary
Churchgoing
A serious house on serious earth it is, In whose blent air all our compulsions meet, Are recognised, and robed as destinies. And that much can never be obsolete Since someone will forever be surprising A hunger in himself to be more serious, And gravitate with it to...
Bishops?
I admire the Bishops of the Church of England No man can be a Bishop of the Church of England And a fool. A man can be a Bishop of the Church of England And a knave. But Fortunately Few if any of the Bishops of the Church of England Are men of ill will. They do their...
Two friends: such love
Such love I cannot analyse; It does not rest in lips or eyes, Neither in kisses nor caress. Partly, I know, it’s gentleness And understanding in one word Or in brief letters. It’s preserved By trust and by respect and awe, These are the words I’m feeling for. Two...
The way into church!
I see a door, a multitude near by, In creed and quarrel, sure disciples all! Gladly they would, they say, enter the hall, But cannot, the stone threshold is so high.... But see, one comes; he listens to the voice; Careful he wipes his weary dusty feet! The...
The Mission of God
Useless
When I consider how my light is spent Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent Therewith to serve my Maker, and present My true account, lest he returning chide, ‘Doth God...
Good and bad fences
My apple trees will never get across And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbours.’ Robert Frost (1874-1963), Mending Wall, 1914.
The Otherwise Gifted Shame Us
Shame is my name Lame are my feet Shunned is my face My fame is disgrace. Frances M. Young, Brokenness and Blessing.
Remember
Do not face us, O living God, with the future of a world without justice or a future without mercy; in your mercy, establish justice, and, in your justice, remember your overflowing mercy in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Michael Vasey (1946-98). ...
Moral Justice: a Vision of God’s Kingdom
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Hiroshima, after the bomb
After the bomb had fallen, After the last sad cry When the earth was a burnt-out cinder Drifting across the sky; Came Lucifer, son of the morning With his fallen angel band, Silent and swift as a vulture On a mountain top stand. And he looked as he stood...
Glory: Now and Then, Here and There
Loved ones gone before
There’s a Friend for little children Above the bright blue sky. They are watching at the portal, They are waiting at the door, Waiting only for my coming, All the loved ones, gone before. Albert Midlane, Sacred Songs and Solos.
This world of our happiness
Not in Utopia – subterranean fields – Or some secreted island, Heaven knows where! But in the very world, which is the world Of all of us – the place where, in the end, We find our happiness, or not at all. William Wordsworth (1770-1850), The...
My life’s star
The soul that rises with us, our life's star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of...
A little boat adrift!
Adrift! A little boat adrift! And night is coming down! Will no one guide a little boat Unto the nearest town? So, sailors say, on yesterday, Just as the dusk was brown, One little boat gave up its strife, And gurgled down and down. But angels say, on...