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
Affluence or temperance
Imposter! Do not charge most innocent Nature, As if she would her children should be riotous With her abundance. She, good cateress, Means her provision only to the good, That live according to her sober laws, And holy dictate of spare Temperance. If every just man...
Praying for Lucy
Come down, O Christ, and help me! Reach thy hand, For I am drowning in a stormier sea Than Simon on thy Lake of Galilee: The wine of life is spilt upon the sand, Me heart is in some famine-murdered land Whence all good things have perished utterly, And well I know my...
Feeling the Cold?
I found Him not in world or sun, Or in eagle’s wing, or insect’s eye; Nor through the questions men may try, The petty cobwebs we have spun:… A warmth within the breast would melt The freezing reason’s coldest part, And like a man in wrath the heart Stood up...
God’s a Phone, Maybe
...say God's a phone, maybe. You know you didn't order a phone, but there it is. It rings. You don't know who it could be. You don't want to talk, so you pull out the plug. It rings. You smash it with a hammer till it bleeds springs and coils and clobbery metal bits....
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...
Endless Carnival
The endless carnival... constitutes a dramatic affirmation of power, wealth and virility, in which 'victory' is accomplished by many abusive exploitations, all in the pursuit of winning and being on top of the heap of the money game. Walter Brueggemann (1933 -...
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
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....
A face that makes simplicity a grace
Give me a look, give me a face That makes simplicity a grace; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free, Such sweet neglect more taketh me Than all the adulteries of art. They strike my eyes but not my heart. Ben Johnson (1573-1637).
Song of a Lesbian
All my life’s been lived in fragments, Just a part of me was shown, A part I shared with friends, And a part I lived at home, A part I showed my work-place And a part the church could share, And a part of me was hidden In closets of despair. Marsha Stevens...
Holy Spirit: in Christian Experience
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...
My unburied spark
Cold in the dust this perished heart may lie, But that which warmed it once will never die! That spark unburied in its mortal frame With living light, eternal, and the same. Thomas Campbell (1777-1844).
Pure beauty
The memory of a glorious moment, My soul was stirred And once again you came, A passing vision, A glimmer of beauty pure. In fullness beats my heart, feeling once again The resurrection of divinity, And inspiration, and life, And tears, and love. Alexander...
Believers: Assured, Called and Prayerful
An unaccustomed wine
I bring an unaccustomed wine To lips long parching next to mine, And summon them to drink…. And so I always bear the cup If, haply, mine may be the drop Some pilgrim thirst to slake, - If, haply, any say to me, “Unto the little, unto me,” When I at last...
Is Anybody There?
Prayers like gravel flung at the sky's window, hoping to attract the loved one’s attention. But without visible plaits to let down for the believer to climb up, to what purpose open that far casement? I would have refrained long since but that peering once through my...
Captain aboard!
With thee on board, each sailor is a king, Nor I mere captain of my vessel then, But heir of earth and heaven, eternal child; Daring all truth, nor fearing anything; Mighty in love, the servant of all men; Resenting nothing, taking rage and blare Into the Godlike...
Grow Younger
My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky: So was it when my life began; So is it now I am a man; So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die! The Child is father of the Man; And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety....
The Church: Provisional but Necessary
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...
Alone together
Oh, the comfort – the inexpressible comfort Of feeling safe with a person, Having neither to weigh thoughts Nor measure words, But pour them out, just as they are, Chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand Will take and sift them, Keeping what is worth...
Heaven in ordinary
Prayer the Church's banquet, Angels age, God's breath in man returning to his birth, The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage, The Christian plummet sounding heaven and earth; Engine against the almighty, sinners' tower, Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing...
The Mission of God
A window through thy grace
LORD, how can man preach thy eternal word: He is a brittle crazy glass: Yet in thy temple thou dost him afford This glorious and transcendent place, To be a window, through thy grace. But when thou dost anneal in glass thy story, Making thy life to shine...
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.
Saved to save others
Are you content, have you no higher aim Than just to gain admittance at the door, In faintest characters to trace your name Among the list of those who die no more? Do you not feel that you are saved to live? Do you not know you are saved to save? Forgiven that you...
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
Undressed for a Deeper Life, my Love
Well may this body poorer, feebler grow! It is undressing for its last sweet bed; But why should the soul, which death shall never know, Authority, and power, and memory shed? It is that love with absolute faith would wed: God takes the inmost garments off his child...
Love’s fire thou art
Love’s fire thou art, however cold I be, Nor heaven have I, nor place to lay my head, Nor home, but thee. Christina Rossetti (1828-82).
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.
Living for now, and then
Thy life is Gods, thy time to come is gone, And is his right. He is thy night at noon: he is at night Thy noon alone. The crop is his, for he has sown. And well it was for thee, when this befell, That God did make Thy business his, and in thy life partake: For...