Poems and readings to reflect on and shape your faith
How to use Faith Shapers:
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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
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Faith-shaping Poets
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Our Father: Hallowed on Earth as in Heaven
Dayspring
At heaven's gate, at break of day, Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think of thee - and then my state (like the lark at break of day arising from sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate ; for thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings, that...
Lighten our darkness
Our church generation Out of his spacious, gracious splendour, They prized God and forced Him into their time; And they surrounded and hymned him, So that he all but disappeared Into their darkness. Ranier Maria Rilke (1875-1926).
He fathers-forth beauty
Glory be to God for dappled things – For skies of couple-colour as a brindled cow; For rose moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh-firecoal chestnut falls; finches wings; Landscape plotted and pierced – fold, fallow, and plough; And all trades, their gear...
God is a Surprise
What is belief? A recognition? Who knows of what? If any say He knows, he lies. Who knows what never was begun And will not end? God is a way, And a surprise. And in that way we cannot choose, For choice deceives us, as it must. We live in sense, Certain at...
The Bible: Bestowed Word of God
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Revelation before religion
Thus man by his own strength to heaven would soar: And would not be obliged to God for more. Vain, wretched creature, how art thou misled To think thy wit these God-lie notions bred! These truths are not the product of thy mind, But dropped from heaven, and of a...
Jesus Christ: Crucified God in Person
Christmas: Poetry or Prose?
Christmas Eve! Five Hundred poets waited, pen Poised above paper, for the poem to arrive, bells ringing. It was because The chimney was too small, because they had ceased to believe, the poem had passed them by on its way out into oblivion, leaving the doorstep bare...
It was himself he played
… I could see, too, the twitching of the fingers, Caught temporarily in art’s neurosis, As we sat there or warmly applauded This player who so beautifully suffered For each of us upon his instrument. So it must have been on Calvary In the fiercer light of the...
Glory in the Silence
Was he baulked by silence? He kneeled long And saw love in a dark crown Of thorns blazing, and a winter tree Golden with fruit of a man’s body. R.S. Thomas (1913-2000), Song at the Year’s Turning, 1955.
Christ My King
No one can come to spiritual delight in the contemplation of Christ’s godhead except he come first in imagination by painful identification, by compassion and steadfast thinking on his humanity. Walter Hilton (1343 – 96), Toward a Perfect Love. ...
Humankind: Sinful, Rebellious and Faithless
Slope to perfection
Because we cannot be clever and honest and are inventors of things more intricate than the snowflake – Lord have mercy. Because we are full of pride in our humility, and because we believe in our disbelief – Lord have mercy. Because we will protect ourselves from...
Imagine: living is easy
Let me take you down, ‘cos I’m going to strawberry fields. Nothing is real and nothing to get hung up about. Strawberry fields for ever. Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see… John Lennon (1940-80), The Beatles, 1967.
A wedding has been
Elaenor Rigby picks up the rice in the church Where a wedding has been, Lives in a dream; Waits at the window, Wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door. Who is it for? John Lennon (1940-80) and Paul McCartney (1942- ).
Rich and weary
When God at first made man, Having a glass of blessings standing by; Let us, said he, pour on him all we can; Let the world’s riches, which dispersed lie Contract into a span. So strength first made a way; Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honour, pleasure; When...
The Grace of God: Justifying and Converting
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Give me a thankful heart
Thou hast given so much to me, Give one thing more, a grateful heart. See how thy beggar works on thee By art. Wherefore I cry, and cry again; And in no quiet canst thou be, Till I a thankful heart obtain Of thee: Not thankful when it pleaseth me; As if thy...
Christ-likeness: Progressive Christian Living
Girl of two worlds
I am the girl of two worlds, My heart belongs to here and there, Two worlds profoundly different, United in my highest regard. Do I live in or between these two worlds? I am the girl of two worlds.
Our love hath no decay
The sun itself, which makes times, as they pass Is elder by a year now than then it was, When thou and I first one another saw; All other things to their destruction draw, Only our love hath no decay; This, no tomorrow hath, nor yesterday. Running, it never runs from...
The Singing Christ
Who is this that comes in splendour, coming from the blazing East? This is he we had not thought of, this is he the airy Christ. Airy, in an airy manner in an airy parkland walking, Others take him by the hand, lead him, do the talking. But the Form, the airy One,...
What the Lord has done for me
Have you no words? Ah, think again! Words flow apace when you complain And fill your fellow creature’s ear With the sad tale of all your care. Were half the breath thus vainly spent To heav’n in supplication sent, Your cheerful song would oft’ner be: ’Hear what the...
Holy Spirit: in Christian Experience
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We grow accustomed to the dark
When light is put away - As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp To witness her Goodbye - A Moment - We uncertain step For newness of the night - Then - fit our Vision to the Dark - And meet the Road - erect - And so of larger - Darknesses - Those Evenings of the Brain -...
Believers: Assured, Called and Prayerful
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. ...
Risky learning
I stepped from Plank to Plank, A slow and cautious way. The Stars about my head I felt, About my Feet the Sea. I knew not but the next Would be my final inch – This gave me that precarious Gait Some call Experience. Emily Dickinson...
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...
In the Night
'Honest Doubt'? You say, but with no touch of scorn, Sweet-hearted, you, whose light-blue eyes Are tender over drowning flies, You tell me, doubt is Devil-born. I know not: one indeed I knew In many a subtle question versed, Who...
The Church: Provisional but Necessary
Church: a meeting place for me and God
In a busy world, A place to be still; In a divided world, A place to find friendship; In a confusing world, A place to find direction; In a sinful world, A place to know the love of God. A place for loving, When the world hates; A place for hoping, When the...
I knew it all, dividing tact from truth
I was the chapel pastor, the abrupt shadow staining the neutral fields, troubling the men who grew there with my glib dutiful praise of a fool’s world; a man ordained for ever to pick his way along the grass-strewn wall dividing tact from truth. I knew it all,...
Choosing a pastor
They chose their pastors as they chose their horses for hard work. But the last one died sooner than they expected; nothing sinister, You understand, but just the natural breaking of the heart beneath a load unfit for horses, ‘Ay, he’s a good ‘un’, Job Davies had...
Pray with the most
Though private prayer be a brave design, Yet public hath more promises, more love: And love's a weight to hearts, to eyes a sign. We all are but cold suitors; let us move Where it is warmest. Leave thy six and seven; Pray with the most: for where most pray, is...
The Mission of God
Christ in the weakness of his power
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...
Your Kingdom Come
It’s a long way off, but inside it there are quite different things going on: festivals at which the poor man is king and the consumptive is healed; mirrors in which the blind look at themselves and loves look at them back; and industry is for mending the bent bones...
I Am a Child of God
When a person acquainted with the music of God appears, one who is wise both in words and deeds (Luke 7:32)… then this person will produce the sound of the music of God, since he has learned from all this how to strike the chords at the appropriate time: now the...
Let all the world sing
Let all the world in every corner sing, My God and King ! The church with psalms must shout, No door can keep them out ; But above all the heart Must bear the longest part. Let all the world in every corner sing, My God and King ! George Herbert...
Moral Justice: a Vision of God’s Kingdom
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Human rights matter
W’en wi can’t face reality Wi leggo wi clarity; Some latch on to vanity, Some hol’ insanity, Some get vision, Start preach relijan But dem can’t make decision W’en it come to wi fight; Dem can’t make decision W’en it comes to wi rites. Linton Kwesi Johnson...
Glory: Now and Then, Here and There
Our Last Awakening
Bring us, O Lord our God, At our last awakening Into the house and gate of heaven, to enter into that gate and dwell in that house, Where there shall be no darkness or dazzling, But one equal light: No noise or silence, but one equal music: No fears or hopes, But one...
Face to face
I pray you, merciful Jesus, that as you have graciously granted me joyfully to imbibe the words of your knowledge, so you will also, of your goodness, grant that I may come at length to you, the fount of all wisdom, and stand before your face for ever. ...
Taking the world into my arms
When it’s over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder If I have made of my life something particular, and real, I don’t want to find myself...
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....