Poems and readings to reflect on and shape your faith
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USE FAITH SHAPERS FOR:
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Latest Posts
Faith-shaping Poets
Mary Oliver (1935-2019) – Faith Shaper
Mary Oliver was born and raised in Maple Hills Heights, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. Abused as a child by her father and neglected by her mother, she commented ‘I was very little. But I had recurring nightmares; there’s damage.’[1] She described the setting: ‘It was...
R.S. Thomas (1913-2000) – Faith Shaper
Ronald Stuart Thomas (1913-2000), or R.S. Thomas, the name under which he was published, was a leading British poet of the twentieth century. He wrote about the people of Wales in a style that some critics have compared to that nation's harsh and rugged terrain. Many...
Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy (1883-1929) – Faith Shaper
Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy was son of an Irish Anglican clergyman who lived in an age of Victorian middle-class prosperity, and British global power and influence. Born in his father’s vicarage in Leeds, he grew up in a city noted in 1904 for its poverty.[1]...
Emily Dickinson (1830-86) – Faith Shaper
Emily Dickinson’s father was a leading local lawyer and treasurer of the well-known Amherst College, founded in 1821. From 1840 she was educated at the Academy and then for a year at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary. At the age of 23 she withdrew from most social...
Our Father: Hallowed on Earth as in Heaven
He Died Climbing
On the throne of emptiness I sit and wait To see wings of freedom appear From a land enthronged with gold – Such a beautiful state – As to put a mind at rest And throw away my fear. Arthur De Kusel was killed climbing in Chamonix in July 1970. ...
‘Do the Little Things’
Brothers be ye constant. The yoke which with single mind ye have taken, bear ye to the end: and whatever ye have seen with me and heard, keep and fulfil. The last words of Saint David (c. 520 - c.600)
Wintering Out
I remember this woman who sat for years In a wheelchair, looking straight ahead Out the window at sycamore trees unleafing And leafing at the far end of the lane. Straight out past the TV in the corner, The stunted, agitated hawthorn bush, The same small calves with...
Tree-lighted!
How will the legend of the age of trees Feel, when the last tree falls in England? When the concrete spreads and the town conquers The country’s heart; when contraceptive Tarmac’s laid where farm has faded, Tramline flows where slept a hamlet, And shop-fronts, blazing...
The Bible: Bestowed Word of God
Foresight
This book I read
This book I read Floats in my hand like a water lily, Coming out of the nutrient waters of thought And light shines on us both, The morning’s breviary. Diane Wokoski (1937-).
Word of life that fires me
Lord, for the years your love has kept and guided, Urged and inspired us, cheered us on our way, Sought us and saved us, pardoned and provided, Lord of the years, we bring our thanks today. Lord, for that word, the word of life which fires us, Speaks to our hearts and...
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....
Jesus Christ: Crucified God in Person
My Morning Star
O Christ, our morning star, Splendour of light eternal, Shining with the glory of the rainbow. Come and waken us From the greyness of our apathy, And renew in us Your gift of hope. Venerable Bede (672-735)
Down to the World’s Cradle
Down to that littleness, down to all that Crying and hunger, all that tiny flesh And flickering spirit – down the great stars fall, Here the great kings bow. Here the farmer sees his fragile lambs, Here the wise man throws his books away. This manger is the universe’s...
Palm Sunday
When fishes flew and forests walked And figs grew upon thorn, Some moment when the moon was blood Then surely I was born. And monstrous head and sickening cry And ears like errant wings, And devil's walking parody On all four-footed things. The tattered...
Longing!
Under the dark trees, there he stands, there he stands; shall he not draw my eyes? I thought I knew a little how he compels, beyond all things, but now he stands there in the shadows. It will be Oh, such a daybreak, such bright morning, when I shall wake to see him as...
Humankind: Sinful, Rebellious and Faithless
My Dragon?
The times are nightfall, look, their light grows less; The times are winter, watch, a world undone.... And I not help.... Or what is else? There is your world within. There rid the dragons, root out there the sin. ’’Your will is law in that small commonweal....
Christmas Check Out
"I'm not looking forward to Christmas," The lass on the store check-out cries, Pinging the goods on the rumbling belt - The bread, and the wine, and the pies. I watch, as I stand in the fidgety queue As the lassie enlightens us all. "The fuss and the...
Stop the Clocks
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone. Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message He is...
Not Nobody!
In life I worked hard and achieved a great deal but in the end I achieved nothing. Solo Nemo
The Grace of God: Justifying and Converting
Held Fast
I threaten'd to observe the strict decree Of my dear God with all my power and might; But I was told by one it could not be; Yet I might trust in God to be my light. "Then will I trust," said I, "in Him alone." "Nay, e'en to trust in Him was also His:...
On a Friday Morning
It was on a Friday morning that they took me from the cell and I saw they had a carpenter to crucify as well. You can blame it on to Pilate You can blame it on the Jews You can blame it on the Devil But it's God that I accuse 'It’s God they ought to crucify...
Spring is Not our Mating Season
I will not kiss you, country fashion, By hedgesides where Weasel and hare Claim kinship with our passion.... This bare clay-pit is truest setting For love like ours: No bed of flowers But sand-ledge for our petting. The Spring is not our mating season:...
God’s Better Beauty
To what serves mortal beauty? Dangerous; does set dancing blood.... What do then? How meet beauty? Merely meet it; own, home at heart, heaven's sweet gift; then leave, let that alone, Yea, wish that though, wish all, God's better beauty, grace. Gerard...
Christ-likeness: Progressive Christian Living
Forgiven and Forgiving
History teaches us that we sometimes need saving from ourselves - from our recklessness, or our greed. God sent into the world a unique person - neither a philosopher nor a general - but a Saviour, with the power to forgive. Forgiveness lies at the heart of the...
Compassion
We in our prideful counting are answerable to you: Facing the cost of our pride, we choose you; We choose you and your compassion; We choose you, because we trust that, You do not deal with us according to our sins, Nor repay us according to our iniquities. So we...
Not My King! Then Who is?
Love that gives, gives ever more, gives with zeal, with eager hands, spares not, keeps not, all outpours, ventures all its all expends. . Drained is love in making full, bound in setting others free, poor in making many rich, weak in giving power to be. . Therefore he...
Never Too Late
So I go out: my little sweet is done: I have drawn heat from this contagious sun: To not ungentle death now forth I run…. Now I am minded to take pipe in hand And yield a song to the decaying year... So late the hoar green chestnut breaks a bud, And...
Holy Spirit: in Christian Experience
Hope in the storms of life
Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without words, And never stops at all. And sweetest in the gale is heard; And sore must be the storm That could abash the little bird That kept so many warm. I’ve heard it in the chilliest...
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...
Spring into Life
Oh, feed me this day, Holy Spirit, with the fragrance of the fields and the freshness of the oceans which you have made, and help me to hear and to hold in all dearness those exacting and wonderful words of our Lord Jesus Christ, saying: Follow me. Mary Oliver...
Winged Life
My tender Age in sorrow did begin And still with sicknesses and shame Thou didst so punish sin That I became Most thin. With thee Let me combine, And feel this day thy victory: For if I imp (graft) my wing on thine, Affliction shall advance the flight in me....
Believers: Assured, Called and Prayerful
Only a Watcher!
Honour is flashed off exploit, so we say; And those strokes once that gashed flesh or galled shield Should tongue that time now, trumpet now that field, And, on the fighter, forge his glorious day. On Christ they do and on the martyr may; But be the war within, the...
Begin Again
Nor can you long be, what you now are, called fair, Do what you may do, what, do what you may, And wisdom is early to despair: Be beginning; since, no, nothing can be done To keep at bay Age and age's evils, hoar hair, Ruck and wrinkle, drooping, dying, death's worst,...
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...
Lent
Lent is a tree without blossom, without leaf, Barer than blackhorn in its winter sleep All unadorned. Unlike Christmas with decrees The setting-up, the dressing-up of trees, Lent is a taking down, a stripping bare, A starkness after all has been withdrawn Of surplus...
The Church: Provisional but Necessary
You’re Welcome
You're welcome until you're homeless. Until you're drugged up, or drug dealing. Welcome until you're angry, or angsty, or anything other than sane.... Welcome until it's harder to let you in than keep you out. Until the questions you carry are a gospel of...
Tree of Life: Upside Down
There is a tree grows upside down, Its roots are in the sky; Its lower branches reach the earth When amorous winds are nigh. One lone bough there starkly hangs A Man just crucified, And all the other branches bear The choice fruits of the Bride. When...
Love You to Death
I am beginning to understand I saw a sign once; outside a church. It said Are you really living or just walking around to save the expense of a funeral? I didn’t know that Love is real life, and everything else is just a more or less entertaining way of dying, and I...
Restore Us
Where our walls Are broken down Rebuild us God Where streets Are neither safe nor sound redeem Rekindle fires of once strong praise Rebound your joys in tone and phrase From ancient stones of walls Once raised for you… Return Messiah King Let these stones sing...
The Mission of God
Caged Skylark?
As a dare-gale skylark scanted in a dull cage Man's mounting spirit in his bone-house, mean house, dwells - That bird beyond the remembering his free fells, This in drudgery, day-labouring-out life's age.... Not that the sweet-fowl, song-fowl, needs no rest -...
Holy Island – What Me?
Leave me alone with God as much as may be, as the tide draws the waters close in upon the shore, make me an island, set apart, alone with You, God, holy to You. Then, with the turning of the tide, prepare me to carry your presence to the busy world, beyond...
Far From Home
All day long we’ve walked, my little boy so fretful, turning in my arms to stare behind us, back along that dusty road. It’s as if he hears a distant sound, he’s listening, it seems, but much too young to know the dreadful things we’ve heard. Now it’s...
Tell the Truth
Tell all the truth but tell it slant — Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth's superb surprise As Lightning to the Children eased With explanation kind The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind — Emily Dickinson...
Moral Justice: a Vision of God’s Kingdom
Human Being!
Human beings are members of a whole, in creation of one essence and soul. If one member is afflicted with pain, other members uneasy will remain. If you have no sympathy for human pain, the name of human you cannot retain. Sa'adi Shirazi (d. c.1291/1292), On the wall...
War Wounded
Across our planet earth there bleed the wounds of war, with livelihoods destroyed and cherished homes no more; the people flee, abused and scarred and travelling far, poor refugees. Across our planet earth the wounds of war go deep with generations taught...
Not another redemption song?
Won’t you help to sing These songs of freedom ? ‘Cos all I ever had ; Redemption songs. Bob Marley (1945-81).
Don’t Retreat
Do not retreat into your private world, That place of safety, sheltered from the storm, Where you may tend your garden, seek your soul, And rest with loved ones where the fire burns warm. To tend a garden is a precious thing But dearer still the one where all...
Glory: Now and Then, Here and There
SKYLIGHT
You were the one for skylights. I opposed Cutting into the seasoned tongue-and-groove Of pitch pine. I liked it low and closed, Its claustrophobic, nest-up-in-the-roof Effect. I liked the snuff-dry feeling, The perfect, trunk-lid fit of the old ceiling. Under there,...
Son Worship
To long for the unsettling, unsetting Son is dangerous. Saints and Starets, sinners and seekers have found that Christ takes them at their word who say that they want, or would like, to know him. Holy Fools have met him in the derision of sophisticates....
Deathbed
Now, when the frail and fine-spun Web of mortality Gapes, and lets slip What we have loved so long From out our lighted present Into the trackless dark We turn, blinded, Not to the Christ in Glory, Stars about his feet, But to the Son of Man, Back from the tomb, Who...
World Without End
This world is not conclusion; A sequel stands beyond, Invisible, as music, But positive, as sound. It beckons and it baffles; Philosophies don’t know, And through a riddle, at the last, Sagacity must go. To guess it puzzles scholars; To gain it, men have...