Poems and readings to reflect on and shape your faith
How to use Faith Shapers:
- Click on ROOMS to pick a theme
- Search for an author/poet by name
- Explore more by using the tags
- Feel free to share Faith Shapers
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
Latest Posts
Faith-shaping Poets
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Our Father: Hallowed on Earth as in Heaven
OMG
My God I could not see. I sought my soul; My soul eluded me. I sought my brother; And I found all three. David Adam, The Edge of Glory.
My God, where are you?
Just are the ways of God, And justifiable to men, Unless there be who think no God at all, If any be, they walk obscure; For of such doctrine never was there school, But the heart of a fool, And no man therein doctor but himself. John Milton (1608-74), Samson...
The worship of an hostage
My eyes are almost burned by what I see…. A brown broken bowl and in it some apricots, some small oranges, some nuts, cherries, a banana…. I cannot, I will not eat this fruit. I sit in quiet joy, so complete, beyond the meaning of joy. My soul finds its own...
Recovered Greenness
How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean Are thy returns! ev’n as the flowers of spring; To which, beside their own demean, The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring. Grief melts away Like snow in May, As if there were no such thing. Who would have thought my...
The Bible: Bestowed Word of God
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Jesus Christ: Crucified God in Person
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We need a suffering God
When this world’s pleasures for my soul sufficed, Ere my heart’s plummet sounded depths of pain, I called on reason to control my brain, And scoffed at that old story of the Christ. But when o’er burning wastes my feet had trod, And all my life was desolate with...
Humankind: Sinful, Rebellious and Faithless
Contemplation’s door to wisdom and virtue
Virtue could see to do what virtue would By her own radiant light, though sun and moon Were in the flat sea sunk. And wisdom’s self Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude, Where with her best nurse Contemplation, She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings That in...
My Acorn Child!
I sought to stand for God Tall, straight and proud, An oak of righteousness Head in a cloud. The spirit winds that blew Stripped all my leaf, Broke heavy branches off, Trunk split in grief. The gentle morning sun Shone down on me, My helplessness complete, A...
Ignorant of themselves, of God much more
The worldly wisest Alas! What can they teach, and not mislead, Ignorant of themselves, of God much more, And how the world began, and how man fell, Degraded by himself, on grace depending? Much of the soul they talk, but all awry; And in themselves seek virtue; and to...
Set me Free!
Hear me, O God! A broken heart Is my best prayer; Use still thy rod That I may prove Therein thy love. If thou hadst not Been stern to me, But left me free, I had forgot Myself and Thee. For sin’s so sweet, As minds ill bent Rarely repent, Until they meet Their...
The Grace of God: Justifying and Converting
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Thank you, Lord
… if all the world Should in a pet of temperance feed on pulse, Drink the clear stream and nothing wear but freize, The all-giver would be unthanked, would be unpraised, Not half his riches known, and yet despised; And we should serve him as a grudging master, As a...
Christ-likeness: Progressive Christian Living
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Faces of sunflowers follow the sun
Come with me into the field of sunflowers. Their faces are burnished disks, their dry spines creak like ship masts, their green leaves, So heavy and many, fill all the day with the sticky sugars of the sun. Come with me to visit the...
Holy Spirit: in Christian Experience
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In the beginning was the word
We shall not cease from exploration, And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started, And know the place for the first time. T.S. Eliot (1888-1965).
Believers: Assured, Called and Prayerful
Ordination of the nail-pierced hands
Christ the Lord has sent me Through the midnight lands, Mine the ordination Of the nail-pierced hands. Hannah Hurnard (1905-90).
A good home for my heart
… As to my heart that may as well be forgotten or labelled; Owner will dispose of same to a good home: refs exchgd., h.& c., Previous experience desired but not essential, Or let on a short lease to suit convenience. Basil Bunting (1900-85), Personal...
We cannot sit here any more
From our low seat beside the fire, Where we have dozed and dreamed, and watched the glow, or raked the ashes, stopping so We scarcely saw the sun and rain above or looked much higher than this same quiet red and...
Sing Without Need of Reply
Sing a new song to the Lord, sing through the skin of your teeth, sing in the code of your blood, sing with a throat full of earth, sing to the quick of your nails, sing from the knots of your lungs, sing like a dancer on coals, sing as a madman in tongues,...
The Church: Provisional but Necessary
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To see God only, I go out of sight
Seal then this bill of my divorce to all On whom those fainter beams of love did fall; Marry those loves which in youth scattered be On Fame, Wit, Hopes (false mistresses), to thee. Churches are best for prayer, that have least light: To see God only, I go out of...
The Mission of God
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The call-out from our comfort
From our low seat beside the fire, Where we have dozed and dreamed And watched the glow Or raked the ashes, stopping so We scarcely saw the sun and rain above Or looked higher Than this same quiet red or burned out fire Tonight we heard a call. And so we cannot sit...
Moral Justice: a Vision of God’s Kingdom
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No voice of mourning
What passing bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons. No mockeries for them from prayers or bells, Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, The shrill,...
Glory: Now and Then, Here and There
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In heaven and on earth, our Father
…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 Pushkin...