Poems and readings to reflect on and shape your faith

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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. ...

Jeu d’esprit

Flame-dancing Spirit, come, Sweep us off our feet and Dance us through our days. Surprise us with your rhythms, Dare us to try new steps, explore New patterns and new partnerships. Release us from old routines, To swing in abandoned joy And fearful adventure. And in...

Catching the Sun

The Spirit breathes upon the Word, And brings the truth to sight; Precepts and promises afford, A sanctifying light.   A glory gilds the sacred page, Majestic, like the sun: It gives a light to every age, It gives, but borrows none.   The Hand that gave it...

Wrack of mortal things!

Man at the best a creature frail and vain, In knowledge ignorant, in strength but weak, Subject to sorrows, losses, sickness, pain, Each storm his state, his mind, his body break, From some of these he never finds cessation, But day or night, within, without,...

Quiet Revival?

I walked abroad in Easter Park, I heard the wild dog’s distant bark, I knew my Lord was risen again,- Wild dog, wild dog, you bark in vain. Stevie Smith (1902-71), Conviction (11),1978.

Elections

Their threats are terrible enough, but we could bear All that; it is their promises that bring despair. If beauty, that anomaly, is left us still, The cause les in their poverty, not in their will. If they had power ('amenities are bunk'), conceive How their insatiate...

George MacDonald (1824-1905) – Faith Shaper

George Macdonald was born in Huntly, in the western part of Aberdeenshire, Scotland, the son of a farmer and his wife Helen MacKay (1790-1832). He was educated in country schools where Gaelic myths and Old Testament stories were common currency. At King’s College,...

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...

John Milton (1608-74) – Faith Shaper

John Milton rejected the faith of his Roman Catholic father. He became a strongly Protestant Puritan, and a radical Christian with regard to the contemporary culture and powers in the land, including the Crown, Parliament and the Church. Although in 1630, he...

Faith-shaping Poets

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Our Father: Hallowed on Earth as in Heaven

We do not possess the land

We do not possess the land

How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. We do not own the freshness of the air or the sparkle of water. How can you buy them from us? Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, clearing and...

Just a Drip!

Just a Drip!

All the treasures under the sky are married in a drop of rain, which conceals the sun in its window, beds itself in the droughty earth, miracles its nature in conception and gives its mind to thoughts of life and birth. If I had such a considerate soul you would find...

Waiting for Jesus

Waiting for Jesus

On the outskirts of Jerusalem the donkey waited. Not especially brave, or filled with understanding, he stood and waited. How horses, turned out into the meadow, leap with delight! How doves, released from their cages, clatter away, splashed with sunlight. But the...

The Bible: Bestowed Word of God

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Jesus Christ: Crucified God in Person

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Jesus of the Scars

Jesus of the Scars

If we have never sought, we seek Thee now; Thine eyes burn through the dark, our only stars; We must have sight of thorn-pricks on Thy brow, We must have Thee, O Jesus of the Scars.   The heavens frighten us; they are too calm; In all the universe we have no place....

Humankind: Sinful, Rebellious and Faithless

Power must subserve wisdom

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...

God’s hidden wisdom revealed

God’s hidden wisdom revealed

All is best, though we oft doubt What th’unsearchable dispose Of Highest Wisdom brings about, And ever best found in the close. Oft he seems to hide his face, But unexpectedly returns, And to his faithful champion hath in place Bore witness gloriously; whence Gaza...

The priceless  pearl of wisdom

The priceless pearl of wisdom

A life all turbulence and noise may seem To him that leads it wise and to be praised, But wisdom is a pearl with most success Sought in still waters.   William Cowper (1731 – 1800), The Task, Book III.

I am a stately palace

I am a stately palace

 My God, I heard this day, That none doth build a stately habitation, But he that means to dwell therein. What house more stately hath there been, Or can be, then is Man? To whose creation All things are in decay. For man is ev’ry thing, And more….   Since then, my...

The Grace of God: Justifying and Converting

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Affluence or temperance

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...

Christ-likeness: Progressive Christian Living

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God knows what he’s about

God knows what he’s about

When God wants to drill a man, And thrill a man, and skill a man, When God wants to mould a man To play the noblest part; When he yearns with all his heart To create so great and bold a man That all the world shall be amazed, Watch his methods, watch his ways;   How...

Holy Spirit: in Christian Experience

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A birth, and our death?

A birth, and our death?

… were we led all that way for Birth or death? There was a Birth certainly, We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death. We returned to our places,...

Believers: Assured, Called and Prayerful

Becoming!

Becoming!

There’s a single destiny in this life – Not to be sailing ships or writing plays in a bustling Age of Discovery but to growing Self in selflessness. Never ego-ridden or glamorous, neither polemical nor persuasive, just becoming, so that the world won’t be lost. A...

The gift has been given

The gift has been given

Be still my soul and steadfast. Earth and heaven both are still watching though time is draining from the clock and your walk, that was confident and quick, has become slow.   So, be slow if you must, but let the heart still play its true part. Love as once you loved,...

I have become younger

I have become younger

What I loved in the beginning, I think, was mostly myself. Never mind that I had to, since somebody had to. That was many years ago. Since then I have gone out from my confinements,               though with difficulty. I mean the ones that thought to rule my heart. I...

Twisted Religion

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 Church: Provisional but Necessary

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The tree of life in the garden with Christ

The tree of life in the garden with Christ

Our Lord into his Garden comes, Well pleas’d to smell our poor Perfumes, And calls us to a feast divine, Sweeter than honey, milk or wine.   Eat of the Tree of Life, my Friends, The Blessings that my Father sends; Your Taste shall all my dainties prove, And drink...

The Mission of God

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Not my feet, Lord

Not my feet, Lord

Swift, tired, true, headstrong, tender, merciless – your feet have more persona than your head: born for earth that you may be freed for sky – Does anything that serves you serve like this? So why should someone say, ‘Not my feet, Lord – far rather wash my hands or...

Moral Justice: a Vision of God’s Kingdom

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Blind. Does it matter?

Blind. Does it matter?

Does it matter? Losing your sight? There’s such a splendid work for the blind: And people will always be kind, As you sit on the terrace remembering, And turning your face to the light.   Siegfrid Sassoon (1886-1967), 1918.

Glory: Now and Then, Here and There

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Timeless serenity

Timeless serenity

  God grant me the serenity, To accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, And the wisdom to know the difference.   Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace; Taking, as...