Poems and readings to reflect on and shape your faith

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Latest Posts

Feeling Autumnal?

Mars burns bright and close this October: I watch it through the window, as I lie, too-awake, in the dark. Drawn-in under covers as the cold bites, I shrink, foetal-shaped but old-fleshed, frail.   I am autumnal: dry-leaved, mud-under-foot, dark-dayed,...

War Nearer Home!

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...

Leavings

And if, as autumn deepens and darkens I feel the pain of falling leaves, and stems that break in storms and trouble and dissolution and distress and then the softness of deep shadows folding, folding around my soul and spirit, around my lips so sweet, like a swoon, or...

Batter my heart!

  Batter my heart, three-personed God, for you As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend; That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me and bend Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new. I, like an usurped town to another due, Labour to admit you, but...

The Inner Storm

I am a ghost  who walks alone. Beyond my yard are high stone walls. I walk and move and speak with calm. But let me tell you this my friends; Beneath the smile, the wave, the nod There screams an inner storm. It roars and wails and tears its hair. It pours in torrents...

Last Scene

This is my play's last scene, here heavens appoint My pilgrimages last mile; and my race Idly, yet quickly run, hath this last pace, My spans last inch, my minutes latest point, And gluttonous death, will instantly un-joint My body, and my soul, and I shall sleep a...

Wheels or Feet?

London walking to work? Unthinkable. The Wheel is the rock on which London stands. And moves. Jesus is not remembered For wheels. Sandals, hooves and boats Fixed his pace; the Steady, mindful steps Necessary when Setting one's face Towards Jerusalem.   Bruce...

True Love

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 sight: And to scape stormy days, I choose An Everlasting night. John Donne (1572-1631),...

Sabbath Renewal

The clearing rests in song and shade. It is a creature made By old light held in soil and leaf, By human joy and grief, By human work, Fidelity of sight and stroke, By rain, by water on The parent stone. We join our work to Heaven's gift, Our hope to what is left,...

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...

Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night....

Faith-shaping Poets

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Our Father: Hallowed on Earth as in Heaven

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What Now?

What Now?

  Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze...

The Bible: Bestowed Word of God

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Jesus Christ: Crucified God in Person

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I am immortal diamond

I am immortal diamond

Across my foundering deck shone A beacon, an eternal; beam. Flesh fade, and mortal trash Fall to residuary worm; world’s wildfire, leave but ash: In a flash, at a trumpet crash, I am all at once what Christ is, since he was what I am, and This jack, poor potsherd,...

Humankind: Sinful, Rebellious and Faithless

Distracted from distraction by distraction

Distracted from distraction by distraction

This twittering world Only a flicker Over the strained time-ridden faces Distracted from distraction by distraction Filled with fancies and empty of meaning Tumid apathy with no concentration Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind That blows before and after...

Buy me a home in a perfect hell

Buy me a home in a perfect hell

I would buy me a perfect island home, Sweet set in a southern sea, And there I would build me a paradise For the heart o’ my Love and me.   I would plant me a perfect garden there, The one that my dream soul knows, And the years would flow as the petals grow, That...

Lovely in eyes not His

Lovely in eyes not His

Each  mortal thing does one thing and the same: Deals out that being indoors each one dwells ; Selves - goes itself; myself it speaks and spells, Crying What I do is me: for that I came.   I say more: the just man justices; Keeps grace:   that keeps all his...

All you need is love

All you need is love

I found Him not in world or sun, Or eagle’s wing, or insect’s eye; Nor  through the questions men may try, The pretty cobwebs we have spun….   Love is and was my Lord and King, And in his presence I attend To hear the tidings of my friend, Which every hour his...

The Grace of God: Justifying and Converting

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A debtor to mercy alone

A debtor to mercy alone

A debtor to mercy alone, Of covenant mercy I sing; Nor fear with thy righteousness on My person and offering to bring. Augustus Montague Toplady (1740-78).

Christ-likeness: Progressive Christian Living

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Ignorant of themselves, of God much more

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...

Holy Spirit: in Christian Experience

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God’s latecomers

God’s latecomers

‘Like me,’ she said to them, ‘you were late in coming. The shepherds were here long before; even the cattle. They had joined the chorus of angels before you were on your way….’ ‘How laboriously you came, taking sights and calculating, whereas the shepherds had run...

Believers: Assured, Called and Prayerful

Tripping over joy

Tripping over joy

What is the difference Between your experience of Existence And that of a saint?   The saint knows that the spiritual path Is a sublime chess game with God   And that the Beloved Has just a Fantastic Move   That the saint is now continually Tripping...

Translate my prayer

Translate my prayer

Translate our prayers He whom I bow to only knows to whom I bow When I attempt the ineffable name, murmuring “Thou” And dream of Pheidian fancies and embrace in heart Symbols (I know) which cannot be the thing though art. Thus always, taken at their word, all prayers...

Myself in you and you in me

Myself in you and you in me

I would have knelt long, wresting with you, wearing you down.  Hear my prayer, Lord, hear my prayer.  As though you were deaf, myriads of mortals have kept up their shrill cry, explaining your silence by their infirmness. It begins to appear this is not what prayer is...

Search Me O God

Search Me O God

Search me, O God, and know my heart today Try me, O Lord, and know my thoughts, I pray See if there be some wicked way in me Cleanse me from every sin and set me free.   I praise you Lord, for cleansing me from sin Fulfil your word, and make me pure within Fill...

The Church: Provisional but Necessary

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My holy places

My holy places

For the blood of thy martyrs and saints shall enrich the earth, shall create holy places. For wherever a saint has dwelt, wherever a martyr has given his blood for the blood of Christ, there is holy ground, and the sanctity shall not depart from it though armies...

The Mission of God

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A window through thy grace

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...

Moral Justice: a Vision of God’s Kingdom

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Glory: Now and Then, Here and There

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Love’s fire thou art

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).