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

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Tomorrow Morning

Tomorrow Morning

Here dies another day, During which I have had eyes, ears, hands And the great world around me; And with tomorrow begins another. Why am I allowed two?   G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936).

The Bible: Bestowed Word of God

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Jesus Christ: Crucified God in Person

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I bet my life on Christ

I bet my life on Christ

…. I bet my life on beauty, truth, And love!  Not abstract, but incarnate truth; Not beauty’s passing shadow, but its self, Its very self made flesh – love realized. I bet my life on Christ, Christ crucified. Behold your God! My soul cries out. He hangs, Serenely...

Humankind: Sinful, Rebellious and Faithless

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...

War

War

Waste of muscle, waste of brain, Waste of patience, waste of pain, Waste of manhood, waste of health, Waste of beauty, waste of wealth, Waste of blood, and waste of tears, Waste of youth’s most precious years, Waste of glory, waste of God,- War!   Geoffrey...

Not Waving but Drowning

Not Waving but Drowning

Nobody heard him, the dead man, But still he lay moaning; I was much further out than you thought And not waving but drowning. Poor chap, he always loved larking And now he’s dead. It must have been too cold for him, his heart gave way, They said. Oh, no no no, it was...

Halts by me that footfall

Halts by me that footfall

I fled him down the nights and down the days. I fled him down the arches of the years; I fled him down the labyrinthine ways Of my own mind; and, in the midst of tears I hid from him, and under running laughter. Up vistaed slopes I sped; And shot precipitated, Adown...

The Grace of God: Justifying and Converting

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Grandfather

Grandfather

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 hard not...

Christ-likeness: Progressive Christian Living

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Let the voice of conscience be heard

Let the voice of conscience be heard

Strange fondness of the human heart, Enamoured of its harm! Strange world, that costs it so much smart, And still has power to charm.   Whence has the world her magic power? Why deem we Death a foe? Recoil from weary life’s best hour, And covet longer woe?  ...

Holy Spirit: in Christian Experience

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Setting others free

Setting others free

Drained is love in making full; Bound in setting others free; Poor in making many rich; Weak in giving power to be.   W.H. Vanstone (1923-99), Love’s Endeavour, Love’s Expense.

Believers: Assured, Called and Prayerful

Dangerous day dreaming

Dangerous day dreaming

All men dream but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds awake to find that it is vanity; But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men for they may act with open eyes to make it possible.   T.E. Lawrence (1888 –...

Explorers

Explorers

Home is where one starts from. As we grow older The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated Of dead and living. Not the intense moment Isolated, with no before or after, But a lifetime burning in every moment And not the lifetime of one man only, But of...

Quicken my dull-drooping spirit: grant it a crown

Quicken my dull-drooping spirit: grant it a crown

How do I spin my time away In caring how to get Ungodly wealth, and fret My self to sweat, As if thou, Lord, hadst meant this clay No after life, no reckoning day….   Quicken my dull-drooping spirit That it may praise thy name, Cleanse it from sin and blame, Take from...

An unaccustomed wine

An unaccustomed wine

I bring an unaccustomed wine To lips long parching next to mine, And summon them to drink….   And so I always bear the cup If, haply, mine may be the drop Some pilgrim thirst to slake, -   If, haply, any say to me, “Unto the little, unto me,” When I at last...

The Church: Provisional but Necessary

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Bishops?

Bishops?

I admire the Bishops of the Church of England No man can be a Bishop of the Church of England And a fool. A man can be a Bishop of the Church of England And a knave. But Fortunately Few if any of the Bishops of the Church of England Are men of ill will. They do their...

The Mission of God

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Useless

Useless

When I consider how my light is spent Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent Therewith to serve my Maker, and present My true account, lest he returning chide, ‘Doth God...

Moral Justice: a Vision of God’s Kingdom

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Glory: Now and Then, Here and There

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Loved ones gone before

Loved ones gone before

There’s a Friend for little children Above the bright blue sky. They are watching at the portal, They are waiting at the door, Waiting only for my coming, All the loved ones, gone before.   Albert Midlane, Sacred Songs and Solos.