Poems and readings to reflect on and shape your faith
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USE FAITH SHAPERS FOR:
- Prayer or in time of personal need
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Latest Posts
Our Father: Hallowed on Earth as in Heaven
God is a Surprise
What is belief? A recognition? Who knows of what? If any say He knows, he lies. Who knows what never was begun And will not end? God is a way, And a surprise. And in that way we cannot choose, For choice deceives us, as it must. We live in sense, Certain at...
Black Friday
‘You will not sleep, if you lie there a thousand years, until you have opened your hand and yielded that which is not yours to give or to withhold.’ ‘I cannot’, she (Lilith) answered, ‘I would if I could, for I am weary, and the shadows of death are gathering about...
The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild...
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...
The Bible: Bestowed Word of God
Self-authenticating Wisdom
O take the book from off the shelf, And con it meekly on thy knees; Best panegyric on itself, And self-avouched to teach and please. Respect, adore it heart and mind. How greatly sweet, how sweetly grand, Who reads the most, is most refined, And polished by the...
The Holy Spirit’s two-edged sword
Brandish in faith ‘till then The Spirit’s two-edged Sword, Hew all the snares of Fiends and Men In pieces with the Word; ‘TIS WRITTEN’. This applied Baffles their Strength and Art; Spirit and Soul with this divide, And Joints and Marrows part. Charles Wesley...
Revelation before religion
Thus man by his own strength to heaven would soar: And would not be obliged to God for more. Vain, wretched creature, how art thou misled To think thy wit these God-lie notions bred! These truths are not the product of thy mind, But dropped from heaven, and of a...
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-).
Jesus Christ: Crucified God in Person
No Shore in Sight
If you can stay in the midst of the turmoil unperplexed and calm because you see Jesus, that is God's plan in your life. Not that you may be able to say, 'I have done this and now it's alright.' We have an idea that God is leading us to a certain goal, a desired...
The Second Coming
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 sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank...
Let me go there too
And God held in his hand a small globe. Look, he said. The son looked. Far off, as through water, he saw a scorched land of fierce colour. The light burned there; crusted buildings cast their shadows: a bright serpent, a river uncoiled itself, radiant with slime. On...
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)
Humankind: Sinful, Rebellious and Faithless
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,...
Endless Carnival
The endless carnival... constitutes a dramatic affirmation of power, wealth and virility, in which 'victory' is accomplished by many abusive exploitations, all in the pursuit of winning and being on top of the heap of the money game. Walter Brueggemann (1933 -...
Anthem for Doomed Youth
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,...
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....
The Grace of God: Justifying and Converting
An unlikely hope of new life
Easter. The grave-clothes of winter are still here, but the sepulchre is empty. A messenger from the tomb tells us how a stone has been rolled from the mind and a tree lightens the darkness with its blossom. There are travellers upon the roads who have heard music...
A thoroughly converted Christian
A wolf is not only turned into a sheep, but doth also take to himself a shepherd's nature. It is as if Christ should bring forth with his hand some angel sent from heaven. John Calvin (1509-64), Commentary, Acts 9:1-5.
Sin where I begun
Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun, Which was my sin, though it were done before? Wilt thou forgive that sin through which I run, And do run still, though still I do deplore? When thou hast done, thou hast not done, For I have more. Wilt thou forgive that sin...
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:...
Christ-likeness: Progressive Christian Living
Fulfilled
Human persons in every age, always and everywhere, whether they realise and reflect upon it or not, are in relationship with the unutterable mystery of human life that we call God. Looking at Jesus Christ the crucified and risen one, we can have the hope that now in...
Song of a Lesbian
All my life’s been lived in fragments, Just a part of me was shown, A part I shared with friends, And a part I lived at home, A part I showed my work-place And a part the church could share, And a part of me was hidden In closets of despair. Marsha Stevens...
My bottom dollar
Two mites, two drops (yet all her house and land) Falls from a steady heart, though trembling hand. The others’ wanton wealth foams high and brave. The others cast away, she only gave. Richard Crashaw (1613-49), The Widow’s Mite.
Ring it Out and In
... The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true. Ring out the grief that saps the mind For those that here we see no more; Ring out the feud of rich and poor, Ring in redress to all mankind. Ring out a slowly dying cause, And ancient...
Holy Spirit: in Christian Experience
Pure beauty
The memory of a glorious moment, 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...
Beauty beyond reason
… here you stand, adore and worship, when you know it not, pious beyond the intention of your thought, devout above the meaning of your will. Yes, you have felt, and may not cease to feel, The estate of man would be indeed forlorn If false conclusions of the reasoning...
We grow accustomed to the dark
When light is put away - As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp To witness her Goodbye - A Moment - We uncertain step For newness of the night - Then - fit our Vision to the Dark - And meet the Road - erect - And so of larger - Darknesses - Those Evenings of the Brain -...
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...
Believers: Assured, Called and Prayerful
In the Night
'Honest Doubt'? You say, but with no touch of scorn, Sweet-hearted, you, whose light-blue eyes Are tender over drowning flies, You tell me, doubt is Devil-born. I know not: one indeed I knew In many a subtle question versed, Who...
Morning Preen
Early every morning the eagle preens its feathers for more than an hour. Sitting on the side of its nest, the eagle passes each feather through its mouth, something like steam cleaning while depositing a liquid that makes its feathers water repellent. This is...
Scaffolding
Masons, when they start upon a building, Are careful to test out the scaffolding; Make sure that the planks won’t slip at busy joints, Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints. And yet all this comes down when the job’s done Showing off walls of...
Big Decision
To every man there openeth A Way, and Ways, and a Way. And the High Soul climbs the High way, And the Low Soul gropes the Low, And in between, on the misty flats, The rest drift to and fro. But to every man there openeth A High Way, and a Low. And every man decideth...
The Church: Provisional but Necessary
Heaven in ordinary
Prayer the Church's banquet, Angels age, God's breath in man returning to his birth, The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage, The Christian plummet sounding heaven and earth; Engine against the almighty, sinners' tower, Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing...
How to listen to a sermon
Judge not the preacher; for he is thy Judge If thou mislike him, thou conceivs't him not. God calleth preaching folly. Do not grudge To pick out treasures from an earthen pot. The worst speak something good: if all want sense, God takes a text, and preacheth...
How to go to church
When once thy foot enters the church, be bare. God is more there, than thou: for thou art there Only his permission.... Resort to sermons, but prayers the most: Praying's the end of preaching.... In time of service seal up both thine eyes, And send them to...
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...
The Mission of God
Remember
Do not face us, O living God, with the future of a world without justice or a future without mercy; in your mercy, establish justice, and, in your justice, remember your overflowing mercy in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Michael Vasey (1946-98). ...
An old age is out, time to begin a new
All, all of a piece throughout; Thy chase had a beast in view; Thy wars brought nothing about; Thy lovers were all untrue. ‘Tis well an old age is out, And time to begin a new. John Dryden (1631 – 1700), The Secular Masque, 1700.
Let all the world sing
Let all the world in every corner sing, My God and King ! The church with psalms must shout, No door can keep them out ; But above all the heart Must bear the longest part. Let all the world in every corner sing, My God and King ! George Herbert...
Kingdom Come
Lord, it belongs not to my care whether I die or live: to love and serve thee is my share, and this thy grace must give. Christ leads me through no darker rooms than he went through before; he that into God's kingdom comes must enter by this door. Come, Lord, when...
Moral Justice: a Vision of God’s Kingdom
Gaza
She was beautifully, delicately made, So small, so unafraid, Till the bomb came. Bombs are the same, Beautifully, delicately made. C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), Time and Tide, 6th June 1942.
Hiroshima, after the bomb
After the bomb had fallen, After the last sad cry When the earth was a burnt-out cinder Drifting across the sky; Came Lucifer, son of the morning With his fallen angel band, Silent and swift as a vulture On a mountain top stand. And he looked as he stood...
Escaping a recession
I am spending my way out Of a recession. The road chokes On delivery vans. I used to be Just looking Around, I used to be How Much, and Have You Got it in Beige. Now I devour whole stores – High speed spin; giant size; chunky gold; De luxe springing....
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...
Glory: Now and Then, Here and There
Together truth and beauty are one
I died for beauty, but was scarce Adjusted in the tomb, When one who died for truth was lain In an adjoining room. He questioned softly why I failed? ‘For beauty,’ I replied. ‘And I for truth, - the two are one; We brethren are,’ he said. And so, as...
Living for now, and then
Thy life is Gods, thy time to come is gone, And is his right. He is thy night at noon: he is at night Thy noon alone. The crop is his, for he has sown. And well it was for thee, when this befell, That God did make Thy business his, and in thy life partake: For...
A little boat adrift!
Adrift! A little boat adrift! And night is coming down! Will no one guide a little boat Unto the nearest town? So, sailors say, on yesterday, Just as the dusk was brown, One little boat gave up its strife, And gurgled down and down. But angels say, on...
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,...