Poems and readings to reflect on and shape your faith
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Mary Oliver (1935-2019) – Faith Shaper
Mary Oliver was born and raised in Maple Hills Heights, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. Abused as a child by her father and neglected by her mother, she commented ‘I was very little. But I had recurring nightmares; there’s damage.’[1] She described the setting: ‘It was...
Our Father: Hallowed on Earth as in Heaven
Kintsugi – Broken Beauty
Thus far I did come laden with my sin; Nor could aught ease the grief that I was in Till I came hither; What a place is this: Must here be the beginning of my bliss? Must here the burden fall from off my back? Must here the strings that bound it to me crack? Blest...
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...
Springtime
By night when others soundly slept And hath at once both ease and Rest, My waking eyes were open kept And so to lie I found it best. I sought him whom my Soul did Love, With tears I sought him earnestly. He bow’d his ear down from Above. In vain I did not seek or cry....
The Bible: Bestowed Word of God
The abstract answer and the incarnate mystery
The windless northern surge, the sea-gull’s scream And Calvin’s kirk crowning the barren brae…. The Word made flesh here is made word again, A word made word in flourish and arrogant crook. See here King Calvin with his iron pen, And God three angry letters in a book...
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...
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
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,...
Man was made to mourn
A few seem favourites of fate, In pleasure’s lap carest; Yet think not all the rich and great Are likewise truly blest: But oh! What crowds in every land, All wretched and forlorn, Thro’ weary life this lesson learn, That man was made to mourn. Many and...
Christmas Check Out
"I'm not looking forward to Christmas," The lass on the store check-out cries, Pinging the goods on the rumbling belt - The bread, and the wine, and the pies. I watch, as I stand in the fidgety queue As the lassie enlightens us all. "The fuss and the...
The Grace of God: Justifying and Converting
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...
I’ll turn my face
O think me worth thine anger, punish me, Burn off my rusts and my deformity; Restore thine image so much, by thy grace, That thou may’st know me, and I’ll turn my face. John Donne (1572-1631)
Love took my hand
Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back, Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning, If I lacked anything. ‘A guest’, I answered, ‘worthy to be here.’ Love said, ‘You...
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
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.
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...
Forgiven and Forgiving
History teaches us that we sometimes need saving from ourselves - from our recklessness, or our greed. God sent into the world a unique person - neither a philosopher nor a general - but a Saviour, with the power to forgive. Forgiveness lies at the heart of the...
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...
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...
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
Grow Younger
My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky: So was it when my life began; So is it now I am a man; So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die! The Child is father of the Man; And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety....
See Yourself
The times are nightfall, look, their light grows less; The times are winter, watch, a world undone; They waste, they wither worse; they as they run Or bring more or more blazon man's distress, And I not help.... Hope holds to Christ the mind's own mirror out To...
You Yourself In Me
Lord, grant me to greet the coming day in peace. Help me in all things to rely upon your holy will. In every hour of the day, reveal your will to me. Bless my dealings with all who surround me. Teach me to treat all that comes to me throughout the day with peace of...
Only a Watcher!
Honour is flashed off exploit, so we say; And those strokes once that gashed flesh or galled shield Should tongue that time now, trumpet now that field, And, on the fighter, forge his glorious day. On Christ they do and on the martyr may; But be the war within, the...
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...
Caged Skylark?
As a dare-gale skylark scanted in a dull cage Man's mounting spirit in his bone-house, mean house, dwells - That bird beyond the remembering his free fells, This in drudgery, day-labouring-out life's age.... Not that the sweet-fowl, song-fowl, needs no rest -...
Moral Justice: a Vision of God’s Kingdom
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....
Betrayed by Your Lifestyle
I was hungry And you were overweight. I was thirsty And you kept watering your lawn. I was a stranger And you called the police. I was naked And you went shopping for the latest fashions. I was sick ...
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
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...
Two deaths: here and hereafter
Hark, how the birds do sing, And woods ring. All creatures have their joy; and man hath his, Yet if we rightly measure, Man’s joy and pleasure Rather hereafter, than in present, is…. Not that he may not here Taste of the cheer, But as birds drink, and straight...
Born among the trees and leaves
O who will show me those delights on high Echo. I Thou echo, thou art mortal, all men know. Echo. No Wert thou not born among the trees and leaves? Echo. Leaves. And are there any leaves that still abide? Echo. Bide. What leaves are they? Impart the matter wholly....
Son Worship
To long for the unsettling, unsetting Son is dangerous. Saints and Starets, sinners and seekers have found that Christ takes them at their word who say that they want, or would like, to know him. Holy Fools have met him in the derision of sophisticates....