Poems and readings to reflect on and shape your faith
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Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy (1883-1929) – Faith Shaper
Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy was son of an Irish Anglican clergyman who lived in an age of Victorian middle-class prosperity, and British global power and influence. Born in his father’s vicarage in Leeds, he grew up in a city noted in 1904 for its poverty.[1]...
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...
Blue Monday
In this great absence that is like a presence, that compels me to address it without hope of a reply. It is a room I enter from which someone has just gone, the vestibule for the arrival of one who has not yet come. R.S. Thomas...
The Bible: Bestowed Word of God
Bible before reason and church
What scripture doth plainly deliver, to that the first place of credit and obedience is due; the next whereunto is whatsoever any man can necessarily conclude by force of reason: after these the voice of the church succeedeth. Richard Hooker (c.1554 – 1600), Laws of...
Self-authenticating Scriptures
Scripture is indeed self-authenticating….. We feel that the undoubted power of his divine majesty lives and breathes there… a feeling that can be born only of heavenly revelation. I speak of nothing other than what each believer experiences within himself. John Calvin...
God’s Love Letter
For Jesus, who is all truthfulness, is hidden there (in Holy Writ), wound in a silken veil of its beautiful words where he may not be known or experienced except with a pure heart. This is simply because truthfulness does not reveal itself to enemies, but only to...
Word of life that fires me
Lord, for the years your love has kept and guided, Urged and inspired us, cheered us on our way, Sought us and saved us, pardoned and provided, Lord of the years, we bring our thanks today. Lord, for that word, the word of life which fires us, Speaks to our hearts and...
Jesus Christ: Crucified God in Person
He shall win all again
What hath man done that man shall not undo, Since God to him is grown so near akin? Did his foe slay him? He shall slay his foe. Hath he lost all? He all again shall win. Is sin his master? He shall master sin…. He is a path if any be misled; He is a robe, if any...
Finding God at the cross
Either I determine the place in which I find God, or I allow God to determine the place where he will be found. If it is I who say where God will be, I will always find there a God who in some way corresponds to me, is agreeable to me, fits in with my nature. But if...
Born to make us wild
A child is born, they cry, a child And he is Noble and not Mild (It is this child that makes them wild)… All noble mild children are brought home To the wicked king who has cast them down And ground their bones on the heavy stone. But the child that is Noble and...
Palm Sunday
When fishes flew and forests walked And figs grew upon thorn, Some moment when the moon was blood Then surely I was born. And monstrous head and sickening cry And ears like errant wings, And devil's walking parody On all four-footed things. The tattered...
Humankind: Sinful, Rebellious and Faithless
‘Foolish soul who sinned today’
Canst be idle? Canst thou play, Foolish soul who sinned today? Hast thou tears, or hast thou none? If poor soul, thou hast no tears, Would thou hadst no faults or fears! Who in heart not ever kneels, Neither sin nor Saviour feels. George Herbert...
You Turn Away
I am the great sun, but you do not see me, I am your husband, but you turn away. I am the captive, but you do not free me, I am the captain you will not obey. I am the truth, but you will not believe me, I am the city where you will not stay, I am your wife, your...
Story of a hotel room
Thinking we were safe – insanity! We went in to make love…. … someone should have warned us That without permanent intentions You have absolutely no protection - If the act is clean, authentic, sumptuous, The concurring deep love of the heart Follows the naked...
Stop the Clocks
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone. Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message He is...
The Grace of God: Justifying and Converting
Blind unbelief is sure to err
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust him for his grace; Behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face. His purposes will ripen fast, Unfolding every hour; The bud may have a bitter taste,...
Saved to save others
Are you content, have you no higher aim Than just to gain admittance at the door, In faintest characters to trace your name Among the list of those who die no more? Do you not feel that you are saved to live? Do you not know you are saved to save? Forgiven that you...
Christ died for God and me
Christ died for God and me Upon the crucifixion tree For God a spoken Word For me a Sword For God a hymn of praise For me eternal days For God an explanation For me salvation. Stevie Smith (1902-71), 1978.
Spring is Not our Mating Season
I will not kiss you, country fashion, By hedgesides where Weasel and hare Claim kinship with our passion.... This bare clay-pit is truest setting For love like ours: No bed of flowers But sand-ledge for our petting. The Spring is not our mating season:...
Christ-likeness: Progressive Christian Living
Where now?
My road calls me, lures me West, east, south and north; Most roads lead men homewards, My road leads me forth. To add more miles to the tally Of grey miles left behind, In quest of that one beauty God put me here to find. John Masefield...
Can you follow? Will you know me?
And yet… Have I been so long time with thee And yet hast thou not known me? Blessed Master, I have known thee On the roads of Galilee. Have I been so long time with thee On the roads of Galilee: Yet, my child, hast thou not know me When I walked upon the sea? Blessed...
No scar? No wound?
Hast thou no scar? No hidden scar on foot, or side, or hand? I hear thee sung as mighty in the land, I hear them hail your bright ascendant star, Hast thou no scar? Hast thou no wound? Yet I was wounded by the archers, spent, Leaned me against a tree to die; and...
Compassion
We in our prideful counting are answerable to you: Facing the cost of our pride, we choose you; We choose you and your compassion; We choose you, because we trust that, You do not deal with us according to our sins, Nor repay us according to our iniquities. So we...
Holy Spirit: in Christian Experience
The world’s danger
I saw a stable low and very bare, A little child in a manger. The oxen knew him, had him in their care. To men he was a stranger. The safety of the world was lying there And the world’s danger. Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (1861-1907).
Experience is worthless?
Experience is a futile teacher, Experience is a prosy preacher, Experience is a fruit tree fruitless, Experience is a shoe-tree, bootless, For sterile wearience and drearience Depend, my boy, upon experience. Experience! Wise men do not need it! Experience! Idiots do...
Choose my Path
However dark it be; Lead me by thine own hand, Choose out the path for me. Smooth let it be or rough, It will be still the best; Winding or straight, it leads Right onward to thy rest. Choose thou for me my friends, My sickness or my health; Choose thou my cares for...
Spring into Life
Oh, feed me this day, Holy Spirit, with the fragrance of the fields and the freshness of the oceans which you have made, and help me to hear and to hold in all dearness those exacting and wonderful words of our Lord Jesus Christ, saying: Follow me. Mary Oliver...
Believers: Assured, Called and Prayerful
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...
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...
The Dying Rose
A rose, planted by my father’s hands, so long ago. Less fruitful now, thinner, less flowers. “It’s old,” said the old man, my father, “It’s tired. It’s near the end of its life.” Who’d have thought it? A rose, growing old, tired, dying? My father did. He understood,...
The Church: Provisional but Necessary
Singing with mind and heart
The fineness which a hymn or psalm affords, Is, when the soul unto the lines accords. He who craves all the mind, And all the soul, and strength, and time, If the words only rhyme, Justly complains, that somewhat is behind To make his verse, or write a hymn in...
Hymns of pure consent
At a Solemn Music Blest pair of Sirens, pledges of Heaven’s joy, Sphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse, Wed your divine sounds; and mixed power employ Dead things with inbreathed sense able to pierce, And to our high-raised phantasy present That undisturbed...
Turn once more our water into wine
No, no; religion is a spring, That from some secret, golden mine Derives her birth, and thence doth bring Cordials in every drop and wine; But in her long and hidden course Passing through the earth’s dark veins, Grows from better unto worse, And both her taste and...
Tree of Life: Upside Down
There is a tree grows upside down, Its roots are in the sky; Its lower branches reach the earth When amorous winds are nigh. One lone bough there starkly hangs A Man just crucified, And all the other branches bear The choice fruits of the Bride. When...
The Mission of God
Support where it is needed
Fount of mercy, Call back the one who flees from you. Draw towards you the one who attempts to escape. Lift up the one who has fallen. Support the one who is standing. Guide the one who is on a journey. Thomas Aquinas (1225-74), Opera Omnia.
The act of a good priest
This noble example to his sheep he gave That first he wrought, and afterwards he taught; And it was from the Gospel he had caught Those words, and would add this figure too, That if gold rust, what then would iron do? For if a priest be foul in whom we trust No wonder...
Harvest: theirs and ours
We dare not ask you bless our harvest feast Till it is spread for poorest and for least. We dare not bring our harvest gifts to you Unless our hungry brothers share them too. Not only at this time, Lord; every day Those whom you love are dying...
Far From Home
All day long we’ve walked, my little boy so fretful, turning in my arms to stare behind us, back along that dusty road. It’s as if he hears a distant sound, he’s listening, it seems, but much too young to know the dreadful things we’ve heard. Now it’s...
Moral Justice: a Vision of God’s Kingdom
Names of those who love the Lord: ‘Is mine one?’
Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!) Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, And saw, within the moonlight in his room, Making it rich and like a lily in bloom, An angel writing in a book of gold: Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold, And to the presence in...
Respecting women of yesterday today
She was poor but she was honest Victim of a rich man’s game. First, he loved her, then he left her, And she lost her maiden name… It’s the same the whole world over, It’s the poor wot gets the blame, It’s the rich wot gets the gravy, Ain’t it all a bleedin’...
God Bothering
If you were content, Lord, You would not bother with us. But you are restless: Through anger, through excitement, and through love, You will all things to change and be made new. So we praise you That your restlessness has been born in us: As the pain of the world The...
The writing on the wall
Silence like a cancer grows And the people bowed and prayed To the neon god they made. And the sign flashed out its warning, In the words that it was forming, And the signs said, ‘The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls And tenement halls, And...
Glory: Now and Then, Here and There
No cross; no crown
No pain; no palm. No thorns; no throne. No gall; no glory. No cross; no crown. William Penn (1644-1718).
God’s Music: Now and Then
Since I am coming to that holy room Where with thy choir of saints for evermore I shall be made thy music; as I come I tune the instrument here at the door, And what I must do then, think here before. While my physicians by their love are grown Cosmographers,...
Foresight
Tents are not Homes
This wilderness falls on my way and though a wanderer like Jacob of old here I cannot stay. I remember John the Baptist who chose for his home the wilderness; I remember too the wild sweetness that I have tasted there in these seasons and the temptation to...