Poems and readings to reflect on and shape your faith
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Faith-shaping Poets
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George Herbert (1593-1633) – Faith Shaper
Son of a noble family moving in royal circles, George Herbert (1593-1633) was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he became a Fellow in 1616. However when he was there, according to Isaak Walton, he was ‘apt to a consumption, and to...
Our Father: Hallowed on Earth as in Heaven
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...
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...
Made for Joy and Woe
Man was made for Joy & Woe And when this we rightly know Thro the World we safely go Joy & Woe are woven fine A Clothing for the soul divine Under every grief & pine Runs a joy with silken twine William Blake (1757-1827), Auguries of Innocence...
May Magnificent
All things rising, all things sizing Mary sees, sympathising With that world of good, Nature's motherhood. Their magnifying of each its kind With delight calls to mind How she did in her stored Magnify the Lord. Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-89), The May...
The Bible: Bestowed Word of God
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God’s love-letter
A man who loves his wife will love her letters and her photographs because they speak to him of her. So if we love the Lord Jesus we shall love the Bible because it speaks to us of him. The husband is not so stupid as to prefer his wife's letters to her voice, her...
Jesus Christ: Crucified God in Person
Love nailed Jesus
O God, Nails would not have held your Son to the cross Had not love held him there. Make us truly thankful for his great love shown on the cross; And grant that it may fix and steady us In those situations and places Which we might happily desert. After...
A new small-rented lease please
Having been tenant long to a rich Lord, Not thriving, I resolved to be bold, And make a suit unto him, to afford A new small-rented lease, and cancel the old. In heaven at his manor I him sought: They told me there, that he was lately gone About some land, which he...
Christ’s passion
And now, O Father, mindful of the love that bought us, once for all, on Calvary's Tree, and having with us him that pleads above, we here present, we spread forth to thee that only Offering perfect in thine eyes, the one, true, pure, immortal Sacrifice. Look, Father,...
Happy Tree
There was a bright and happy tree; The wind with music laced its boughs; Thither across the houseless sea Came singing birds to house. Men grudged the tree its happy eyes, Its happy dawns of eager sound; So all that crown and tower of leaves They levelled with...
Humankind: Sinful, Rebellious and Faithless
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...
I wonder
Men go abroad to wonder at the height of the mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering. Augustine (354-430),...
My move
… The saint knows That the spiritual path Is a sublime chess game with God And that the Beloved Has just made … a Fantastic Move…. Whereas, my dear, I am afraid you still think You have a thousand serious moves. Hafiz...
Hardy and Harry’s Seasons
This is the weather the cuckoo likes, and so do I When showers betumble the chestnut spikes and nestlings fly And the little brown nightingale bills his best, And they sit outside at the Traveller's Rest, And maids come forth sprig-muslin dressed, And citizens dream...
The Grace of God: Justifying and Converting
The uninvited guest comes
When we are weak, we are strong. When our eyes close on the world, then somewhere within us the bush burns. When we are poor and aware of the inadequacy of our table, it is to that uninvited the guest comes. R.S. Thomas, ...
Judas: the first to be forgiven
In Hell there grew a Judas Tree Where Judas hanged and died Because he could not bear to see His master crucified Our Lord descended into Hell And found his Judas there For ever hanging on the tree Grown from his own despair So Jesus cut his Judas down And took him in...
Give me simplicity
A wreathed garland of deserved praise, Of praise, deserved unto thee I give, I give to thee, who knowest all my ways, My crooked winding ways, wherein I live, Wherein I die, not live; for life is straight, Straight as a line, and ever tends to thee, To thee, who art...
Naked in Your Sty
Take off the business suit, the old school tie, the gown, the cap, drop the reviews, awards, certificates, stand naked in you sty, a little carnivore, clothed in dried turds. The snot that slowly fills our passages seeps up from hollows where the dead beasts lie;...
Christ-likeness: Progressive Christian Living
Put out to sea
When your ship Long moored in the harbour, Gives you the illusion Of being a house; When your ship Begins to put down roots In the stagnant water by the quay: Put out to sea! Save your boat’s journeying soul, And your own pilgrim soul, Cost what it may. Dom...
Liz Truss ‘I will deliver’ But…
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction Of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work. Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying That the kingdom always lies beyond us: No statement says all that can be said. No prayer fully expresses our...
Wash my Feet
Swift, tired, true, headstrong, tender, merciless – your feet have more persona than your head: born for earth that you may be freed for sky – Does anything that serves you serve like this? So why should someone say, ‘Not my feet, Lord – far rather wash my hands or...
Not My King! Then Who is?
Love that gives, gives ever more, gives with zeal, with eager hands, spares not, keeps not, all outpours, ventures all its all expends. . Drained is love in making full, bound in setting others free, poor in making many rich, weak in giving power to be. . Therefore he...
Holy Spirit: in Christian Experience
My name is ‘I am’ not ‘I was’
I was regretting the past However dark it be; And fearing the future. Suddenly my lord was speaking; ‘My name is I am.’ He paused. I waited. He continued’ ‘When you live in the past, with its mistakes and regrets, it is hard. I am not there. My name is not ‘I was’....
A flash of rare delight
Enjoyment is a flash of rare delight, While only Christ illuminates for me The fear and darkness of this Earth’s strange night. Audrey Milner (1924-2017), Southwell.
Mysteries yes: look with astonishment
Truly we live with mysteries too marvellous to be understood…. Let me keep my distance, always, from those who think they have the answers. Let me keep company always with those who say ‘Look!’ and laugh in astonishment,...
God’s fantastic move
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...
Believers: Assured, Called and Prayerful
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...
Glimpses of Truth
Open my eyes that I may see Glimpses of Truth Thou hast for me; Place in my hand the wonderful key That shall unlock and set me free. Silently now I wait for Thee, Ready my God, Thy will to see, Open my eyes, illumine me, Spirit divine. Clara H. Scott...
Tell me your Story
Don't throw your arms around me in that way: I know what you tell me is the truth - yes I suppose I loved you in my youth as boys do love their mothers, so they say, but all that's gone from me this many a day: I am a merciless cactus an uncouth wild goat a jagged old...
Now!
Only the present is thy part and fee And happy thou, If, though thou didst not beat thy future brow, Thou could'st well see What present things required of thee. They ask enough; why should'st thou further go? Raise not the mud Of future depths, but drink the clear...
The Church: Provisional but Necessary
A frightful reformation lies ahead
Certainly things will be reformed; it will be a frightful reformation compared with which the Lutheran reformation will be almost a joke, a frightful reformation that will have as its battle-cry; ‘Whether will faith be found upon earth?’ and it will be...
The English Reformation: more political than dogmatic
If one has to choose between the sole authority of the Bible and the sole authority of the Church, in Heaven’s name let us have the Church, which is alive, and, because plainly subject to error, is also capable of truth. And above all, let us be profoundly...
Time for Christianity to vanish?
On the whole Christianity I suppose is kinder than it was, Helped to it, I fear, by the power of the civil arm. Oh Christianity, Christianity, That has grown kinder now, as in the political world The colonial system grows kinder before it vanishes, are you...
Love You to Death
I am beginning to understand I saw a sign once; outside a church. It said Are you really living or just walking around to save the expense of a funeral? I didn’t know that Love is real life, and everything else is just a more or less entertaining way of dying, and I...
The Mission of God
Pull up the ladder Jack!
Deal not with me God as I have dealt with Man In the prosperity which thou hast given me Helpless in his need a careless course I ran And now O Lord that thou hast driven me To my last gasp, I pray for all I am not worth Deal not with me as I have dealt on earth....
Dangerous Day Dreaming
All men dream but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their mindsj 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. ...
Practical thanks for God’s amazing grace
God’s amazing grace The Scriptures received as God’s word. People who are alive to God Ideas which are new to me A need to which I am fitted to respond A new achievable challenge Confidence reposed in me The family together and in harmony Graham Greene (1904 –...
Peace in Palestine?
In the cross of Christ I glory, Towering o’er the wrecks of time; All the light of sacred story Gathers round its head sublime. When the woes of life o’ertake me, Hopes deceive and fears annoy. Never shall the cross forsake me. Lo, it glows with peace and joy. ...
Moral Justice: a Vision of God’s Kingdom
Injustice
Southern trees bear a strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood at the root, Black body swinging in the Southern breeze, Strange fruit hanging from poplar trees. Pastoral scene of the gallant South, The bulging eyes and twisted mouth, Scent of magnolia sweet...
Wasting the earth
O shame to men! Devil with Devil damned Firm concord holds; men only disagree Of creatures rational, though under hope Of heavenly grace, and, God proclaiming peace, Yet live in hatred, enmity, and strife Among themselves, and levy cruel wars, Wasting the earth, each...
No voice of mourning
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,...
Too close to the shore?
Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves, when our dreams have come true, because we have dreamed too little, when we have arrived safely, because we sailed too close to the shore....
Glory: Now and Then, Here and There
Not death but glory
This isn’t death, it’s glory! It isn’t dark, it’s light. It isn’t stumbling, groping, Or even faith, it’s sight! This isn’t grief, it’s having My last tear wiped away. It’s sunrise, it’s the morning Of my eternal day! This isn’t even praying, It’s speaking face to...
In case of fire
And whereas I had said; letters and photos And seen myself muscling through the flames, You would go back especially for your houseplants – Those dreamy weeping figs, this stocky yucca – What’s worth remembering remembered, leaving Both hands free for carrying out the...
I held your hand
I held your hand. The ancient bone beneath the flesh had been there since the dawn of time: you were an immemorial fact which none could cancel. Our staunch pact could not be broken. None could rinse away the rhyme and reason of that Elie beach with everything...
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...