- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
I love poetry, maybe to an excessive degree. So while preparing a talk this week on Faith and Hope, I read through 3 collections of poems on faith and inspiration. A few struck me more than others, as is usual. And some seemed like they could fit the audience here. I wanted to share them and hear if anyone else comes across any poems that uplift your spirit or encapsulate the way you feel. I have one to start with tonight that echos many prayers I have prayed over the past year. More uplifting options to come.
Quote:A Prayer for Faith, Margaret E Sangster
God, give me back the simple faith
that I so long have clung to,
My simple faith in peace and hope,
in loveliness and light –
Because without this faith of mine,
the rhythms I have sung to
Become as empty as the sky upon a starless night.
God, let me feel that right is right,
that reason dwells with reason,
And let me feel that something grows
whenever there is rain –
And let me sense that splendid truth
that season follows season,
And let me dare to dream
that there is tenderness in pain.
God, give me back my simple faith
because my soul is straying
Away from all the little creeds
that I so long have known;
Oh, answer me while I still have
at least the strength for praying,
For if the prayer dies from my heart
I will be quite alone.
I have never heard that one. Each stanza itself is a story/poem. Copied and keeping. Old Timer wrote:
One of my daughters is a high school junior. For an assignment in her English class on Tuesday, she wrote the following poem. To say I am proud of her would be an understatement – and she got NO help or input from me.
The Map
by Jessica
3-20-12
Imagine if
You are a child.
You find a map;
A pirate’s treasure map.
You search.
Everyone searches.
For their keys,
For their shoes,
For their dreams.
They search.
When you are searching,
What are you searching for?
Something nonessential?
Something worthwhile?
Searching for change?
And how do you search?
Do you agonize over it?
Are you annoyed by it?
Do you feel anxious about it?
Are you diligent?
When do you find it?
After an hour?
After twenty-four?
After one-hundred and sixty-eight?
After you’ve given up?
What if you never find it?
What if you never stop searching?
What if the map is infinite?
What if that’s the point?
Imagine if.
Ann wrote:
I’m not a student of anything, including poetry, but this really struck me.May I stand until death forever at attention.On the off chance that this describes anyone else here…. Address to the LordMaster of beauty, craftsman of the snowflake,
Inimitable contriver,
endower of Earth so gorgeous & different from the boring moon,
thank you for such as it is my gift.
I have made up a morning prayer to you
containing with precision everything that most matters.
“According to Thy will” the thing begins.
It took me off & on two days. It does not aim at eloquence.
You have come to my rescue again & again
in my impassable, sometimes despairing years.
You have allowed my brilliant friends to destroy themselves
and I am still here, severely damaged, but functioning.
Unknowable, as I am unknown to my guinea pigs:
How can I ‘love’ you?
I only as far as gratitude & awe
confidently & absolutely go.
I have no idea whether we live again.
It doesn’t seem likely
from either the scientific or the philosophical point of view
but certainly all things are possible to you,
And I believe as fixedly in the Resurrection-appearances to Peter
and
to Paul
as I believe I sit in this blue chair.
Only that may have been a special case
to establish their initiatory faith.
Whatever your end may be, accept my amazement.
May I stand until death forever at attention
for any your least instruction or enlightenment.
I even feel sure you will assist me again, Master of insight & beauty.
by John Berryman
mom3 wrote:
My friend sent this to me today. I hope you enjoy it.Quote:When the song of the angels is stilled,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with their flocks,
the work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the people,
to make music in the heart.
Katzpur wrote:
I like that. It reminds me of “A Skeptic’s Prayer” by Margaret Rampton Munk:A SKEPTIC’S PRAYER
Is it true
Thou lovest best
Thy meek, unasking children?
Thou has made us
So diverse, so various,
Yet in the image of a Sire
Who filled the universe
With His creative fire.
What father has supposed
His child would grow to manhood
Only hearing and affirming?
What man could honor such a son?
How could a mind that,
Like a sponge,
Absorbs but never questions,
Doubts,
Or wonders why
Be offspring and apprentice
To a God?
It may be, Lord,
Thou canst never love me
With the calm relief
a father feels
For his obedient child–
The one who’s never any trouble.
But use me
As a bridge
To those more wayward still
Than I.
I cannot give them all the answers;
But they will not ask
The ones who think they can.
Let me speak
To Thy lost sheep
As one who,
Understanding how they went astray,
Still loves the Shepherd.
I love this thread. Roy, thanks for all the additions. I had forgotten them. I do have a copy of Curt’s daughter’s poem. I remember when it was first posted. Roy wrote:
mom3 wrote:
My friend sent this to me today. I hope you enjoy it.Quote:When the song of the angels is stilled,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with their flocks,
the work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the people,
to make music in the heart.
I included this poem in the R.S. lesson I taught the last Sunday in 2017 and the last Sunday in 2018. Maybe I am starting a tradition
😆 Shared by TSM in one of his final talks in GC: Quote:To illustrate, I share with you the touching words of a favorite poem I first read many years ago:
I met a stranger in the night
Whose lamp had ceased to shine.
I paused and let him light
His lamp from mine.
A tempest sprang up later on
And shook the world about.
And when the wind was gone
My lamp was out!
But back to me the stranger came—
His lamp was glowing fine!
He held the precious flame
And lighted mine!
Greyair00 wrote:
Thomas Hardy (1840–1928). Wessex Poems and Other Verses. 1898.The Impercipient
THAT from this bright believing band
An outcast I should be,
That faiths by which my comrades stand
Seem fantasies to me,
And mirage-mists their Shining Land,
Is a drear destiny.
Why thus my soul should be consigned
To infelicity,
Why always I must feel as blind
To sights my brethren see,
Why joys they’ve found I cannot find,
Abides a mystery.
Since heart of mine knows not that ease
Which they know; since it be
That He who breathes All’s Well to these
Breathes no All’s Well to me,
My lack might move their sympathies
And Christian charity!
I am like a gazer who should mark
An inland company
Standing upfingered, with, “Hark! hark!
The glorious distant sea!”
And feel, “Alas, ’tis but yon dark
And wind-swept pine to me!”
O, doth a bird deprived of wings
Go earth-bound wilfully!
. . . .
Enough. As yet disquiet clings
About us. Rest shall we.
mom3 wrote:
In honor of Nelson Mandela and You. – I leave you with William Ernest Henley’s inspiring poemInvictus
Quote:Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
I needed this ^^^ today Roy. I find it amusing that I originally posted it. But I am having a day where I need to pull through and reading it helps. Thank you.
I saw this one over at BCC: Quote:The God Who RangesSome find comfort in a God who commands.
Others find solace in a God who weeps.
But I am called by the God who ranges:
A Father and a Mother range among the worlds;
they scry the heavens and the earth for signs
of other wills, sparks of self-awareness like themselves.
They sweep the skies for them;
they hunt them from hidden places in deep hollows,
and, finding them, they laugh with delight as they lay them on their shoulders.
They gather them and give them their names,
clothe them and choose them their children,
plant them and provide for them;
and then watch in wonder and delight
to see what strange new things they will grow into,
in the strange new places where they will peregrinate,
when they, the begotten children of rangers,
begin themselves to range.
And when they do, the Mother and the Father go out again to range,
and call their kindred to them,
on the strange new shores where they range.
They hunt them on the hills and in the hollows;
they hunt them even in the outer void
where some try to hide from their Parents, from themselves, and even from being itself.
They call them with their own authority:
not the domination of other wills, but
the authority of a love, born of wonder and delight, that is stronger than force,
a faithfulness that outlasts death, and
a mercy that overwhelms darkness and bewilders unholiness.
By this everlasting authority they release them from their fear of being found
and set them free to range
in the express image and likeness of their Parents.
By Jared Cook
John of the Cross – The Dark Night of the Soul – The Poem: Quote:One dark night,
fired with love’s urgent longings
– ah, the sheer grace! –
I went out unseen,
my house being now all stilled.
In darkness, and secure,
by the secret ladder, disguised,
– ah, the sheer grace! –
in darkness and concealment,
my house being now all stilled.
On that glad night,
in secret, for no one saw me,
nor did I look at anything,
with no other light or guide
than the one that burned in my heart.
This guided me
more surely than the light of noon
to where he was awaiting me
– him I knew so well –
there in a place where no one appeared.
O guiding night!
O night more lovely than the dawn!
O night that has united
the Lover with his beloved,
transforming the beloved in her Lover.
Upon my flowering breast
which I kept wholly for him alone,
there he lay sleeping,
and I caressing him
there in a breeze from the fanning cedars.
When the breeze blew from the turret,
as I parted his hair,
it wounded my neck
with its gentle hand,
suspending all my senses.
I abandoned and forgot myself,
laying my face on my Beloved;
all things ceased; I went out from myself,
leaving my cares
forgotten among the lilies.
John of the Cross
This one is less self explanatory. It was written by the 16th Century Spanish Poet, Roman Catholic mystic and Carmelite priest, Saint John of the Cross.
“The night in which the journey takes place represents the hardships and problems the soul meets in detaching from the world to achieve union with the Creator, represented by the light.
Successive stanzas relate the steps in this night journey. Central is the painful experience people endure in order to grow in spiritual maturity and union with God.
There are two phases of the dark night: first is a purification of the senses, and second the more intense purification of the spirit.”
dande48 wrote:
The last time I really, strongly felt the Spirit was a few weeks ago when reading a favorite poem of mine,“The Garden of Proserpine”, by Algernon Charles SwinburneQuote:
From too much love of living,From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.
I don’t know if there is a life after this one, but I don’t think there is. Yet, even if there is no life after this one, if I were to die this very moment, I would die happy. I once heard that misery lies in the gap between what we hope to happen, and what we fear might happen; that once we come to terms with the worst that could happen, no matter what everything is going to be okay. All that we have is a gift, and when those gifts are taken away, there is no reason to complain; only gratitude for what we were given.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.