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Writer's pictureMargaret Tinsley

Hearing God in Poetry


Austen Farrer wrote that if our faith is not to be walled-in, we must spread our recognition of God as widely as our mind and imagination will range. Surely poetry can do that (and provide enjoyment as well as a new depth to our understanding).

There is so much on offer….


Hearing God in Poetry, 50 poems selected by Richard Harries: each poem has some biographical detail of the author and then interpretation of the poem. We have probably already come across Janet Morley’s The Heart’s Time, like the above but with less of the biography and with each day’s reading concluding with a suggestion for further thought or action.


Personal favourites are less geared to Lent, but still make good Lenten reading: in My Sour-Sweet Days, Mark Oakley focusses on 40 poems of George Herbert – a good Lenten number; in Love, Remember Malcolm Guite includes 40 poems of loss, lament and hope.


A true feast of beauty and spiritual awareness is in these – and other works. To quote from just one of these:


And if tonight my soul may find her peace

in sleep, and sink in good oblivion,

and in the morning wake like a new-opened flower

then I have been dipped again in God, and new created.


 Of course, the psalms offer us yet more poetry. Let some words from psalm 25 be our prayer for this week:


Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths.

Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all day long. Amen

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