Faith, Spirituality and Religion

Glory be to God for dappled things.

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

Thou mastering me God! giver of breath and bread; World’s strand, sway of the sea; Lord of living and dead; Thou hast bound bones and veins in me, fastened me flesh, And after it almost unmade, what with dread, Thy doing: and dost thou touch me afresh? Over again I feel thy finger and find thee.

A local cult called Christianity.

What of the Immanent Will and its designs? It works unconsciously as heretofore, External artistries in circumstance.

So little cause for carolings Of such ecstatic sound Was written on terrestrial things Afar or nigh around, That I could think there trembled through His happy good-night air Some blessed hope, whereof he knew And I was unaware.

And Christ ain’t a-going to be too hard On a man that died for men.

I never saw a Moor— I never saw the Sea— Yet know I how the Heather looks And what a Billow be. I never spoke with God Nor visited in Heaven— Yet certain am I of the spot As if the Checks were given—

God gave a Loaf to every Bird— But just a Crumb—to Me—

Of Course—I prayed— And did God Care? He cared as much as on the Air A Bird—had stamped her foot— And cried “Give Me”—

So instead of getting to Heaven, at last— I’m going, all along.

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church— I keep it, staying at Home— With a bobolink for a Chorister— And an Orchard, for a Dome—

Thou waitest for the spark from heaven: and we, Light half-believers of our casual creeds, Who never deeply felt, nor clearly willed… Who hesitate and falter life away, And lose tomorrow the ground won today— Ah! do not we, wanderer! await it too?

So, loath to suffer mute, We, peopling the void air, Make Gods to whom to impute The ills we ought to bear.

We cannot kindle when we will The fire that in the heart resides, The spirit bloweth and is still, In mystery our soul abides.

The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer, This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds.

Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth, And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own, And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own, And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers, And that a kelson of the creation is love.

For a cap and bells our lives we pay, Bubbles we buy with a whole soul’s tasking: ’Tis heaven alone that is given away, ’Tis only God may be had for the asking.

Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne— Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.

Not only around our infancy Doth heaven with all its splendors lie; Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, We Sinais climb and know it not.

And almost everyone when age, Disease, or sorrows strike him, Inclines to think there is a God, Or something very like Him.

Grace is given of God, but knowledge is bought in the market.

Through such souls alone God stooping shows sufficient of His light For us i’ the dark to rise by. And I rise.

We find great things are made of little things, And little things go lessening till at last Comes God behind them.