poem | Craig T. Owens

April 2026
S	M	T	W	T	F	S
	1	2	3	4
5	6	7	8	9	10	11
12	13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28	29	30

Poetry Saturday—The Church A Garden

July 24, 2021 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.

Christ hath a garden walled around,

A Paradise of fruitful ground,

Chosen by love and fenced by grace

From out the world’s wide wilderness.

Like trees of spice His servants stand,

There planted by His mighty hand;

By Eden’s gracious streams, that flow

To feed their beauty where they grow.

Awake, O wind of heav’n and bear

Their sweetest perfume through the air:

Stir up, O south, the boughs that bloom,

Till the beloved Master come:

That He may come, and linger yet

Among the trees that He hath set;

That He may evermore be seen

To walk amid the springing green. —Isaac Watts

►► Would you please prayerfully consider supporting this ministry? ◀︎◀︎

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: church, Creator, Garden of Eden, Heaven, hymn, Isaac Watts, Jesus Christ, poem, poetry. Leave a Comment »

Poetry Saturday—Why Art Thou Weary?

July 17, 2021 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.

Sad heart, why art thou weary

With anxious strivings drear?

Thou hast no cause for sadness,

No cause for restless fear.

Thou longest for thy Master,

Then cease and be at rest;

For shall not He who made thee

Know what for thee is best? —Oswald Chambers

►► Would you please prayerfully consider supporting this ministry? ◀︎◀︎

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: God's presence, Oswald Chambers, poem, poetry, prayer, rest. Leave a Comment »

Poetry Saturday—A Nation’s Strength

July 3, 2021 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.

What makes a nation’s pillars high

And its foundations strong?

What makes it mighty to defy

The foes that round it throng?

It is not gold. Its kingdoms grand

Go down in battle shock;

Its shafts are laid on sinking sand,

Not on abiding rock.

Is it the sword? Ask the red dust

Of empires passed away;

The blood has turned their stones to rust,

Their glory to decay.

And is it pride? Ah, that bright crown

Has seemed to nations sweet;

But God has struck its luster down

In ashes at His feet.

Not gold but only men can make

A people great and strong;

Men who for truth and honor’s sake

Stand fast and suffer long.

Brave men who work while others sleep,

Who dare while others fly…

They build a nation’s pillars deep

And lift them to the sky. —Ralph Waldo Emerson

►► Would you please prayerfully consider supporting this ministry? ◀︎◀︎

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: bravery, God's help, honor, humility, Independence Day, perseverance, poem, poetry, Ralph Waldo Emerson, strength, United States of America. Leave a Comment »

Poetry Saturday—Philomythus To Misomythus

June 26, 2021 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple or Spotify.

The heart of Man is not compound of lies,

but draws some wisdom from the only Wise,

and still recalls him. Though now long estranged,

Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.

Dis-graced he may be, yet is not dethroned,

and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned,

his world-dominion by creative act:

not his to worship the great Artefact,

Man, Sub-creator, the refracted light

through whom is splintered from a single White

to many hues, and endlessly combined

in living shapes that move from mind to mind.

Though all the crannies of the world we filled

with Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build

Gods and their houses out of dark and light,

and sowed the seed of dragons, ’twas our right

(used or misused). The right has not decayed.

We make still by the law in which we’re made.—J.R.R. Tolkien, written to C.S. Lewis

►► Would you please prayerfully consider supporting this ministry? ◀︎◀︎

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: C.S. Lewis, creative thinking, creativity, Creator, J.R.R. Tolkien, mythology, poem, poetry. Leave a Comment »

Poetry Saturday—Sunday Choice (Complaint #1)

June 19, 2021 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple or Spotify.

I’d shut down once the text is read,

and wish I’d just stayed home instead.

What do they teach these guys in school?

Must boredom be their guiding rule?

When insipid’s their claim

to weekly homiletic fame,

and sin can sit at ease, unfazed

with all the rest whose eyes are glazed,

while humor or some story take

the place of exposition—wake

me when it’s over, if you please.

The devil’s tools are such as these.

Before them lies the Word of Life:

It should dissect us like a knife

and cause our sin-sick souls to howl

to be exposed so dark and foul.

We should be ushered through the gate

of glory, crushed beneath its weight

and, listed by a skillful hand,

there made with joy to safely stand

before our Savior’s beaming face,

secure in His redeeming grace,

and all astounded to be seen

in His eyes loved, forgiven, clean,

and fitted to His bidding do.

Instead, we are subjected to

some moral exhortation in

the name of Him who died for sin,

which most accept too readily

since it requires no change, you see,

but serves to reassure them that

God’s fine with them right where they’re at.

The Church thus weekly sermonized

is steadily more marginalized.

The Kingdom’s coming waits until

those called to preach their calls fulfill

with courage and consistency,

to vaunt Christ, with humility. —T.M. Moore

►► Would you please prayerfully consider supporting this ministry? ◀︎◀︎

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: pastors, poem, poetry, preaching, sermon, T.M. Moore. Leave a Comment »

Poetry Saturday—Upon A Life I Have Not Lived

June 12, 2021 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple or Spotify.

Upon a Life I have not lived,

Upon a Death I did not die,

Another’s Life; Another’s Death,

I stake my whole eternity.

Not on the tears which I have shed,

Not on the sorrows I have known,

Another’s tears; Another’s griefs,

On these I rest, on these alone.

O Jesus, Son of God,

I build on what Thy Cross has done for me;

There both my death and life I read,

My guilt, and pardon there I see.

Lord, I believe; O deal with me,

As one who has Thy Word believed!

I take the gift, Lord, look on me,

As one who has Thy gift received. —Horatius Bonar

►► Would you please prayerfully consider supporting this ministry? ◀︎◀︎

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: assurance, Cross, eternal life, forgiveness, Horatius Bonar, Jesus Christ, pardon, poem, poetry, resurrection, salvation. Leave a Comment »

Poetry Saturday—Affliction IV

June 5, 2021 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple or Spotify.

Broken in pieces all asunder,

Lord, hunt me not,

A thing forgot,

Once a poore creature, now a wonder,

A wonder tortur’d in the space

Betwixt this world and that of grace.

My thoughts are all a case of knives,

Wounding my heart

With scatter’d smart,

As watring pots give flowers their lives.

Nothing their furie can controll,

While they do wound and prick my soul.

All my attendants are at strife,

Quitting their place

Unto my face:

Nothing performs the task of life:

The elements are let loose to fight,

And while I live, trie out their right.

Oh help, my God! let not their plot

Kill them and me,

And also Thee,

Who art my life: dissolve the knot,

As the sunne scatters by his light

All the rebellions of the night.

Then shall those powers, which work for grief,

Enter Thy pay,

And day by day

Labour Thy praise, and my relief;

With care and courage building me,

Till I reach heav’n, and much more, Thee. —George Herbert (**spelling is 1663 English**)

►► Would you please prayerfully consider supporting this ministry? ◀︎◀︎

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: affliction, George Herbert, God's help, God's presence, poem, poetry, prayer, thought life, trials. Leave a Comment »

Seeing Beauty And Saying Beautifully (book review)

June 2, 2021 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple or Spotify.

Seeing Beauty And Saying Beautifully is, in my mind, a grand slam! It features one of my favorite poets (George Herbert), possibly the most prolific evangelist of history (George Whitefield), my all-time favorite author (C.S. Lewis), all tied together by my go-to theologian (John Piper). Seeing Beauty And Saying Beautifully is part 6 in Piper’s series called “The Swans Are Not Silent.”

George Herbert was a pastor of a small country church and a prolific poet who wrote almost all of his poems uniquely. “Of the 167 poems in The Temple, 116 are written with meters that are not repeated,” which even modern poets find astounding. George Whitefield spent more hours of his life preaching than he did sleeping, and he spoke with such a captivating style that he was quite possibly the first celebrity of the American colonies. C.S. Lewis wrote everything from history to fantasy, autobiography to poetry, theology to children’s novels. Peter Kreeft says of him, he “was not a man: he was a world.”

John Piper finds in all three of these men a common thread: They all were able to not only see the beauty of God in everything, but they were able to express it in a beautiful way that drew in others to see the beauty of God for themselves. Pastor John calls this “poetic effort.”

Pastor John also wrestles with how the profound creativity and eloquence of his three subjects meshes with the apostle Paul’s admonition that human eloquence could drain the Cross of Jesus of its power (see 1 Corinthians 1:17-2:5). He concludes that poetic effort for the sake of exalting the speaker or poet does turn people’s eyes to man and away from God. But that poet, evangelist, or author that uses the beauty in God’s creation to point people to the Creator is doing so in a way in which God is supremely exalted. This, Pastor John says, is exactly what Herbert, Whitefield, and Lewis have done, and done so well that their poetic efforts are still fruitful and God-glorifying long after their deaths.

Seeing Beauty And Saying Beautifully is a wonderful book for those who enjoy biographies, theology, or the craft of skilled artisans. If you don’t know about the poems of George Herbert, the preaching of George Whitefield, or the vast library of literature of C.S. Lewis, let this book be your doorway to a rich new world of discovery, enjoyment, and God-glorification.

►► Would you please prayerfully consider supporting this ministry? ◀︎◀︎