A Prayer For Writers #3

Periodically I write and post a prayer for writers and for others.  These prayers come out of my writing life, out of my hopes for the writers among us, and out of my desire for this blog to sit at the intersections between faith and writing.  Pray them or a line from them, with and for the writers you read, know, and support.  This prayer is about faith.  Join me, if you will.

Dear God,

Unfold faith in us when our hands clench doubt.  Pull the cord keeping us tied to what we see, and spin us in twirling circles of enfleshed hope.  Open our eyes.  Make our vision or visions clear, unencumbered by the litter of lifeless life.  Where we sit and, then, lay in faithlessness, give us confidence to rise.  Whisper to us the way babies do, in tones that are anything but quiet.  Call to what talent you’ve placed inside us.  Speak to our futures and talk to us until we believe enough to take one more step forward.  Grant the same loud whisper tomorrow and each following day.  When we are overwhelmed, convince us to stay faithful, to keep going, even when going is steep, hard, hardly possible.  Give us little bits of you and make our days decorated by grace.  We will be lonely in our work, and that loneliness will tempt us.  Please be more powerful than the emotion that comes from our long obedience.  Be more convincing than all the feelings within.  Be more.

In the name of the One who wrote lost words in the sand,

Amen.

A Prayer For Writers #2

Periodically I’ll write and post a prayer for writers.  Other people can pray them, but they are coming out of my writing life, out of my hopes for the writers among us, and out of my desire for this blog to sit at the intersections between faith and writing.  Perhaps you can pray them, or a line from them, with and for the writers you read, know, and support.  This particular prayer is about ideas.  Pray with me, if you will.

Dear God,

For some of us countless ideas run around in our heads.  For others of us the struggle is to start seeing anything at all.  Grant us the ability to see when our heads are clouded, the ability to hear when the story is being told somewhere just beyond our ear’s grasp, and the ability to put enough form to that thing so it feels.  Help us hold the idea gently.  Help us appreciate and respect the models you’ve given our world, the idea generators whose stories stay and sustain.  Sift through the mess and the garbage inside us so that what we find is truly a treasure.  Search us and shine your light through us so that we can see ourselves as sparkling vessels capable of repeating the amazing in our work.  Enable us to organize, to structure, and to take one step after another.  Give us the gifts of something that can nourish the world.  May we use them for good.  Place in our hearts strength and stamina so we can see those nourishing gifts on display.  And make us mindful to call them yours.

In the name of the One who wrote lost words in the sand,

Amen.

A Prayer for Writers #1

Periodically I’ll post a written prayer for writers.  Other people can pray them, but they are coming out of my writing life, out of my hopes for the writers among us, and out of my desire for this blog to sit at the intersections between faith and writing.  Perhaps you can pray them, or a line from them, with and for the writers you read, know, and support.  My first prayer is in response to the blank page.  Pray with me, if you will.

Dear God,

Enable us to see the blank page as a gift and a friend.  Whether white or yellow or some other color, brighten that background until it becomes a wide invitation from the Creator of the best stories and the Maker of the most enduring truths about humanity.  See the page as we see it.  Notice our fears, most of which we keep to ourselves.  Count our hopes and measure the distance between what we want and what we’re able to accomplish.  Track the meanings of all the unwritten words and make sense, especially when we can’t, of why writing matters to us.  Make us unafraid of the page.  Help us to imagine it full and crowded.  Excite us over tomorrow when today’s phrases have felt forced or tired because we tried and we wrote but didn’t quite finish.  Give us the skills associated with gratitude.  Form us into thankful writers, people who are grateful for language and its gifts.  Make us fearless as one page ends.  Grant that we might see you in the blankness of what’s next.  Press into us faith and imagination because writing requires both.  And may we, in some way, offer you all we do.  And may our offerings entertain you, the most perceptive and faithful Reader.

In the name of the One who once wrote lost words in the sand,

Amen.