A Liturgy Before Writing, by Malcolm Guite
O Word through whom the world was made,
Word in whom all words are graced,
I thank you for speaking me into being,
and I thank you that, made in your image,
I am privileged with the gift
of speech and language,
allowed by you to be a Word-Bearer.
Now, as I prepare to write,
to bring out things old and things
new from the word-hoard,
the treasury of language with which
I have been entrusted,
I pray for grace, for discretion,
for true imagination.
Lord may I not so much find the right words
as allow the right words to find me,
not so much compose
as allow you to compose me.
And when the words come,
Lord, help me to welcome them,
to listen for their wisdom
and to cherish and care for them.
May no word in my writing ever be
strained, or drained, misused or misplaced.
Neither let me force a word
to mean less or other than itself,
nor exploit a high word to cover a low thought,
or compel an emotive word
to manipulate my reader,
but rather let me learn from the wisdom of every word I use,
for every word that comes to me
is older and wiser than I am.
Lord, let me weigh my words, delight in them,
allow them to dance together,
to sound and resound off one another,
and may the words I use
always renew, and never deplete the meanings
you have given them.
For you, Lord, are Logos,
the meaning itself behind every meaning.
It is the treasury of your truth that underwrites
all these little cheques,
these little promises of meaning
that we exchange with one another in writing
and reading.
Lord, if I am called in this writing
not only to bless but to challenge,
not only to create but to critique,
then give me deftness, discretion, compassion.
The Scripture you have given us
both blesses and pierces,
sharper than a two-edged sword,
to the division of joint and marrow.
If you call on me to pierce,
to pierce through illusion or falsehood,
to pierce through hardened
or blunted conscience,
then may I always pierce with your sword
and not with mine,
for where you pierce you always heal,
and where you cast down,
there you intend to build.
Finally, Lord, I confess
that all these words I love and lay before you
were never mine, but always yours;
truth itself is never mine but always yours.
Your truth is in every word
and yet always beyond words,
and so I ask, when I have finished writing,
that all I have said, or tried to say,
may gesture at last beyond itself towards you,
that you will bring me and my readers to the
brink of language itself,
and beyond that brink into the wordless mystery
of your true and loving presence.
Amen.
–Malcolm Guite, Every Moment Holy V. III (Amazon Associates Link)