1

The Writer Encounters the World

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handiwork.

Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.

There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.

Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.

PSALM 19.1-4

Suppose, wonders Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay, “Nature,” suppose the stars came out only one night every thousand years. Suppose the night was drawing nigh. Would we not all be filled with a fantastic eagerness to see this strange thing, of which we had heard only the most ancient of stories? Would we not anticipate it, and wait breathlessly? And when we had seen these miraculous stars, would we not wonder and marvel at the display? Would we not write poetry about the sight? Would we not tell the tale to future generations, that we were alive on this once-in-a-millennium night, when all the stars of heaven poured light down upon earth?

But, says Emerson, the stars come out every night. Every night the starry heavens, with all their wonders, unfold to us, as we walk across the village commons. This is the miracle of the universe.

Or, as the Belgic Confession asserts, we know God “by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe, since that universe is before our eyes like a beautiful book in which all creatures, great and small, are as letters to make us ponder the invisible things of God: his eternal power and his divinity.”

Writers, as Flannery O’Connor has said, begin with what is physical and concrete. They begin with their perceptions of the extraordinary, mundane, knowable, confusing, healing, broken, moving, exasperating world that we find around us. Our characters, our themes, our images, our settings, our plots, our metaphors, our language, our tones — all the elements that the writer crafts into a text — come out of that world. What else could a writer do?

It is the writer’s task to stay peculiarly attached to and aware of the physical created world — and to be aware of the awareness. The writer is aware of the miracle of a maple tree bark, even though she may be in a forest of maple trees. The writer is aware of the cracks in this one sidewalk he walks on, even though he is walking in a city of sidewalks. The writer is aware of the smell of salty pretzels, the beat of the sun at the high altitudes, the lonely cry of a train whistle across cornfields, the slight twist in the dying man’s nose, the hosta mostly deer-eaten, the gait of the border collie, the pulled-back hair of the high school volleyball player, the bleary-eyed determination of this one girl with a head cold, trudging to school among all the other students.

The writer knows that the stars come out every night, that they are all around us, and that they are stars.

The Victorian essayist John Ruskin wrote in his 1872 lecture, “The Relation of Wise Art to Wise Science,” that he had one urgent thing he wanted to tell all artists; it was this: “You cannot learn to love art, unless you first love what art mirrors.”

Art — writing — mirrors the world, the world that, the Psalmist says, day after day pours forth speech, and night after night displays knowledge; its words go to the ends of the earth. This is the world the writer knows. This is the world from which the writer draws all matter. This is the world for which the writer feels gratitude and love.

I will thank God for the pleasures given me through my senses, for the glory of the thunder, for the mystery of music, the singing of birds and the laughter of children. I will thank God for the pleasures of seeing, for the delights through colour, for the awe of the sunset, the beauty of flowers, the smile of friendship, and the look of love; for the changing beauty of the clouds, for the wild roses in the hedges, for the form and beauty of birds, for the leaves on the trees in spring and autumn, for the witness of the leafless trees through the winter, teaching us that death is sleep and not destruction, for the sweetness of flowers and the scent of hay. Truly, oh Lord, the earth is full of Thy riches! And yet, how much more I will thank and praise God for the strength of my body enabling me to work, for the refreshment of sleep, for my daily bread, for the days of painless health, for the gift of my mind and the gift of my conscience, for his loving guidance of my mind ever since it first began to think, and of my heart ever since it first began to love.

Edward King

A Prayer in Spring

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today;

And give us not to think so far away

As the uncertain harvest; keep us here

All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,

Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;

And make us happy in the happy bees,

The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird

That suddenly above the bees is heard,

The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,

And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

Robert Frost

God’s World

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!

Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!

Thy mists, that roll and rise!

Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag

And all but cry with colour! That gaunt crag

To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!

World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!

Long have I known a glory in it all,

But never knew I this;

Here such a passion is

As stretcheth me apart, — Lord, I do fear

Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year;

My soul is all but out of me, — let fall

No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Almighty God, dwelling in the beauty of holiness, from whom all skills of mind, hand and tongue do come; may those who give their lives to the creation of beauty be surprised by the joy of discovering your presence in your world, and give others the hope of beholding your glory unveiled in heaven, where you are alive and reign, Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier, one God for ever and ever.

Michael John Radford Counsell

The heavens declare thy glory, Lord;

In every star thy wisdom shines;

But when our eyes behold thy word,

We read thy name in fairer lines.

Sun, moon, and stars convey thy praise

Round the whole earth, and never stand;

So, when thy truth began its race,

It touched and glanced on every land.

Nor shall thy spreading Gospel rest

Till through the world thy truth has run;

Till Christ has all the nations blest

That see the light or feel the sun.

Great Sun of Righteousness, arise;

Bless the dark world with heavenly light;

Thy Gospel makes the simple wise,

Thy laws are pure, thy judgements right;

Thy noblest wonders ere we view,

In souls renewed and sins forgiven;

Lord, cleanse my sins, my soul renew,

And make thy word my guide to heaven.

Isaac Watts

Ice Storm

Unable to sleep, or pray, I stand

by the window looking out

at moonstruck trees a December storm

has bowed with ice.

Maple and mountain ash bend

under its glassy weight,

their cracked branches falling upon

the frozen snow.

The trees themselves, as in winters past,

will survive their burdening,

broken thrive. And am I less to You,

my God, than they?

Robert Hayden

We thank thee, Lord, for the glory of the late days and the excellent face of thy sun. We thank thee for good news received. We thank thee for the pleasures we have enjoyed and for those we have been able to confer. And now, when the clouds gather and the rain impends over the forest and our house, permit us not to be cast down; let us not lose the savour of past mercies and past pleasures; but, like the voice of a bird singing in the rain, let grateful memory survive in the hour of darkness. If there be in front of us any painful duty, strengthen us with the grace of courage; if any act of mercy, teach us tenderness and patience.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Our Father, forgive us for thinking small thoughts of you

and for ignoring your immensity and greatness.

Lord Jesus, forgive us when we forget that you rule

the nations and our small lives.

Holy Spirit, we offend you in minimizing your power

and squandering your gifts.

We confess that our blindness to your glory, O triune God,

has resulted in shallow confession,

tepid conviction, and only mild repentance.

Have mercy upon us.

In Jesus’ name. Amen

The Worship Sourcebook

A Grace

God, I know nothing, my sense is all nonsense,

And fear of You begins intelligence:

Does it end there? For sexual love, for food,

For books and birch trees I claim gratitude,

But when I grieve over the unripe dead

My grief festers, corrupted into dread,

And I know nothing. Give us our daily bread.

Donald Hall

O God, we thank you for this earth, our home; for the wide sky and the blessed sun, for the salt sea and the running water, for the everlasting hills and the never-resting winds, for trees and the common grass underfoot.

We thank you for our senses by which we hear the songs of birds, and see the splendor of the summer fields, and taste of the autumn fruits, and rejoice in the feel of the snow, and smell the breath of the spring.

Grant us a heart wide open to all this beauty; and save our souls from being so blind that we pass unseeing when even the common thornbush is aflame with your glory, O God our creator, who lives and reigns for ever and ever.

Walter Rauschenbusch

i thank You God for most this amazing

day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,

and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth

day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay

great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing

breathing any — lifted from the no

of all nothing — human merely being

doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and

now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

e. e. cummings

Triune God

Creator of heaven and earth

Who formed out of nothing all that is

Spirit who moved across the face of the deep

And breathed life into inanimate clay

Wisdom, the master artist,

Who delights in all that is made

We thank you for the beauty of this world

And for the gifts you give to those who create beauty,

Who craft the mirrors that reflect your glory,

Prisms that refract your light into a thousand dancing colors.

Beauty will not save the world.

But you — who are all beauty — have redeemed us

At the cost of your own son.

For out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God has shined.

Late have we loved you, beauty so old and so new

But this we desire,

That we may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of our lives

To behold the beauty of the Lord

And to seek his face.

Today and every day

May the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us

To establish the work of our hands

And the offering of our hearts.

Through the power of the Holy Spirit

And in the name of Christ Jesus our Lord.

Susan Felch

A Prayer to God the Father on the Vigil of Pentecost

Today, Father, this blue sky lauds you. The delicate green and orange flowers of the tulip poplar tree praise you. The distant blue hills praise you, together with the sweet-smelling air that is full of brilliant light. The bickering flycatchers praise you with the lowing cattle and the quails that whistle over there. I too, Father, praise you, with all these my brothers, and they give voice to my own heart and to my own silence. We are all one silence, and a diversity of voices.

You have made us together, you have made us one and many, you have placed me here in the midst as witness, as awareness, and as joy. Here I am. In me the world is present, and you are present. I am a link in the chain of light and of presence. You have made me a kind of center, but a center that is nowhere. And yet also I am “here. . . .”

To be here with the silence of Sonship in my heart is to be a center in which all things converge upon you. That is surely enough for the time being.

Therefore, Father, I beg you to keep me in this silence so that I may learn from it the word of your peace and the word of your mercy and the word of your gentleness to the world: and that through me perhaps your word of peace may make itself heard where it has not been possible for anyone to hear it for a long time.

To study truth here and learn here to suffer for truth.

The Light itself, and the contentment and the Spirit, these are enough.

Thomas Merton

O God of the blue, red, brown, black, and multicolored bird, of the singing, humming, and silent bird, of the noisy woodpecker and cooing dove, of perfect yellow sunflowers, fanciful laughing pansies, and pungent purple lavender, thank You for Your beautiful gifts of rich difference and variety.

O God, whose countless shades of green we cannot discern, who made no two leaves, grasses, animals, or humans alike, who made blue sky, white and gray clouds, soft reddish-brown and black earthen soils, infinite desert sands and impenetrable oceans deep, we thank You for the manifold and diverse universe You have made and shared with us.

Marian Wright Edelman

This earth is ours to love: lute, brush and pen,

They are but tongues to tell of life sincerely;

The thaumaturgic Day, the might of men,

O God of Scribes, grant us to grave them clearly!

Grant heart that homes in heart, then all is well.

Honey is honey-sweet; howe’er the hiving.

Each to his work, his wage at evening bell

The strength of striving.

Robert Service