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When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers,
the moon and the stars, which thou has ordained;
What is man, that thou art mindful of him?
And the son of man, that thou visitest him?
PSALM 8.3-4
Writers often work at imitating the world — mimesis. In this, the writer’s task is to create in poetry or prose a credible representation of the real world, so that the characters seem to be real folks, who live and move and have their being in real settings, who respond to their environments in real ways, and to history in real ways.
Mimesis is an imitation of life.
For of course, art is not life. Art is life reconstructed and represented through the observant and trained eye of the artist. For the writer to reconstruct and represent, she must not only observe the world around her, but study it in all of its multiple parts, and study those who have studied it. A writer, observes Samuel Johnson, “will turn over half a library to make one book.” Just so. That’s about what it takes.
To learn of the world can be a maddening step for the writer, and certainly can be a quagmire. There will always be another book to turn to before writing; there will always be another article to read, another fact to check. How many writers get so caught up in learning about the world of the book, that they never get to the book itself?
One of the characters in what may be the loveliest — and probably one of the more underestimated — of the Golden Era Hollywood Christmas films, The Bishop’s Wife, is an aged professor, who has spent years and years researching his history of Rome. He has so choked himself with his research that he no longer has the ability to write his book; the whole enterprise has become dry as dust. It takes angelic influence — the angel played by Cary Grant — to suggest to the professor that his book is about story, and that the whole endeavor is most worthy when it is most story-like. And to his despair that he is old and past his possibilities, angel Cary reassures him, “You’ll have time, Professor,” and he hands him an ancient coin that sparks an outpouring of narrative.
Sometimes it takes angelic interposition.
The writer learns about the world in the service of his art. In doing this, the writer comes to recognize in ways impossible through observation only, the interrelatedness and complexity and associative quality of the created world. And this complexity must undergird her work, like a strong and sturdy cement foundation undergirds a building of steel and glass, and gives it shape, support, and being.
Turning over half the library so as to get the foundation right and true — that’s a daunting task for the writer. But all authentic art exists only because of it.
O Lord our God! thou art teaching us through thy written word, that we may know how to understand thy created revelation. Grant, we beseech thee, that we may know the beginning of all knowledge of God, by the implanted spirit of God in us. We pray that thou wilt cleanse our souls from the darkness of nature; that thou wilt brood upon us, and bring from chaos out of the furnace of creation all ordered things.
Henry Ward Beecher
Thou who sendest forth the light, createst the morning, makest the sun to rise on the good and on the evil: enlighten the blindness of our minds with the knowledge of the truth: lift Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon us, that in Thy light we may see light, and, at the last, in the light of grace, [behold] the light of glory.
Lancelot Andrewes
Lord, my maker and protector, who has graciously sent me into this world, to work out my salvation, enable me to drive from me all such unquiet and perplexing thoughts as may mislead or hinder me in the practice of those duties which you have required. When I behold the works of your hands and consider the course of your providence, give me grace always to remember that your thoughts are not my thoughts, nor your ways my ways. And while it shall please you to continue me in this world where much is to be done and little to be known, teach me by your Holy Spirit to withdraw my mind from unprofitable and dangerous enquiries, from difficulties vainly curious and doubts impossible to be solved. Let me rejoice in the light which you have imparted, let me serve you with active zeal and humble confidence, and wait with patient expectation for the time in which the soul which you receive shall be satisfied with knowledge. Grant this, O Lord, for Jesus Christ’s sake.
Samuel Johnson
O Thou who through the light of nature hast aroused in us a longing for the light of grace, so that we may be raised in the light of Thy majesty, to Thee I give thanks, Creator and Lord, that Thou allowest me to rejoice in Thy works. Praise the Lord ye heavenly harmonies, and ye who know the revealed harmonies. For from Him, through Him and in Him, all is, which is perceptible as well as spiritual; that which we know and that which we do not know, for there is still much to learn.
Johannes Kepler
Most Gracious and Holy Father,
give us wisdom to perceive you,
intelligence to understand you,
diligence to seek you,
patience to wait for you,
eyes to behold you,
a heart to meditate on you,
and a life to proclaim you,
through the power of the Holy Spirit
and the love of Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Frank Topping
I have work to do, I have a busy world around me; eye, ear, and thought will be all needed for that work, done in and amidst that busy world; now, ere I enter upon it, I would commit eye, ear, thought, and wish to thee. Do thou bless them and keep their work thine; that as, through thy natural laws, my heart beats and my blood flows without my thought for them, so my spiritual life may hold on its course through thy help, at those times when my mind cannot consciously turn to thee to commit each particular thought to thy service.
Thomas Arnold
Holy and undivided Trinity, unfailing Goodness, be present to my supplications, that as Thou hast made me partaker of Thy Sacraments, for no merits of mine own, but of Thy sole and undeserved Bounty, so even until that hour, when I am to depart hence, Thou wouldst make me to persevere in Faith, and Hope, and Charity; protect and defend me from all evil; grant unto me all that may profit me; free me from everlasting punishment, and bring me to unending joys; and henceforth make to cease that deadly temptation of the devil, which for my sins I fear may prevail against me. O God, Three-fold and One, accept now the prayers of Thy humble servant. Give me, O Lord, diligence to seek Thee; wisdom to find Thee; a soul to acknowledge Thee; eyes to see Thee; a conversation well-pleasing to Thee. . . . Purify my mind; sanctify my life; amend my habits; enlighten my heart with Heavenly Wisdom; let words of truth and mercy, kindness and concord, proceed out of my mouth. O Lord, make me to persevere unto the end, and give me that perfect end.
St. Anselm
A Hymn
O God of earth and altar,
Bow down and hear our cry,
Our earthly rulers falter,
Our people drift and die;
The walls of gold entomb us,
The swords of scorn divide,
Take not thy thunder from us,
But take away our pride.
From all that terror teaches,
From lies of tongue and pen,
From all the easy speeches
That comfort cruel men,
From sale and profanation
Of honour and the sword,
From sleep and from damnation,
Deliver us, good Lord.
Tie in a living tether
The prince and priest and thrall,
Bind all our lives together,
Smite us and save us all;
In ire and exultation
Aflame with faith, and free,
Lift up a living nation,
A single sword to thee.
G. K. Chesterton
Almighty God, our heavenly Father, without whose help labour is useless, without whose light search is vain, invigorate my studies, and direct my inquiries, that I may, by due diligence and right discernment, establish myself and others in thy Holy Faith. Take not, O Lord, thy Holy Spirit from me; let not evil thought have dominion in my mind. Let me not linger in ignorance, but enlighten and support me, for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Samuel Johnson
To God the Father, God the Word, God the Spirit, we pour forth most humble and hearty supplications; that He, remembering the calamities of mankind and the pilgrimage of this our life, in which we wear out days few and evil, would please to open to us new refreshments out of the fountains of his goodness, for the alleviating of our miseries. This also we humbly and earnestly beg, that Human things may not prejudice such as are Divine; neither that from the unlocking of the gates of sense, and the kindling of a greater natural light, anything of incredulity or intellectual night may arise in our minds towards the Divine Mysteries. But rather that by our mind thoroughly cleansed and purged from fancy and vanities, and yet subject and perfectly given up to the Divine Oracles, there may be given unto Faith the things that are Faith’s.
Francis Bacon
A Writer’s Prayer in Autumn
Creator God,
Thank you for that tree,
the small one, with low
branches holding tight
to its leaves, orange
fringed with yellow,
fiery tongues suspended
from brittle stems.
And around that tree,
the small one, circled thick
trunks with bare limbs,
a company of quiet maples,
empty and still
after layering
the grass gold.
Forgive me for only slowing
my hurried pace,
forgive me
I should have stopped,
taken off my shoes
But I rushed on
to important things,
things I have now forgotten.
Give me the eyes
to notice and let
my words catch
color and flame,
fall and float
brightly on a page,
so I may stand
empty handed,
pointing to you.
Otto Selles
My heart, speak now to God and say this: “I look for Your face, O Lord; it is Your face I look for. O Lord my God, teach my heart where to seek You and how to seek You, and where to find You and how to find You. . . . Since I am bent and bowed over, I can only look down; raise me and straighten me, so that I may look up. . . . Teach me to look for You, and show Yourself to me, for I cannot seek You unless You teach me how to seek You, nor find You unless You Yourself, reveal Yourself. I give thanks, O Lord, that You have created Your image in me; because of Your image, I may remember, and think of, and love You. But Your image in me is so worn away by sin, so hidden by sin’s smoke, that unless You renew and reform it, it cannot do what You created it to do. So I do not try for, Lord, Your high places; my understanding is not equal to that leap. But I do try to understand Your truth, the truth that my heart believes, and the truth that my heart loves. And therefore I say this: I do not seek to understand so that I may believe, but I believe so that I may understand.
St. Anselm
O Infinite Creator, who in the riches of Thy wisdom didst appoint three hierarchies of Angels and didst set them in wondrous order over the highest heavens, and who didst apportion the elements of the world most wisely: do Thou, who are in truth the fountain of light and wisdom, deign to shed upon the darkness of my understanding the rays of Thine infinite brightness, and remove far from me the twofold darkness in which I was born, namely, sin and ignorance. Do Thou, who givest speech to the tongues of little children, instruct my tongue and pour into my lips the grace of Thy benediction. Give me keenness of apprehension, capacity for remembering, method and ease in learning, insight in interpretation, and copious eloquence in speech. Instruct my beginning, direct my progress, and set Thy seal upon the finished work, Thou, who art true God and true Man, who livest and reignest, world without end.
Thomas Aquinas
Come, O my dear Lord, and teach me. . . . I need thee to teach me day by day, according to each day’s opportunities and needs. . . . I need Thee to give me that true Divine instinct about revealed matters that, knowing one part, I may be able to anticipate or to approve of others. I need that understanding of the truths about Thyself which may prepare me for all Thy other truths — or at least may save me from conjecturing wrongly about them or commenting falsely upon them. . . . In all I need to be saved from an originality of thought, which is not true if it leads away from Thee. Give me the gift of discriminating between true and false in all discourse of mind. And, for that end, give me, O my Lord, that purity of conscience which alone can receive, which alone can improve Thy inspirations. My ears are dull, so that I cannot hear Thy voice. My eyes are dim, so that I cannot see Thy tokens. Thou alone canst quicken my hearing, and purge my sight, and cleanse and renew my heart. Teach me, like Mary, to sit at Thy feet, and to hear Thy word. Give me that true wisdom, which seeks Thy will by prayer and meditation, by direct intercourse with Thee, more than by reading and reasoning. Give me the discernment to know Thy voice from the voice of strangers, and to rest upon it and to seek it in the first place, as something external to myself; and answer me through my own mind, if I worship and rely on Thee and above and beyond it.
John Henry Newman
Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
Forgive our foolish ways!
Reclothe us in our rightful mind;
In purer lives Thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise.
In simple trust like theirs who heard,
Beside the Syrian sea,
The gracious calling of the Lord,
Let us, like them, without a word
Rise up and follow Thee.
O Sabbath rest by Galilee!
O calm of hills above,
Where Jesus knelt to share with Thee
The silence of eternity,
Interpreted by love!
With that deep hush subduing all
Our words and works that drown
The tender whisper of Thy call,
As noiseless let Thy blessing fall
As fell Thy manna down.
Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease:
Take from our souls the strain and stress;
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.
Breathe through the pulses of desire
Thy coolness and Thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, its heats expire:
Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still small voice of calm!
John Greenleaf Whittier
Lord Jesus Merciful and Patient, grant us grace, I beseech Thee, ever to teach in a teachable spirit; learning along with those we teach, and learning from them whenever Thou so pleasest. Word of God, speak to us, speak by us, what Thou wilt. Wisdom of God, instruct us, instruct by us if and whom Thou wilt. Eternal Truth, reveal Thyself to us, reveal Thyself by us, in whatsoever measure Thou wilt.
Christina Rossetti
O unknown Love! We are inclined to think that your marvels are over, and that all we can do is to copy the ancient Scriptures and quote your words from the past. We fail to see that your inexhaustible action is the source of new thoughts, new sufferings, new actions, new leaders, new prophets, new apostles, new saints, who have no need to copy each other’s lives and writings, but live in perpetual self-abandonment to your operations. We hear perpetually of the “early centuries” and the “times of the saints.” What a way to talk! Are not all times and all events the successive results of your grace, pouring itself forth on all instants of time, filling them and sanctifying them? Your divine action will continue until the world ends to shed its glory on those souls who abandon themselves to your providence without reserve.
Jean Pierre de Caussade
Great are you, O Lord, and greatly to be praised. Great is your power; your wisdom is infinite. All people, as part of your creation, desire to praise you; all people, who carry the signs of mortality and sin, desire to praise you still. You provoke us toward that delight, for you have created us for yourself, and our hearts cannot be quieted until they find rest in you. . . . You will I seek, O Lord, calling upon you; you will I call, believing in you.
St. Augustine
O Lord, who by Thy holy Apostle hast taught us to do all things in the name of the Lord Jesus and Thy glory, give Thy blessing, we pray Thee, to this our daily work, that we may do it in faith, and heartily, as to the Lord and not unto men. All our powers of body and mind are Thine, and we would fain devote them to Thy service. Sanctify them and the work in which they are engaged; let us not be slothful, but fervent in spirit, and do Thou, O Lord, so bless our efforts that they may bring forth in us the fruits of true wisdom. Strengthen the faculties of our minds and dispose us to exert them, but let us always remember to exert them for Thy glory, and for the furtherance of Thy kingdom, and save us from all pride, and vanity, and reliance upon our own power or wisdom. Teach us to seek after truth, and enable us to gain it; but grant that we may ever speak the truth in love: — that, while we know earthly things, we may know Thee, and be known by Thee, through and in Thy Son Christ. Give us this day Thy Holy Spirit, that we may be Thine in body and spirit, in all our work and all our refreshments, through Jesus Christ Thy Son, Our Lord.
Thomas Arnold
My God, where is that ancient heat towards thee,
Wherewith whole shoals of martyrs once did burn,
Besides their other flames? Doth poetry
Wear Venus’ livery? only serve her turn?
Why are not sonnets made of thee? and lays
Upon thine altar burnt? Cannot thy love
Heighten a spirit to sound out thy praise
As well as any she? Cannot thy Dove
Outstrip their Cupid easily in flight?
Or, since thy ways are deep, and still the fame,
Will not a verse run smooth that bears thy name!
Why doth that fire, which by thy power and might
Each breast does feel, no braver fuel choose
Than that, which one day, worms may chance refuse.
Sure Lord, there is enough in thee to dry
Oceans of ink; for, as the Deluge did
Cover the earth, so doth thy Majesty:
Each cloud distills thy praise, and doth forbid
Poets to turn it to another use.
Roses and lilies speak thee; and to make
A pair of cheeks of them, is thy abuse.
Why should I women’s eyes for crystal take?
Such poor invention burns in their low mind
Whose fire is wild, and doth not upward go
To praise, and on thee, Lord, some ink bestow.
Open the bones, and you shall nothing find
In the best face but filth; when Lord, in thee
The beauty lies in the discovery.
George Herbert
Gracious Lord, grant that our work being done, and the books crost in the time of our healths, we may be comforted when we come to dye, and to resign our souls into the hands of a faithfull Creator and gracious redeemer. . . . Lord, what particulars we pray for, we know not, we dare not, we humbly tender a blank into the hands of almighty God; write therein, Lord, what thou wilt, where thou wilt, by whom thou wilt, only in thine own time work out thine own honour and glory.
Thomas Fuller
O God, creation’s secret force,
Thyself unmoved, all motion’s source,
Who from the morn till evening ray,
Through all its changes guidest the day.
Come, Holy Ghost, with God the Son
And God the Father, ever one;
Shed forth Thy grace within our breast,
And dwell with us a ready guest.
By every power, by heart and tongue,
By act and deed, Thy praise be sung;
Inflame with perfect love each sense,
That others’ souls may kindle thence.
O Father, that we ask be done
Through Jesus Christ, Thine only Son.
Who, with the Holy Ghost, and Thee
Still live and reign eternally.
St. Ambrose
Eternal God, grant that we may count it a day wasted when we do not learn something new, and when we are not a little further on the way to goodness and to Thee.
Help us to try to do our work better every day.
Help us to try to add something to our store of knowledge every day.
Help us to try to know some one better every day.
Grant unto us each day to learn more of self-mastery and self control.
Grant unto us each day better to rule our temper and our tongue.
Grant unto us each day to leave our faults farther behind and to grow more nearly into the likeness of our Lord.
So grant that at the end of this day, and at the end of every day, we may be nearer to Thee than when the day began: through Jesus Christ our Lord.
William Barclay
God, who stretched the spangled heavens
Infinite in time and place,
Flung the suns in burning radiance
Through the silent fields of space,
We, Thy children, in Thy likeness,
Share inventive powers with Thee —
Great Creator, still creating,
Teach us what we yet may be.
We have conquered worlds undreamed of
Since the childhood of our race,
Known the ecstasy of winging
Through uncharted realms of space,
Probed the secrets of the atom,
Yielding unimagined power —
Facing us with life’s destruction
Or our most triumphant hour.
As Thy new horizons beckon,
Father, give us strength to be
Children of creative purpose,
Serving man and honoring Thee.
’Til our dreams are rich with meaning —
Each endeavor Thy design —
Great Creator, lead us onward
’Til our work is one with Thine.
Catherine Cameron
Father in heaven! Show us a little patience; for we often intend in all sincerity to commune with Thee and yet we speak in such a foolish fashion. Sometimes, when we judge that what has come to us is good, we do not have enough words to thank Thee; just as a mistaken child is thankful for having gotten his own way. Sometimes things go so badly that we call upon Thee; we even complain and cry unto Thee; just as an unreasoning child fears what would do him good. Oh, but if we are so childish how far from being true children of Thine who are our true Father, ah, as if an animal would pretend to have man as a father. How childish we are and how little our proposals and our language resemble the language which we ought to use with Thee, we understand at least that it ought not to be thus and that we ought to be otherwise. Have then a little patience with us.
Søren Kierkegaard
God be in my head, and in my understanding;
God be in my eyes, and in my looking;
God be in my mouth, and in my speaking;
God be in my heart, and in my thinking;
God be at my end, and at my departing.
Sarum Primer (1538)
