Acceptable Words

Prayers for the Writer

Gary D. Schmidt, Elizabeth Stickney, Gary D. Schmidt, Elizabeth Stickney, Gary Schmidt, Gary Schmidt, Elizabeth Stickney

• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780802868794
• eBook ISBN: 9781467436991
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Creative Writing

Acceptable Words offers prayers that correspond with each stage of the writer's work -- from finding inspiration to penning the first words to "offering it to God" at completion. Gary Schmidt and Elizabeth Stickney, experienced writers themselves, introduce each chapter of prayers with pithy pastoral reflections that will encourage writers in their craft.
This welcome spiritual resource for writers includes both ancient and contemporary poems and prayers -- some of which were written especially for this volume. A thoughtful gift for any writer, Acceptable Words will accompany writers on their spiritual journey, lending words of praise and petition specifically crafted to suit their unique vocation.
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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...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• General Introduction
• 1. The Writer Encounters the World
• 2. The Writer Studies the World
• 3. The Writer Begins
• 4. The Writer’s Vision Expands
• 5. The Writer Attends to the Word
• 6. The Writer Finds Joy in the Work
• 7. The Writer Petitions
• 8. The Writer Offers the Work to God
• The Writers’ Biographies
• Sources and Acknowledgments
• Index
• “A Reverie”