A Liturgy Before Writing—Malcolm Guite

A liturgy from Every Moment Holy Vol. 3.

For more articles, videos, books, and resources about faith and art, visit RabbitRoom.com.

This liturgy is from Every Moment Holy Volume 3, a collection of liturgies from over 60 writers on topics as diverse as baking bread, beginning an artistic work, receiving rejection, and more.

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 is a former chaplain and Life Fellow at Girton College, Cambridge. He teaches and lectures widely on theology and literature. His publications include Faith, Hope and Poetry (2010); The Singing Bowl: Collected Poems (2013); Waiting on the Word (2015); Parable and Paradox (2016); Mariner (2019), After Prayer (2021) and Lifting the Veil (2021).