Yea that form shall grow and spread in beauty:

                  The earth shall move inside what’s sweet,

                                    Shall come again to us,

                   And set us right upon our feet.

[“Early Flowers,” Edmund Clarke, A Book of Psalms, p. 95]

We all have the impulse to tell our stories or sing our songs.  What we shape with our hands has the potential to bless us and others, when it is made for God.  If the spirit of God can move inside the scriptures and inspire us, then our own words are likewise a temple God can inhabit.  It may be a simple temple, unadorned, yet sweet with understanding.

This was no doubt the purpose of the Psalms chanted every week in the synagogue. Some of them are quite homely, but all the while sincere and made for daily use. They blessed the singers. God inhabited the words and they came back to “set us right upon our feet.” [Edmund Clarke, A Book of Psalms, 95].  And by a miracle of tradition and canonization, they return to bless us today.

Our poetry reflects the same desires as the Psalms: to praise, to remember, to grieve, to beg for mercy, to cry out in anguish or anger.  In poetry we express thoughts that words can barely capture, but we resort to words as our best hope to touch God and others. When we want to reach the windows of heaven, but feel they are beyond reach, we try with poetry.

Why was it necessary to tell the same Gospel story over and over?  The story of Jesus was conveyed at least four times, to “grow and spread in beauty”[Clarke] with each version.  Each version had the touch of the author and the language that could be inhabited by the spirit to “set us right upon our feet.” We can choose our favorite Gospel, but no single one is definitive. They each have a life of their own. So do our stories, as we struggle to make us understandable to ourselves or to our expected readers.

The ultimate purposes of writing are to be blessed and even bless others. The quaint idea that writing is some kind of ornament that we put on a shelf comes from the classical tradition, which hallowed only a few writers. In that tradition, writing (other than correspondence) was considered as the work of the elite. Writers were like priests with a sacred calling. No one could aspire to the calling, they were born into it like the Levites. The Levites could bless the people, but only in a second hand way. They were the only ones to offer the sacrifices and receive the word of the Lord. Likewise writing in the eighteenth century was thought to be for the elite, the uniquely talented.

The Psalms and the Gospels transcended the idea of priesthood  and holy places and brought the blessing to every singer and  listener. We are all psalmists and narrators of the good news. We live in the tradition of democratic blessings.  We can write psalms and gospels with high expectations. It is no longer a privilege; it is a right.

We can write with expectations, not for eternal fame, but for earthly witness. Mark probably had humble expectations for his Gospel, but he became famous as  the inspiration for Matthew and Luke, and his story took off from there. Since John wrote his “good news” many have aspired to write their own versions, and write it they should.  What good news do you have to tell?

Donald Murray says, “Writing is an act of faith.” We begin by believing we will have something to say, even though some days we think we don’t.  Writing is risky and hard work, but no different than other new ventures, like walking and distance running or taking up a musical instrument.  We begin with faith that we will understand something new. Our faith is most always rewarded.

You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves in your heart–your stories, visions, memories, songs: your truth, your version of things, in your voice.      Anne Lamott

Writing is a blessing open to all.  Reading that writing is a blessing to all.  So write and be blessed.