Gerald Manley Hopkins and me on writing

A prayer, as Jesuit Gerald Manley Hopkins offers his writing efforts to God, even though they might seem fruitless:

"Also in some meditations today I earnestly asked our Lord to watch over my compositions that they might do me no harm through the enmity or imprudence of any man or my own; that He would have them as His own and employ or not employ them as He should see fit. And this I believe is heard."

I've practiced the art of writing for many years, journals, letters, written lectures, devotions, news articles, papers and thesis, all in an effort to explore possibilities of the writing life. I'm still experimenting with possibilities. I've read books and thought, I wish I had written that, or instead, this is how I would have written it, or better yet, if I could write one book before I die, this is the kind it would be. Sometimes I've allowed reactions to my efforts to derail and discourage me, but over the long haul, I've always come back to the same desire, to write.

I heard an author on television just yesterday say that writing is a solitary life, and it is, but that writers like to be read, they need others, and it's true. It's one of those paradoxes that accompany the writing life. We certainly desire a pat on the back, a human desire for appreciation. It gets lonely sometimes lost in my own head. But in the end, a writer must write because he or she must write, so I keep writing.

My greater desire, more than the desire for appreciation from a reader, as lovely as it is, is that my writing, whatever form it might take, be Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam, for the greater glory of God, which is why Gerald Manley Hopkins' prayer resonated with me.

I passionately long for God to find my efforts a fragrance that is pleasing and brings Him joy; that my meager efforts to indulge myself in the written word would somehow unite with His effort to comfort, encourage, and inspire others to seek out the best in themselves and become all that God created them to be. In the process, of course, as I write, I seek the same for me, that I become all God created me to be, seeking to be, as St Francis claims holiness is, the best version of myself.

I guess if I were going to illustrate how I see myself in writing, it would be as a St Clare to St Francis, or perhaps a more accessible example, a Sam Gangee to Frodo. I can't carry someone's burden, I can't walk someone's path, but I can come alongside, walking with for a spell, or even at times, carrying another by offering words in writing that might help another continue moving forward when the way is dark and the path is difficult. To that end, I write.