Writing As Prayer

In the mornings, when I pray, I light a candle. When my quiet time is over, I carry the candle from room to room with me as I ready myself for the day. One morning my husband, a great reformer, teased me about my Jesus candle.

Do you really think God needs you to light that candle to come and be with you?

The candle, I gently told him, is not for God. It’s for me. All I need do is glance at its flickering light and I am reminded that He is here.

Because I tend to forget.

In this week’s book club readings of the Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life, Julia Cameron tells me to perceive writing as channeling spiritual information rather than inventing intellectual information…

She reminds me why I write.

Although we seldom talk about it in these terms, writing is a means of prayer. It connects us to the invisible world. It gives us a gate or a conduit for the other world to talk to us whether we call it the subconscious, the unconscious, the superconscious, the imagination, or the Muse. Writing gives us a place to welcome more than the rational. It opens the door to inspiration. It opens the door to God or, if you would, to “Good Orderly Direction.” Writing is a spiritual housekeeper…

I don’t call it the subconscious, the unconscious or the superconscious. I might call it the imagination or the Muse. But I know where these things come from.

When I recognize that writing is an extension of my spiritual listening…this is when life takes on a beauty formerly unseen.

Writing is a candle for me—a reminder of the sacred in the mundane. Words flicker on the page and common moments are illuminated.

I notice my life.

What about you? Have you experienced writing as prayer? Have you ever felt God was writing through you? Have you used writing to help connect to and integrate your life?

Three more chapters for next week--that would be: Credibility, Place, and Happiness.  See you on the page.

Related posts:

The Stuffed Eskimo's Writing is a Means of Prayer

Jezamama's I Am Not Powerless

Marilyn's Climbing Woodrow Street

Monica's Book Club: Writing, Prayer, Confession

L.L.'s Excuse Me, I'm WRITE-ing

Cassandra's The River

Melo's The Day You Keep and Day 28 & 29

Glynn's Because It Matters

Nancy's How Life Makes Sense

Photo by Mindwhisperings, used with permission. Post by Laura Boggess.

• Tags:  
• book club
• julia cameron
• the right to write: an invitation and initiation into the writing life
• writing
• writing and life

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