Spirit & Scribe (Writers’ Prayer)

Creator God, who spoke the world,

Who breathed Your life into our parts,

Who authored us — O Living Word,

Your name is written on our hearts.

You know us, Jesus — bore our sin

Whose depths we fear to comprehend;

You know us fully — all we’ve been,

And are, and will be in the end.

Come, Spirit! Scribe of all our days,

Come breathe into our souls anew,

That healed, inspired, our lives would praise

And all our words be filled with You.

Author’s note:

I write most of my poems for a general readership, but this one was different. I wrote it to use in a workshop I led called Spirit & Scribe. Each week, our group of twenty writers prayed it together to prepare our hearts to engage with God.

Writing this poem helped me experience the symbiotic relationship between community and art that Andrew Peterson writes about in his book Adorning the Dark. Writing to serve this particular community shaped my poem into the simple, communal prayer it needed to be — community nourishing art. Then, at the close of the workshop, I was surprised to hear several people share how meaningful the prayer had been for them — art nourishing community.

I share this prayer now hoping it will be a blessing to you as well.

Listen to Michael Stalcup reading Spirit & Scribe aloud here:

The featured image is courtesy of Lancia E. Smith and is used with her permission for Cultivating and The Cultivating Project.

Michael Stalcup

Michael Stalcup is, before anything else, an adopted child of God. He continually marvels at God’s grace in his life and the good works that God has prepared and surprised him with. Currently, he serves overseas as a missionary in Bangkok, Thailand and writes poetry in his free time—neither of which he could have imagined himself doing years ago. Michael lives with his wife Christie and their three young “third-culture” kids who will take a bowl of egg noodles over a sandwich any day. He is currently working on his first book of poetry and hopes to play his part in gathering and supporting other artist Christians in Bangkok and beyond.  Soli Deo Gloria.

michaelstalcup.com