A Blessing for Your Creative Work
The answer is: Yes, you should
It begins with a willingness
to use what you’re given.
Not a wilfulness —
not the exertion of power —
but a surrender to a movement
that has already started.
Sooner or later,
this surrender takes you
into a direct encounter
with your secret longing.
May you linger there awhile
until you know the full worth of that longing;
long enough to drink up its glow,
until you hold little more than a candle’s flame,
soft and transportable enough
to light your path.
And after this,
may you hear a voice far off,
a cry, even,
the kind you might wish to succour
with the healing glow
you now hold.
Listen to the cry,
move toward it.
Through wind and shadow,
cup the candle,
but watch what its light reveals.
Navigate carefully,
but do not lose sight
of your trusting.
As you approach the place
of your soul’s undertaking,
may you begin to see
a sublime plan surrounding it,
a kind thought beneath it;
that there is a fine wisdom
able to turn the work
into a self-revelation
that is too broad and too deep
to be scrutinized during this one life.
As you work,
may you perceive that the real labour is
truth and love and beauty;
that it is, therefore,
(dare it be said)
God’s work.
May you at least know
the humble satisfaction
of trying.
If there is any darkness in you
that doubts the journey,
be patient with it —
the darkness, too,
has a road to walk.
But do not neglect the chief pronouncements:
I am made to nurture my vocation.
I am allowed to heal and be healed.
It is the Creator’s will that I create.
I am made to listen, and to be led
by the movement of this willingness
that is at one and the same time
my own
and not my own.
My deepest dream was given to me;
it is the greatest good,
and my obedience to it is not hokum,
it is not weakness,
it is not vanity.
It is, rather,
the salt of the earth,
the light of the world.
And the light I have carried
through a long and wild darkness,
is, at very last,
set upon a lampstand.
