{"id":1116,"date":"2011-05-05T10:51:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-05T14:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/?p=1116"},"modified":"2011-05-07T11:51:16","modified_gmt":"2011-05-07T15:51:16","slug":"novelist-gail-godwin-on-writing-as-prayer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/05\/novelist-gail-godwin-on-writing-as-prayer.html","title":{"rendered":"Novelist Gail Godwin on Writing as Prayer"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Our Thursday Spirituality series for May.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On this, our National Day of Prayer<\/a>, it seems fitting to kick off our Thursday series for the month of May. Each week, I’ll be featuring a short excerpt from Allan Cole<\/a>‘s book A Spiritual Life<\/em><\/a>, which is a new anthology of essays from some top writers and thinkers on what “spirituality” means.<\/p>\n

I’ve been a fan of Gail Godwin’s introspective, powerful fiction for many years, so I was thrilled to see that she had an essay in the book called “Musings on the Spiritual Life.” In this section, she asks how (or whether) writing can be a form of prayer.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Writing as a form of prayer<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Gail Godwin<\/a>
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

When you write as much as I do, and when you have been \u201cundertaking God\u201d for as long as I have, there is no way that writing can escape becoming a form of prayer. You get used to struggling with words to sneak up on the unknown. The more you develop and play with your craft, the more things you didn\u2019t know you knew find their way into the material. The act of writing faithfully<\/em> allows answers to slip through.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t realize it at the time, but I see now that my \u201cpurple fish\u201d scene in Evensong<\/a>, <\/em>in which Margaret and Adrian and Professor Stroup pool their thoughts on an iconic painting of \u201cCast Your Nets,\u201d allowed me to explore in fictional safety, and at several removes (the painting itself and three different characters approaching it from different angles) my emotional longing for that scene in John\u2019s gospel to have \u201creally happened.\u201d Approaching something from an unexpected angle can suddenly reveal its life to you. Recall those elementary drawing classes in which you were instructed not to draw the chair but to draw the spaces around the chair.<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

The dreadful tumble of infinity<\/p>\n

For me, the worst hour of the non-drinking life is five p.m., or thereabouts. In winter, \u201cthereabouts\u201d can start as early as three in the afternoon, and in high summer it can last until after dark.<\/p>\n

Five p.m., or thereabouts, has always meant for me that the day\u2019s work is over. The work part of it has not changed. Work always has been my main protection.<\/p>\n

But then comes the sunset hour when, with a companion and then later without one, you unstop the bottle or open a new one and let it assist you in parachuting gently to earth. You revel in all you have done during the day, you let go of all that has been left undone, and, sip by sip, you sink gently into oblivion\u2019s welcoming container.<\/p>\n

But when there is no container to count on at the close of a working day, what then?\u00a0 ….<\/p>\n

…. Toward the end of Unfinished Desires, <\/em>a young teacher and the school infirmarian at Mount St. Gabriel\u2019s Academy are reflecting on their vocations as nuns. The infirmarian was formerly a nurse until the day she decided not to turn on the radio while driving to the hospital and \u201cthe connection with God was made in that first silence.\u201d She has just asked the teacher if she will mind very much if she has to be transferred back to Boston because of suspected heart disease.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had known, from the day I put on my ring, that my \u2018minding\u2019 something was going to be beside the point for the rest of my life, and that I had chosen this,\u201d the young nun tells the infirmarian. \u201cThe practice closest to me now, the practice I find central to everything I do, is living every day and night as fully as I can in consultancy with God. The questions I ask and the insights that come out of the listening \u2013 I\u2019m not saying this very well — but the more I live this way, the more I want to \u2013 to \u2013 pray my life <\/em>rather than stumble through it.\u201d<\/p>\n

What would happen if I sat out there on the terrace, under the blanket, totally and soberly conscious, until dark? Would I become one of those who discovers she is praying her life rather than stumbling through it? Or, like the young nun in my novel, would I die that very night?<\/p>\n

What would the chances of my survival be? What do I even mean by \u201csurvival\u201d? Where is the line between \u201cmy survival\u201d and \u201cmy eternal life\u201d?<\/p>\n

And what difference does it make, the exact hour of my death, if, at that hour, I am living in consultancy with God?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the sort of question in which you may at last find some respite, after musing for decades on the spiritual life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On this, our National Day of Prayer, it seems fitting to kick off our Thursday series for the month of May. Each week, I’ll be featuring a short excerpt from Allan Cole‘s book A Spiritual Life, which is a new anthology of essays from some top writers and thinkers on what “spirituality” means. I’ve been…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":226,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,239],"tags":[275,268,274,269,271,273,22,270,21,276,265,267,272,173,266],"class_list":["post-1116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity","category-spirituality","tag-cast-your-nets","tag-a-spiritual-life","tag-alcoholism","tag-allan-cole","tag-evensong","tag-fiction","tag-flunking-sainthood","tag-gail-godwin","tag-jana-riess","tag-national-day-of-prayer","tag-prayer","tag-spiritual-practice","tag-unfinished-desires","tag-westminster-john-knox","tag-writing-as-prayer"],"yoast_head":"\nNovelist Gail Godwin on Writing as Prayer - Flunking Sainthood<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/05\/novelist-gail-godwin-on-writing-as-prayer.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Novelist Gail Godwin on Writing as Prayer - Flunking Sainthood\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On this, our National Day of Prayer, it seems fitting to kick off our Thursday series for the month of May. 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