A Prayer for the Artists

This is a prayer we used as a collect at the end of each worship session during TC symposium. It was something Bryan Brown, our fearless worship leader, adapted from Herbert Whittaker's "Prayer for the Artists" (1987).

For those of you who've inquired into audio copies of the main talks I so appreciate your patience. God-willing we will have something ready to go by the end of this week. Please pray for us that all will go well.

A PRAYER FOR THE ARTISTS

Lord, remember your artists.
Have mercy upon them and remember with compassion all those that reflect the good, the ill, the strengths and the weaknesses of the human spirit.
Remember those who raise their voices in unending song,
those who pour their souls into music loud and soft.
Remember those who put pigment to surface,
carve wood and stone and marble,
who work base metals into beauty,
those building upwards from the earth toward heaven.
Remember those who put thought to paper by computer and by pen;
the poets who delve,
the playwrights who analyze and proclaim,
the dreamers-up of narrative,
all those who work with the light and shadows of film.
Remember the actors moved by Spirit and dancers moving through space.

Remember all these artists whom you have placed among us, for are they not, O Lord, the fellows of your inspiration?
Do they not, Lord God, bring to your people great proof of your divinity and our part in it?
Remember your artists and show them mercy and compassion that they may do the same and so uplift all your people.
That they may cry forth your praises, as we do here.
Amen! Amen! Amen!

(PHOTO: Worshiping together and Bryan Brown standing next to Luci Shaw while we speak this very collect.)