Read, Write, and Pray with The Book of Delights by Ross Gay: Part Three
Our Faith in Writing’s Read, Write, & Pray with The Book of Delights series uses themes and excerpts from Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights. I have not worked with Ross Gay on this series, and I don’t pretend to know anything about his faith. I just like his book and want to invite others to explore it in meaningful ways.
It’s not necessary to have a copy of The Book of Delights to complete these exercises and prompts, but you should definitely buy a copy here!
I hope this Read, Write, & Pray series helps you make space to notice God’s presence in your life and creative work. I hope it gives you opportunities to discover how making and engaging with art help you belong to yourself, others, God, and the world.
Learn more about Read, Write, & Pray here.
Read
Read the excerpt below from Delighting in Ross Gay, One Essay at a Time by Nicole Rudick in The New York Review:
Midway through The Book of Delights, Gay thinks about the song “For All We Know,” sung by Donny Hathaway, and the way death is woven into Hathaway’s soulful rendition:
Our imminent disappearance is Donny’s subject, his voice’s subject—which the voice’s first subject always is, as fading and disappearance are sound’s essential characteristics. His is a voice that makes you realize that your voice is the song of your disappearing, which is our most common song. The knowledge of which, the understanding of which, the inhabiting of which, might be the beginning of a radical love. A renovating love, even.
Do we love more when we realize that everything is finite? Does knowing that this book is finite, that it lives between two covers, make each moment with it that much more important? Could it be that delight is a radical, renovating love because it fills rather than consumes? And because, as Gay shows us, we are capable of feeling it every single day?
Write
Brainstorm and write down 20 things that delight you. Just write. What are the first 20 things that come to mind when you think about being delighted? Write those things down.
Then write down at least one thing that has delighted you today. Then write down at least one thing that delighted you yesterday.
Take at least 15 minutes to write a letter to delight. What do you want to say to delight?What does delight need to know about you?
Pray
One thing delight does is move us toward gratitude. Here’s a prayer by Saint Ignatius of Loyola that is a response of gratitude to God for all that has been received.
Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all I have and call my own. You have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace. That is enough for me.
I hope you enjoy this free resource for Read, Write, and Pray with The Book of Delights.
Additional free resources can be found here:
Read, Write, & Pray with The Book of Delights
Read, Write, & Pray with The Book of Delights Part One
Read, Write, & Pray with The Book of Delights Part Two
Read, Write, & Pray with The Book of Delights Part Three
Read, Write & Pray with The Book of Delights Part Four
Read, Write & Pray with The Great Belonging
Read, Write, & Pray with The Great Belonging Part One
Read, Write, & Pray with The Great Belonging Part Two
Charlotte Donlon helps her readers and clients notice how they belong to themselves, others, God, and the world. Charlotte is a writer, a spiritual director for writers, and the founder of Spiritual Direction for Writers™ and Parenting with Art™. She is also the founder and host of the Our Faith in Writing podcast and website. Her essays have appeared in The Washington Post, The Curator, The Christian Century, Christianity Today, Catapult, The Millions, Mockingbird, and elsewhere. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from Seattle Pacific University where she studied creative nonfiction with Paula Huston and Lauren F. Winner. She holds a certificate in spiritual direction from Selah Center for Spiritual Formation. Her first book is The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other. To receive Charlotte’s latest updates, news, announcements, and other good things, subscribe to her email newsletter.