The Artisan's Prayer
Teach me, Life, to make good use of the time you give me for my work, to use it well without wasting it. Teach me to learn from past mistakes without sinking into recrimination. Teach me to plan ahead without tormenting myself, and to imagine the work without despairing if it turns out differently. Teach me to combine speed with slowness, serenity with fervor, zeal with peace. Help me at the beginning of a work, there where I am weakest.
Help me when I'm in the heart of a work to hold tight the thread of attention. And most of all, fill the gaps in my work with your own inspiration.
Life, in each work made by my hands let there be a virtue of yours so that it will speak to others and a fault of mine so that it will speak to me. Keep in me the hope of perfection without which I would lose heart. Keep me in the impossibility of perfection so that I don't get lost in pride. Purify my perception: what I do badly is not necessarily bad, and what I do well is not necessarily good.
Let me never forget that all knowledge is vain unless there is work, and all work is empty unless there is love. And that all love is hollow unless it links me to myself, to others and to you.
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(this prayer is a copy from Blaugustine's blog: Too hot / About resolutions - who photocopied it from a friend)
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