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Not that many years ago (says he defensively) I was assembling some material for a pilgrimage I had been asked to lead. I had decided that one thing I would do would be to share some beautiful prayers other than those that people knew from church worship. Among them I decided to share a prayer composed by Robert Louis Stevenson. 

Now in my venerable years, the very mention of that name sends a thrill through this now exceedingly venerable memory. Stevenson has always been a figure of high romance to me ever since the moment at a large church parade of youth in our parish church the  preacher looked down at us small boys in our Wolf Cub uniforms and said in a hearty and conspiratorial voice “Boys, have you ever read Treasure Island?” 

I hadn’t but I proceeded to pester my parents until a copy appeared and I would sail away on the schooner Hispaniola and the vivid imagination of Robert Louis Stevenson, and in the glorious company of Captain Smollett, Squire Trelawney, Mr. Livesey and the immortal and villainous ships cook, Long John Silver. 

By the way, in those days a church parade was a serious and exciting affair for small boys,  not for any spiritual reason but chiefly because of the reception held afterwards when there would be a generous table of lemonade and cake for us boys. 

So it was that many years passed until one day about ten years ago I read of Stevenson's life on Samoa in a column of the Church Times by Ronald Blythe. RLS lived there for many years, sent there by his doctor for health reasons, becoming a well known and revered figure in the islands. Because of his constant writing, his  name among the Samoans was “Tusitala” which means Teller of Tales. 

On one  occasion partly a group of friends came to him and asked him if he would write a prayer for the community. I treasure it because of its beauty, it’s simplicity and its gentle humanity. Here it is…

Lord, behold our family here assembled. We thank Thee for this place wherein we dwell. For the love that unites us, the peace accorded to this day, the hope with which we expect the morrow, for the health, the work, the food and the bright skies that make our lives delightful.

Let peace abound in our company. Purge out of every heart the lurking grudge. Give us grace and strength to persevere. Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind. Spare to us our friends, soften us to our enemies. Bless us,if it may be, in all our endeavours. If it may not, give us the strength to encounter that which is to come, that we may be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath, and in all changes of fortune and down to the gates of death, loyal and loving to one another.

As the clay to the potter, as the windmill to the wind, children of their creator, we beseech Thee this help and mercy for Christ’s sake.

I wish I had written that. I wish too that I had written Treasure Island. But what I envy most about Robert Louis Stevenson is that glorious name they gave him on his Pacific island. Tusitala - teller of tales. Wouldn’t you like to be called that? I would.  

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Commemorative statue to the author Robert Louis Stevenson as a young boy, in front of Colinton parish church on the outskirts of Edinburgh Stock photo ID:860182842

Photo Credit: Bob Douglas