Exalting Grace—A Review!
Richard, this is indeed a gift and a treasure. What is most exciting to me is the originality of the form, or perhaps not the form but the tone. Yes, that’s it: the freshness of the tone in offering the cherished, unchanging gift. Perhaps that’s always the poet’s challenge: to show us the old Truths in a way that we can see them anew. And you’ve done that with the beautiful simplicity of which Eliot wrote: (“a condition of complete simplicity, costing not less than everything.”) Ah, c’est bien quelque chose de belle, mon vieux!
I want to read and reread what you’ve written, and also hear the actual music. Such a fine thing!

I have one reservation, on one phrase. And that may just be a purely personal take. You use the phrase ”my dear” in that fine line about already having done the moving.

But to my ear, that phrase now, alas, always has something of the artificial in it, something socially just a bit stilted or arch. I will mull this over a bit more; in any case, it s hardly important in the totality of the hymn. But it did give me pause.

And of course I only bring this up because I know you expect me to make SOME editorial sort of comment, and this was ALL I could find on the “blue pencil” side!

En avant! Soeur Bell
I replied:
Bless, once again, your heart. And (as John Duffey used to say in response to a good “hand of applause”) all your vital organs.
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