as i remember the story, niebuhr came up with the prayer spontaneously, at the end of an unscripted sermon. someone thought it good, and asked afterward if they might copy it down. he said sure.

this may have been a case of him spontaneously vocalizing - which, incidentally, was a defense mounted against claims that martin luther king plaigiarized some of his academic work, since spontaneous-inspired expostulations are culturally common in african-american churches. wouldn't be surprised if someone used a variant on that defense in re obama and rev wright et al.

i've found myself "spontaneously vocalizing" bits in the course of writing the latest book - have taken much trouble to identify and extract them. interestingly, they were almost always from: atlas shrugged, the passion of ayn rand, or my years with ayn rand. fitting, given the plot-theme.

oh yes, this phenomenon has been cited re rand and garrett garrett's the driver.

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I have certainly done this at times. Sometimes I'm haunted by a feeling of familiarity and I work to track it down. Sometimes, if I'm lucky, I've only copied some aspect, not the whole darn thing.

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memory continues to be one of our greatest mysteries. my own seems to function on a kind of holographic basis.

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