“The Writer As Mentor” [Module #255] (Mark 10:32f; Matt. 20:17f; Lk 18:31f. )

Discipling is done today through books,
And stories shot with film as people look,
While for brief hours they’re mentored in some way
Through media – how things are done today.

I failed to get a job as EDO;
A lady asked of me, so she could know
Connection of an EDO to church;
I did not want to leave her in the lurch –

So wrote five novels set within her turf –
Explored EDO within the church,
To lay it out, connections I had seen,
Of how the two relate – for me it’s been –

A way of life, but now with “Kingdom” come,
Like at the first, not certain how it runs,
Though I am close, I hunch a lot has been
Hid from my eyes – though now, in part, it’s seen.

I got the part of flow from Zion’s Hill;
I saw how Christians meet with others still,
As they decide how rural life would go
Now global trumps all hands, and life we know.

I see our training back in schooling days –
How clergy, when involved, have role to play;
I see the life diagonal – enriched
From one or other life of current ditch.

I see the “tree” as model of our task –
How we produce the fruit, to others passed
In fair exchange, for business in this world
Is how their lives are run within the swirl.

But now this added layer to my thought,
Of “Kingdom-life” apart from all I’ve got;
A layered-look” like photoshopping tool –
The Kingdom-layer, made by God, is cool.

“Seek first the Kingdom-life and all the rest
Will added be”, I read, put to the test;
But lacked the layered-look which now I see
As separateness, as life in Him should be.

That’s in, not of the world, as Jesus said
We’d be from dawning day ’till time we’re dead;
Resolves, it does, the loop’s descent to earth,
And life from different view since second birth.

Each age has had its images of this;
Each good but problematic – as we fix
Inadequacies of each and every view,
We introduce some problems which are new.

But, “Layered look” of Photoshop for me,
Expresses separation that should be
While “in” not “of” the world, with struggles seen
To be our calling over mean and mean.

“Prosperity with righteousness” – can it
Through layered look resolve itself and fit
As answer to our puzzle – or as part
Of larger picture be for us a start?

I hunch the dis-connect was at the shift
From mono-culture to a world that’s mixed,
When Jews took stripped-down Scripture-treasure “lite”
’Cross borderlands as leaven, salt, and light.

How does each culture link with layered look
Of Kingdom-life, in which we each partook
Of life “in” but not “of” the world around,
In which our daily lives are always found?

Lord, help me to awake to how – this is
Confusing, while the model helps my biz
As EDO today, now writing’s done,
And inter-actions in this world’s begun.

“Stu, just stand back and listen to your words –
It’s all in there, though you have still not heard
How life in Christ, in world, each has a place
For all those born again to human race.”

Okay, O Lord, not sure that I can see
These words of life You’ve given here to me;
Please help me – open eyes, that words might be
The missing piece of puzzle which we seek.

Ah! “Detachment” – that’s Kingdom-gift to man –
“I take it up, I lay it down – I can
Do both, I’m free, not owned by life ’round here –
That Christ has done, and Spirit has made clear.

And that is also mediated word
Through writing, film, and music we have heard;
And now spread out this message – “We are free –
And you are too, become what now you see.”

If we are caught in web of daily life,
The others own us, sway us left and right;
But opted into Kingdom, we are free –
For “in” not “of” the world we start to be.

Resource and power flow through us from God,
To others in the world, which might seem odd,
But no, for we don’t need to suck these in –
A life of pouring out can now begin.

So “EDO from Zion” goes this way –
From Kingdom’s layer, lived from day to day,
God pours His love through us as written word,
Or face-to-face – through us now He is heard.

So others start to see that layered-look
Can be for them – some see that in a book,
While others get the point while face-to-face –
One person at a time shifts human race.

Thanks Lord for this.

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