GREAT COMMISSION POETRY
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The Way of an Artist
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What do artists rely on?
The confidence of relationship,
The excitement of discovery,
The advantage of surprise.
Cross-cultural communicators rely on this, too.
Jesus, the Poet, crossed into human culture,
and communicated with us
in the language of art.
Jesus offers us a relationship with His Father.
He came to open our eyes
and turn us from our darkness.
Parables, poems and stories
were His language...
ART - not merely for style or emphasis,
but as an actual tool of thinking.
The lost sheep, the rocky soil,
the leaven...
familiar images in the cultural mind,
yet embodiment of personal understanding.
They reveal emotion as well as intellect,
startling the soul with the truth.
People who truly heard Jesus
were changed
and stepped into His Light.
Before He left our world,
Jesus told US to open people's eyes.
Now WE have the charge.
How should we do it?
What way will we choose?
With people sitting on chairs
listening to debates and lists and rules?
Model ourselves after Jesus.
Metaphor, not technology.
Deliver His message His way:
Relationship -- confident, pure.
with the Father,
with the outcast,
high people humbling.
Discovery -- allowed and encouraged.
art touches the heart,
tears moisten the soul,
hard soil crumbling.
Surprise -- unexpected realization.
Truth suddenly revealed,
fitting each person;
tough walls tumbling,
Bursting out
where God is already at work.
The way of an artist.
by Mary Lou Totten, FACE
- facemltotten@earthlink.net -