"So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ." Ephesians 4:11-13
Since I couldn't fulfill his request of a dollar bill to spare, I reached deep into my jacket and gave the man wrapped in every color bandanna known to man a lint covered quarter. Then I walked over to the waterless fountain in Washington Square Park and threw the penny that remained in the palm of my mittened hand.
As I watched the copper coin roll along the stone bottom, I heard these wishful words.
"Your cup would runneth over if you used your spiritual gift."
I turned around fully expecting to see the golden grin of my rainbow skull cap crusader looking for more jingle.
But the 60 something year old man, four benches away wasn't interested in me, but the coed sitting strangely close to him and his bulging briefcase.
"I think there is something to your writing. Something untapped. Like the despondent rancher living on his scrubby land while below his feet bubbling, gushing, hot crude oil for the taking, yet he's living hand to mouth.
Your writing.
Well, it could take you to that place of contentment; that emerald isle on the horizon where the sun seems to shine the brightest.
It is agony you demonstrate, but what about salvation and glorifying His word through the ink of your pen?
It's your writing that will unveil the masks we don, will lift the lives that are low, guide the ones at the start of their journey who are hypnotized by the mad Cheshire cat's pointing tail and don't know which way to turn.
What better way to illuminate the path's arrow than with your words.
Don't you see what I'm trying to convey?
It's not the relentless whoring out of one's image or conforming you've ever sought. Not the ragged race of the unrealistic, the plastic, and the ticking bomb we call time.
Surely, you see beyond the knowledge of food and fashion and seek substance and sanctity.
Is the two years of life and limitless boundaries on a concrete island enough to douse your fancy footloosing and how much more lactic acid can you burn pushing against your God given gift as you melt into a filthy puddle of slush at the corner of St. Mark's and A?
Your writing, that is what you should pursue."
I shook my head and walked insanely fast across Broadway to the warmth of safety of my home, popped some Bufferin and picked my wardrobe for my NBC promo tomorrow.
"There is within human nature an amazing potential for goodness" MLK
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