Beautiful Are The Feet

As I drifted asleep, my body began to shake and vibrate rhythmically Then a buzzing roar drummed in my head. I felt as if my central core was succumbing to the rapid, rippling waves. Through the noise and confusion came a quiet, still command, “Do Mark.”
It was a command of such gentle power, cutting through the chaotic shaking and noise, that I believed I must be hearing the Holy Spirit. On reflection, I was certain. I recall Jesus’s disciples experiencing a mighty wind when they encountered the promised “Comforter” for the first time.
This was not my first encounter with what I shall call the astral plane. This name is for the state between sleeping and waking which I experienced a little in my youth but found a bit frightening. I prayed to be rid of it and the half-dreams ceased for many years. So, I was surprised when the once-familiar vibrations began again. And, as I write almost one-quarter century later, I am still surprised but also continually grateful.
These are my adventures and experiences when I obeyed that quiet, still invitation to, “Do Mark.” By this command, the words meant the exercise I was currently involved in, the task of learning to perform St. Mark’s gospel as solo theatre. This was neither a promise nor a suggestion. It was a command.
I was in my early fifties, an actor, though I earned my daily bread as a journalist and had done so for twenty years. I was driving a long distance to take up a new job as the sole journalist/editor of a small weekly community newspaper in the center of New Zealand’s North Island. I was learning Mark’s gospel in the Contemporary English Version (CEV) to present at a conference three months in the future.
This was a day of new beginnings, May 1, 2000, a day that included a fourteen-hour drive that I became too tired to complete. I was still one hundred kilometers (sixty miles) short of my goal when I pulled into a rest stop. I snuggled into my comforting sleeping bag and believed I met the Comforter. Ironic? Perhaps, but irony aside, “Do Mark”, promised much and you readers, who may have encountered one of my presentations, are the most important part of the journey.
I begin the story in the first month of the new century, when the late Rev. Dr. Jim Stuart, pastor of Wellington’s St Andrew’s on the Terrace, suggested I perform Mark for a national conference, which our church would be hosting in July, six months ahead. In agreeing, I suppose I was saying “Yes” to “Do Mark”, and from that moment my life had a new purpose.
It’s no secret that my life was at a low ebb before Jim gave it direction. I thought my journalism career had dried up and “home” was a series of shared roommate situations. Jim took me on faith in my ability, knowing I’d performed a solo piece based on my mother’s journey with dementia, at the Wellington Fringe Festival. He told me about a performance he’d seen of Mark’s gospel in America, and he suggested I do the same. I accepted the challenge.