Gospel writer Mark
is a man of few details;
he invites us to employ our imaginations.
He gives us a wilderness Jesus,
no longer under pressure
from demands of family or carpenter’s shop.
Perhaps he left the trade behind,
as well as the family,
when he moved to Capernaum.
Time to think; to weigh his options.
I picture him as a frugal man,
of independent means, at least in the short term,
with a modest sum set aside
for the purpose of taking a bride
and embracing family life;
he had certainly reached the age.
Still single at thirtyish, the mid-life crisis
had been nagging away for some time,
and the recent changes in his life
showed that its course was far from fixed.
Since childhood he had felt a persistent
sense of mystery, of a divine something
that seemed not to disturb others
in quite the same way.
He had often asked questions of this spirit,
and sensed it interrogating him;
his head shouting silently
through the sounds of hammer, saw and plane.
The answers were elusive
and the questions persistent.
Now, driven into the wilderness
after the baptism event with John,
the debate increases in tempo
as the shoutings move outside his head
to echo in the desert night,
“What do you want me to do?”
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