This photograph was taken as I left the Sea of Galilee, heading back to Jerusalem. The small touring van had given us a couple of hours to meander and reflect within view of where the Sermon on the Mount was delivered, where Peter walked on water, and Legion's demons raged.
Sitting with eyes closed on the pier, something dropping behind me, an acorn. I realized that Jesus might easily have heard that same sound two thousand years earlier. That sound precipitated another shift in my image of the world's most controversial man; he became in that moment an agile naturalist, a native person moving deftly through Canaan's rocks, mountains, deserts, low lands, city streets.
Tremendous momentum permeates the gospels, especially that of Mark. "Immediately" or "straightaway" εὐθέως (eutheós) appear so so many times. Now I think of Jesus as a cat-like, elusive, under-cover savvy, hard-nosed but loving detective. A far cry from my prior image of a stand-out-in-the-crowd long-haired young man passing forward spirtual truths like a soft-spoken yoga teacher either standing still or gently walking and talking to students during savasana.
Throughout Jesus' active ministry, the regal and religious authorities hunted him with the intent to short-circuit his Power, negate his influence on the people, and ultimately kill him. Their terror of him was warranted: he agitated against against injustice and hypocrisy brilliantly and relentlessly. Not a rebel without a cause, he circulated in and among his adversaries, only moving away when called to do so by the Father.
Sitting with eyes closed on the pier, something dropping behind me, an acorn. I realized that Jesus might easily have heard that same sound two thousand years earlier. That sound precipitated another shift in my image of the world's most controversial man; he became in that moment an agile naturalist, a native person moving deftly through Canaan's rocks, mountains, deserts, low lands, city streets.
Tremendous momentum permeates the gospels, especially that of Mark. "Immediately" or "straightaway" εὐθέως (eutheós) appear so so many times. Now I think of Jesus as a cat-like, elusive, under-cover savvy, hard-nosed but loving detective. A far cry from my prior image of a stand-out-in-the-crowd long-haired young man passing forward spirtual truths like a soft-spoken yoga teacher either standing still or gently walking and talking to students during savasana.
Throughout Jesus' active ministry, the regal and religious authorities hunted him with the intent to short-circuit his Power, negate his influence on the people, and ultimately kill him. Their terror of him was warranted: he agitated against against injustice and hypocrisy brilliantly and relentlessly. Not a rebel without a cause, he circulated in and among his adversaries, only moving away when called to do so by the Father.