Mark 8:13

So he left them to themselves, and, getting into the boat again, went away to the opposite shore.


home is continually left behind
for its constraints are only revealed
in a clear-eyed look at its assumptions
available from another shore

home is not having to be taken in
home is carried nautilus-like
in expanding rooms marking
each journey stage

room by room shore by shore
test by test feast by feast
we extend our hatchling’s beginning
into tomorrow’s generations


There are many ways to leave. Is this an impatient or indignant parting? Is it more an abandoning of them, knocking the dust off Jesus’ feet. It has the feel of a more definite dismissal and his talk about little dogs with Justa. Leaving leaves no room for rebuttal.

It would be instructive to add to the markers of euthys (BANG) and palin (again), the variants of ἀφίημι (aphiēmi, send forth or go away).

Bratcher76 notes:

…the verb is used in Mark with three main meanings: (1) ‘let’, ‘allow’, ‘permit’: 1:34, 5:19,37, 7:12,27, 10:14,   11:6,16  15:36; (2) ‘forgive’, ‘remit’, ‘pardon’: 2:5,7,9,10,   3:28,   4:12, 1:25; (3) ‘leave’: 12:19,20,22,   13:2 (‘leave alone’ 14:6); with the sense of ‘go away from’, ‘abandon’, forsake’: 1:18,20,31, 4:36, 7:8, 8:13, 10:28,29, 12:12,   13:34,   14:50; with the sense of ‘let loose’: 15:37.

To go to the other side of the lake is to not only put physical distance between Jesus and his Pharisee testers, but religious and cultural distance as well.

We can almost hear the Pharisees mutter to one another, “Let him go to the Gentiles, it takes one to know one.” “Running away won’t do him any good for we will still be here if he dares show his face again.” “His avoiding the doing of a sign proves he has no connection with Heaven.” “He’s a nobody, a dog.”

Though a storm is not mentioned we can see Jesus storming off (or do you see him simply and departing above the fray?), slamming a proverbial door behind him.

All in all, the ambiguity of “Leaving” is probably the place to leave things. Still, raising an “Abandoning” option is important.

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