Going on a little further, he threw himself on the ground, and began to pray that, if it were possible, he might be spared that hour.
in the end we all fall down
after all the rosy rings
have rolled away
the sadness of suffering
still needs to be dealt witheach Adam and every Eve
with their internal
Socrates and Buddha
Solomon and Confucius
prepares their suffering antidoteeach Eve and every Adam
comes to terms with suffering
Sappho and Tārā
Deborah and Gargi
echo stillso bright and brave
we enter our first wilderness
our beast and angels in accord
too many wildernesses later
we pray to be spared one more
As Jesus travels further into this particular wilderness, attempting to make sense out of the senseless reality of suffering and death, the only one still present is the partnered Reader.
Does the Reader also prostrate themself to hear whatever Jesus would say aloud? If not, do they stand? Kneel?
When hearing the request for being spared whatever amount of predestination is carried with such a time of suffering, does the Reader already know where this is going? Do they place a hand on Jesus’ back as he had done on so many times of healing or withhold it? Do they only listen or attempt to speak?
Waetjen19 speaks of Mark as an “omniscient narrator” relating events unavailable to the characters. If Mark is writing for the benefit of the Reader in such places as the Jordan River where a dove descended with baptismal belovedness and here at Gethsemane:
… the addressees of the Gospel, acquire a comprehension of Jesus’ person and work that the disciples inside the story do not have. The advantage that they gain, however, is hazardous, for it can be turned against them in their interaction with the story. What will be the outcome of their confrontation with their own quality of discipleship, mirrored as it is in the Gospel by Jesus’ followers, which they will be forced to evaluate from a new transcending point of view that begins to crystallize out of the fresh insights they receive from an omniscient storyteller?