Sixty Miles and Sixteen Chapters: My Journey to Learn the Gospel of Mark by Heart and What It Taught Me‪.‬

My journey to learning the Gospel of Mark by heart began on the road. Sixty miles of blacktop, to be precise, running along Interstate 44 from Sullivan, Mo., to Kirkwood, Mo. In the summer of 2009, I left my first call at Peace Lutheran Church, Sullivan, and received a call to Trinity Lutheran Church, Kirkwood. Even though the economy had begun to collapse by then, my realtor assured me that I could still sell my house in Sullivan (a house purchased right before the housing bubble burst in 2006). So I began my new call at Trinity doing what I always do--learning the lectionary gospel readings by heart and performing them from memory. I picked up this little habit from Professor David Rhoads while a student at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (LSTC). My new congregation loved my presentations, and that helped ease the tension of serving a new call but still living sixty miles away in the town of my former call. I had no idea then that on Palm Sunday 2011 I would perform the entire Gospel of Mark in front of an audience. I had no idea then that of this writing, August 2011, I would still be living in Sullivan, Mo. Good thing I am not a weatherman!