Shiprock – New Mexico :: Image – Jimmy Conover on Unsplash
Many years ago, my wife and I searched for a church to attend. We visited quite a few with different denominations, different approaches to their music, various pastor’s styles, and the architecture differed greatly too. We didn’t become members but settled on Park Avenue Methodist Church and attended occasionally for many years. Neither of us grew up Methodist, but their music was good, and the sermons kept me coming back. I’d listened to a lot of gospel music over the years, but I’d never heard sermons like these before. He interpreted bible stories and connected them to everyday life, his life, and our lives. Sometimes they were simple observations about community.
I heard him speak for the first time on a Christmas eve. I love Christmas eve services and have since I was a kid because it was a sanctuary of candles that flickered while the choir and my parents sang. When my wife, daughter and I arrived most of the pews were full, so we had to sit in the third row. I was anxious being so close to the front. I always prefer to be in the back whether it’s church, or a movie theater, and anonymity is even better. I don’t remember his sermon, but I remember that as soon as the service was over, everyone stood up, greeted each other and before we even got our daughters coat on, Pastor Mark stepped down from the alter, made eye contact, and walked directly to me. He put his hand on my shoulder and said, “everything’s going to be OK.” I was almost speechless. He didn’t know me, had never seen me before, but seemed to know what I was feeling, and how lost I felt that night. All I could say was ‘thank-you.’ We began attending Sunday services there periodically and when I didn’t attend, sometimes I downloaded his archived sermons and listened to them at night.
I wanted to learn more about him, so I read his bio on the church website, googled him, and because my wife sang in the choir occasionally and had friends who knew him, I asked her questions too. During my research, I’d located his home address so one summer Saturday night, I road by on my way to the studio. I was curious what kind of house he and his family occupied — a house where someone who could write and speak like that would live. I slowed to a stop as I got closer and identified the correct address. It was a four-square two-story home, a hip roof, painted in deep warm yellow with white trim, a front porch that spanned the width of the house, and a blooming apple tree out front. The sky was golden, and the blooms sparkled while the warm light from inside the large windows highlighted a man sitting alone on the porch. It appeared he was writing so I straddled my bike across the street for a minute and watched, then rode away smiling. I assumed it was Pastor Mark and he was refining the sermon he would share the following morning.
Years later we attended a Sunday service and he announced that he was leaving Park Avenue. He was transferring to another church in a small river town near the city which would allow him more time to transition into making art. He was also trained as a painter which I hadn’t discovered during my research. His plan shocked me as I’d been hoping to transition back to painting too and it often felt impossible. A year later he left that church and he and his family moved to New Mexico where he pursued art full time. When I learned he was moving away, I contacted him and asked if he would meet with me. He agreed, so we picked a coffee shop and met for an hour. I needed to thank him in person for everything he unknowingly did for me, his stories, his hope, and my first Christmas eve service at Park Avenue when he approached me like an angel. Before we parted, I handed him an envelope which contained an ink drawing I’d made for him called Red Sea. We never spoke again, but years later I searched the web for him and discovered his beautiful work.
Mark passed away last year at the age of 67.
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"I grew up on the prairie, which I liked to think of as a grass ocean," he says, "but the desert feels like that too — an ocean of space and rock and wind. The desert feels like a space outside of time where rocks can go and not be bothered with things that move faster than they do. So maybe there's something in me that feels like I can rest there too." In his daughter's short film about his art installation, Soft Body, Mark reflected on his life coming to an end in the desert.
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Songs :: Hold To God’s Unchanging Hand and Thank Ya by TCC Gospel Choir, Hold Me Now by Kirk Franklin and the Family, 17 Days by Prince, and I/O (Bright Side Mix) by Peter Gabriel
© C. Davidson