THE WALK: KENOSIS

“I am barefoot to know the kenosis of Christ.”

BAREFOOT BILLY: SOLE TO SOUL

I act, therefore I Google. All actors do it, especially the ones who say they don’t. We do it to prove that we exist – digitally, I mean – and to see what the few people besides our agents who may actually be searching for us are searching for. For years, big G’s top auto-complete for my name has been “What happened to Bill Oberst Jr.’s face?” Lately a creeping contender has appeared: “Why is Bill Oberst Jr. barefoot?” The first made me laugh. The second makes me squirm.

The squirming comes, ironically, from the same source which compels me to be barefoot: the simultaneous yearning for, and fear of, authenticity. 

The two searches cut close. Curated me vs. raw me. Bill vs. Billy. In a cage match, I’d put my money on Billy. He fights barefooted.

The Accident

It was just an accident. Hiking in Griffith Park, I decided to give “grounding,” which was LA trendy at the time, a whirl. I stashed my tennies in a culvert pipe. I’d retrieve them when I came back down the mountain. I came back down the mountain. I did not retrieve them. They were gone.

There being nothing for it but to walk like an Egyptian the whole way back to my H’wood abode — I had walked to Griffith — off I went out of the park, down Western and onto Franklin. I expected my tender footed reaction to the sidewalk. I did not expect the derision.

Not only derision, but actual signs of fear. My face is not that scary. It was the feet. The feet! I heard it all: “That poor man!”, “F___er must be crazy!” and my personal favorite, “Get away from him, honey!”

Two miles of it.

I looked down at my feet which are, admittedly, not things of beauty, but neither are they things of horror. Really now, is the sight of a human being a human being, walking on what the good Lord gave us to walk on, really that offensive, that irritating, that evocative of madness or degeneracy? Apparently so.

But here’s the thing: I felt things. I felt real. I felt present. I felt every bump and change of texture beneath me. I was there and nowhere else. I was Billy and no one else. The head voices shut up. What the heck? 

The Emptying

And there was something more. There was…kenosis. There was emptiness. Not a nothingness, but rather, the emptiness of a well-poured vessel. Like a bowl after ice cream’s gone. Like a pitcher after lemonade’s gone. Like a basin after Jesus washes his friends’ feet the night before he’s gone. Like that.

I tried it again, this time by choice. Same presence. Same peace. Same quiet. 

Step by stumbling step, the accident became a happy accident. And I became a barefoot monster. On the stage. On the set. On the sidewalk. On my knees. The stares made Bill squirm. They made Billy laugh. My craft improved. My sleep improved. My soles got dirty. My soul got clean. I bought less stuff. I dreamed more stuff.

I am a selfish man. I was a servant boy. I killed that boy with ridicule. To feel his heart beat again, after all the silent years, nearly killed me with shock. 

The Science

The science on what was happening is strong: The soles of our feet have 2000,000 nerve endings, one of the highest concentrations in the body. Feet are data collectors. Shoe soles are blindfolds. Shoes stop cold the brain’s mapping of the ground; the somatosensory cortex, where balance and reaction are generated, can’t “see” anything. Barefoot feels good because it is good, for the brain and the body. Barefoot is biology: it’s using the machinery the way it was designed to work.

The Grace

But there’s science, and then there’s soul. The first time I gathered up the courage to go down to breakfast at a hotel barefoot – now that was the consecration. That was the grace. Everything changed. If the sky had torn open I could not have been more amazed. Maybe it did tear open.

I could not think about myself. As hard as I tried to think about myself, (and I really like to think about myself) I could not do it. I almost cried. I probably did. I loved, and wanted to love, every person in that room. They increased. I decreased. They were my brothers and sisters. I was the surrendered servant of…what? Dare I say it? Of Christ. For real. For good. Oh, this was new. This never happened in church. Hell, this was church!

The most ridiculously simple of all ridiculously simple human acts (“Take off your shoes, for you are standing on holy ground”) was making me want to be something more than my sad, selfish self. It was making me want to love. It was compelling me to love. From the ground up. Still does. Never fails. 

My God. Praise be.

The Holy Fool

Head voices do abound: 

“Oh for Pete’s sake, why can’t you do that with your shoes on?” I don’t know. I don’t need to know. This path calls the man I am as clearly as the Jesus Path called the boy I was. It’s a good and graceful path. I’m gonna walk it. 

“You’re already a gay Christian horror actor who plays Satan and won’t eat cheese; do you really want to add another layer of weirdness?” No. But I’m so tired of curating. I want to try being. This is my path. It’s an old and sacred path. Moses and Johnny Appleseed walked it. So did the desert mothers and fathers. It isn’t for everyone. It is for me. I’m gonna walk it.

I’ll be the holy fool. Or, just the fool. As you please.

So Google noticed? I’m not going to squirm. Authenticity’s a hard row to hoe. I ain’t gonna hoe it twice. 

I am barefoot to know the kenosis of Christ. God willing, I leave a little grace in my footsteps. Barefoot Billy walks on.

“F___er must be crazy.”

The Prayer of Abandonment

Father, I abandon myself into your hands. Do with me what you will. Whatever you do, I thank you.

I am ready for all, I accept all. Let only your will be done in me and in all your creatures.

I desire no more than this, Great Spirit. Into your hands I commend my soul. I offer it to you with all the love in my heart.

I love you, and so need to give myself, to surrender myself into your hands without reserve and with boundless confidence. For you are my Father.