The Magdalene Mystique - The Path Inward

Written in the early part of the second century in the framework of an ancient world, the Gospel of Mary is a Gospel of our deepest roots, filled with fresh insights for us today. It offers a Jesus who teaches that nature is good and that our true nature is rooted in the Good, a Jesus who greets his disciples with his peace and boldly instructs his disciples to “acquire my peace within yourselves.”

It’s this teaching to turn inward into peace that is so remarkable. It’s a call to come home to our shared humanity and divinity. Grounded in our original Good, we can develop the peace by starting with ourselves. All of this is within our reach. We can become whole in soul, body, mind, and spirit. We may choose to do this. This peace begins within and spreads out into harmonious relationships and to connections beyond our ordinary ones. Moving from the inside out, we can become the shared peace.

Jacob Neddleman in his The American Soul [pages 194ff] speaks of peace as understood by the American Indian. Neddleman says: “Of all the features that characterize the Indian’s vision of nature and reality, perhaps none is more mysterious and frequently overlooked or set apart than the emphasis he puts on what we translate by the word ‘peace.’ ”

And Neddleman continues, “Speaking from my own past experience, which I am sure is quite common, I was never able to grasp the importance of that word, neither as a boy enthralled by the Indian’s way of living, nor as I grew older and became a student of philosophy and the world’s religions. I remember looking at pictures of Indians: the dark, stone-strong face of a chief or warrior, his body dynamic and still, his costume intricately and mystically wild, his eyes direct and unwavering. This was a man: why should he desire “peace.”? Surely, it was power that he represented, the power of the storm and sky; and wisdom, the secrets of the animal and the forest; and freedom - from all the social artifice; and solitude, his mysterious capacity to be with himself and with the powers of the wild; and courage, his capacity to withstand pain and suffering; and silent force, the power to move through nature without making a mark, to disappear into the forest beyond all discovery; and cunning, and fighting skill and physical prowess that could often defeat the heavy-handed genius of the white man. What could “peace” mean to such a man?”

Neddleman answers his boyhood question when he explains to us in some detail what peace means for the American Indian. According to Neddleman, peace for the American Indian goes way beyond what we think when we say that peace is a kind of stasis, a rest or a safety. For the American Indian, peace is dynamic and includes the forces of life in the natural world and in the human world. It even includes what we usually call “evil” and “struggle” and “suffering and sorrow;” it includes the whole range of error and foolishness, passion, tenderness, anger and defeat. And, strangely sounding, Needleman suggests that it also includes war. How can all these opposites come under the term peace we want to ask?

Neddleman continues:

“For the American Indian — and this idea lies at the hidden root of every great spiritual teaching of the world — to be at peace means to be at peace with one’s conscience. And to be at peace within the community or to live in peace with other nations is to submit to a rule of law that is the communal expression of conscience and that provides conditions within which an individual is free to listen for that voice within himself. The establishment of such conditions, the establishment of such law, requires an intelligence of a very high order — what is called “the intelligence of the heart.” And to find such intelligence requires, in turn, an effort of exceptional people working together to respect each individual’s fragment of truth until an objective, all-inclusive truth descends into the commmunity from “above,” that is from the Great Spirit. Such an objective moral truth may be linked with the word “justice.”

We need to think deeply about these words from Neddleman and the heritage that our American Indian brothers and sisters have given us. I am interested in thinking more deeply about the possibility of living in a state in which I am at peace with my own conscience. What would that peace feel like, for example? Perhaps we could speak of this peace as living according to our own truth. And of course the question arises, do we really live according to our own truth? When, and how often, and under what circumstances?

And then as we become used to what that peace feels like to consider if the conditions are such in our own communities so that every individual is allowed that same freedom — is every individual free to listen for that voice within him/herself? to live according to his/her own conscience and to his/her own truth. So there is something communal about following the peace: this is not just an individualistic process but one with an active component relative to forming a better world. Living in this peace involves, as I understand Neddleman, an effort of working together with other peoples and nations to respect each individual’s fragment of truth until an objective and all-inclusive truth arises from the group (or descends from above into the group.) If we arrive at this all-inclusive truth, we have arrived at a just truth. This would be living in peace and justice.

Neddleman goes on to state another aspect of the thinking we derive from the American Indian, and from a host of other religious and ethical traditions about the interconnectedness of good and evil. This is a teaching that says that what is objectively good is the wholeness of reality and what is objectively evil is that which holds the elements of life apart from one another. In other works, the opposite of peace and justice is that which divides and separates parts of reality and keeps these parts away from each other. Wow! This is a very profound point. Think on this.

Many of us in the Magdalene Community are seekers. Some of us have found in our seeking what we call the “shared peace” within. Just what that means is a matter of much discussion in our Sunday morning conversations. (You may remember the central message that Jesus gives to the disciples in the Gospel of Mary. To paraphrase, Jesus says, Find the peace within - don’t look over here or over there but look within. If you seek the peace within, you will find it. If you find it, you will follow it.)

We understand that peace is not just a matter of bliss or rest but a peace that has an active impulse with it - an impulse to look out into the world and to pray and actively work for a better world. One could say that a justice impulse is inextricably tied to the peace within.

This is a peace that we all want. It takes time to process that this peace resides within us and that we can find it, if we seek it. It takes time to understand what this peace might mean to each of us on an everyday basis and what it might mean if all of us followed the peace we can find that resides within us.

I have been reading Jacob Neddleman’s The American Soul recently. His thoughts on the American Indian are helpful in sorting out what we want to say about peace. I selected some readings from his section on the American Indian to present for conversation in our Magdalene Community for this morning. I thought you might want to read some of Neddleman with us and enter into conversation as though you had been with us this morning at 10:00 am at the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas.

I will begin with the meditation we started out with this morning. The words are those of Jacob Neddleman. I don’t know that he meant them as a meditation but we used them as such this morning as we opened our hearts to conversation.

From Chapter Six of The American Soul:

“Will we ever know who [s/he] is? And can we ever feel what was done to [her/him]? Can we feel it in a way that goes deeper than guilt?

We can begin by looking more closely, albeit from outside, at the culture of the American Indian.

Inevitably, the first thing that strikes us is the American Indian’s relationship to nature. We know now that there was nothing “primitive” about it; we are beginning to be aware of the subtlety and sophistication of American Indian religion, its symbolism, ritual and mythology which altogether embody a vision of the universal world as profound as anything offered by the Judeo-Christian tradition. And, with this awareness, we are all the more struck by the fact that this religion is immersed in the realities of the natual world. For us in modern society it is only in special moments that we directly sense meaning in nature. Experientially and psychologically, nature, virgin nature, is only part of our world. For the Indian, nature is the world. How is it that a people who lived directly in nature also exhibited extraordinary qualities of wisdom, generosity and deep social intelligence?

…We do not understand the Indian’s relationship to nature, perhaps because — even with all the knowledge that science brings us –we simply do not understand nature itself. Perhaps it is from the Indian that we can confront the fact that we do not understand the earth — and what the earth really needs from us.”

Think on these things and drop a comment if you feel so inspired. This is the beginning of what I hope will be a continuing series of the thoughts of Jacob Neddleman that seem particularly relevant to our community that takes its inspiration from The Gospel of Mary, where Jesus encourages the assembled community to find the divine nature within.

More on peace from Neddleman later.

New Hampshire voters transcended the polls and said what they wanted to say, not what they were told to say. What a model for the American people!

The New Hampshire way was a looking within, an earnest reflecting within one’s self. And it seems there was both an examination of the difficult issues that confront us, from the economy to the war and immigration, as well as a following of the heart. Hurrah for a people that can make a decision about what is best for our country from the inside out!

I just love America when it acts in this way: “Don’t tell me what to do; I can decide for myself. This is my opportunity to participate in the democratic process, and I want my vote to count.” Hurrah for all those who came out for the first time and knew instinctively the importance of their vote!

The New Hampshire voters were fighting their way through the media extremes: both the rave reviews and the bashing. It is the latter that I want to talk about this morning.

In this election process, I have found the mocking and the brutality to be simply out of sight, particularly with regard to Hillary Clinton. Perhaps it is because I am a woman and I can identify, but I would like to think it is because I am concerned about the way we treat and so often harm one another. From my perspective, Hillary has been mocked, derided, and sold away a thousand times by the news media. She has been called everything in the book: I have never seen anything quite like this.

Where is this brutality and harm coming from? We need to think about this. No matter how you come down in your decision, I think you will agree that much more discourse is needed about the embedded and often hidden violence that faces an “unusual sort” — a woman, an African American, a Hispanic — if they dare to run for president.

I don’t hear many people talking about this. But just take this last week. When it looked like Hillary’s ship was sunk, the expressions of relief and glee simply couldn’t be missed among the media. When her ship recovered, praising her accomplishment seemed more like cutting teeth. What’s going on here? Why do so many people have such a visceral reaction to Hillary? We as a nation, both men and women, need to look at this.

It seems to me that her news coverage is not the same as it is for the men candidates. Take her remarks last night after winning in New Hampshire. I tuned in a little late so I didn’t catch the first part of her speech. Because I missed the first portion and had found her particularly effective, I decided to surf the channels to catch her speech later. None of the channels I checked ever replayed even portions of the speech. It was easy to catch portions of McCain’s speech being replayed, his exact words, but not those of Hillary: the only thing I could catch was her coming out and shaking hands with the crowd after her victory. None of her words! From what I could tell, listening to just a portion of her speech, she was extremely effective! Could that be why it didn’t get covered?

How difficult it is for a woman to run for President. No woman has ever run for President. There are no guidelines available as to how a woman might succeed, no precedents from the past. And the precedents of the past for successful candidates, apparently, don’t work for women. She has to be steely while the men can emote, she has to be ladylike and yet show strength. She really is dammed if she does, and dammed if she doesn’t.

Jodi Kantor hints at some of these problems in this morning’s New York Times: “The Show of Emotion Heard ‘Round the Presidential Campaign World.” Kantor says that Hillary cannot show her emotions while the men are applauded for being emotionally accessible to the public. Edwards and Obama are free to talk about their emotional struggles while Hillary has to mete “out her inner life one teaspoon at a time, a suggestive line in an interview here, and intriguing hearty laugh there.”

So Monday, she had an emotional moment in a coffee shop when a woman photographer asked her “How do you do it? just as she asked, “Who does your hair?” One moment of self-revelation on Hillary’s part, and Rush Limbaugh is on the point, not to mention, it seemed, everyone else in the world. My goodness, my goodness, what a difference it makes to be a woman running for President! And the part about the hair, that’s too close to home for me to even discuss. Asking a woman about her hair — rather than her vision and her point of view - well, I leave that one up to my readers.

All of us are working though tremendous issues that have held us back in the past - prejudices that we can no long afford to accept. I think Hillary is correct when she says that the entire election process will be transformative for not only for the American people but also for the candidates themselves. I think that’s a good thing. But please, let’s stop the unconscionable brutality and inequality.

http://www.technorati.com/search/hillary?language=en&authority=a4

I came across this story this morning from Being Still: Reflections on an Ancient Mystical Tradition, by Jean-Yves Leloup, translated by M.S. Laird, O.S.A. (Paulist PRess, 2003, 1-2). Some of you may remember Leloup’s excellent book on the Gospel of Mary and his other books that take us from the West to the East. I love the idea of learning to meditate like a mountain and would like to hear what that might mean to you. Thanks for your patience in my lack of recent postings. I hope this will be a beginning again of our conversations.

Here is the story:

“When Mr. X, a young French philosopher, arrived on Mount Athos he had already read a number of books on Orthodox spirituality, including Writings from the Philokalia on Prayer of the Heart and The Way of a Pilgrim. He had been seduced without really being convinced. A single liturgy at rue Daru in Paris had inspired him to spend a few days on Mount Athos when he was on holiday in Greece. He hoped to learn a bit more about prayer and, in particular, the method of prayer practiced by those silent men in search of hesychasm, or interior peace.

This young man had read many books on meditation and prayer, but he had never really prayed or meditated before. He was looking for not one more lecture on prayer or meditation, but an initiation which would allow him to live prayer and to know it from within, by experience and not just by hearsay.

It would take too long to tell how he came to meet Fr. Seraphim, a monk who lived in a hermitage near Saint Panteleimon (which the Greeks call the Roussikon). Suffice it to say that on Mount Athos the young philosopher was a little wary. He did not find the monks up to the level of his books.

Fr. Seraphim had an ambiguous reputation among his circle of monks. Some accused him of levitating, others of barking. Some considered him an ignorant peasant, others a true staretz, inspired by the Holy Spirit and capable of giving profound advice and reading the secrets of the heart.

When anyone arrived at the door of his hermitage, Fr. Seraphim had the custom of observing the visitor in a most insolent way from heard to foot, for five long minutes, without saying a word. Those who were not put off by this sort of examination would then undergo the monk’s biting evaluation. ‘You! [She/He] hasn’t descended beneath your chin.’ ‘You! Let’s not talk about it, [She/He] hasn’t even come into you.’ ‘You! How marvelous! [She/He’s] got right down to your knees!’

Of course he was speaking of the Holy Spirit’s descent. In this way, he assessed the holiness of a visitor according to the degree of incarnation of the Spirit. The perfect person, the transfigured person, was inhabited by the Holy Spirit from head to toe. “I’ve only seen that once. That was staretz Silouan. He was truly a man [human] of God, full of humility and majesty.’

The young philosopher was not quite there yet. The Holy Spirit had stopped at his chin. When he asked Fr. Seraphm to tell him something about prayer of the heart and about pure prayer according to Evagrius Ponticus, the old monk began to shout. This did not discourage the young man. He insisted. So Fr. Seraphim said, “Before I talk about prayer of the heart, first learn how to meditate like a mountain.’ And he showed him an enormous rock. “Ask it how it goes about praying, Then come back to me.’ ”

We never REALLY know what time it is.

These words came to me yesterday and I’ve been thinking about them ever since.

Of course we all carry watches, so we know the exact time, at any moment, and all kinds of other exactitudes, such as day and month, or time anywhere else in the world. We usually have clues as to what we call “our time and season,” as Ecclesiastes says, a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted ……a time to weep, and a time to laugh and dance, a time to keep silence, and a time to speak, and so forth. We usually, though not always, have some general sense as to whether we are at the beginning, middle or end of our lives.

Yet we can’t forsee the future; we live with the memory of the past and in the present. We usually don’t project ourselves into the future or think about the ifs, for example: If I had known this was going to happen, I would have done more of x and y; or if I knew you were going to leave me, I wouldn’t have treated you the way I did, or I would have said get lost first. We seldom know when we are at a time of loss, or gain for that matter - if I had known you would gift me with a fortune, I wouldn’t have worried so much.

It’s hard to evaluate the time you are in. And what’s more, when life gets routine and humdrum, we go about forgetting about the unexpected.

But in truth, the unexpected happens, and sometimes in a flash, the unexpected consolation, or the unexpected desolation. The problem seems to be that we can’t know what time we are in, until then. Such I suppose is the human condition.

Then there is something people call God’s Time (which I would suggest is REAL TIME) and about that we REALLY don’t know at all. We never know, until it happens, if we will have a God-moment - some word or intuition that might come to us that changes our present perspetive on the way we live our lives or have been living it.

But when you think about it, the heroes of scriptural history never REALLY knew what Time it was. That is, they never really understood God’s REAL plan and movement in the world. Abraham, living in Haran, didn’t know that God would suddenly break into his life and give him a mission. Sitting in his tent, he had no clue that he was on the brink of seeing three angels who would tell them of future events. He never REALLY knew when he might have a vision or a dream that gave challenge or consolation. But one thing we can say for Abraham is that when his God moments occurred, he knew God was near and understood the blessed assurance that all would be well — in God’s Time, we say.

And the disciples of Jesus never REALLY knew what Time it was, whether the next moment would be a parade into Jerusalem or a time of betrayal. They especially had no clue that after the death they would be living in a Time when visions and intutions would be assuring them that God was near. Then they lived differently and blessedly assured that all would be well — in God’s Time, we say.

It is said that some people are favored with gifts to foresee the future and some have intuitions and visionary experiences that are quite remarkable. Mary Magdalene was one of those historical persons who was gifted in this way. Because there are always suspicions about people who take heart from their own experience, her heroic actions got lost to most of us.

But we can learn from her actions. Even in death, she remained loyal to her beloved. She went to the tomb with the spices for annointing the dead, and when she did this, she REALLY didn’t know what time it was - that she would have a vision of Jesus bringing consolation and the blessed assurance that he was near.

God had a plan, a big plan, and Abraham, and the apostles and Mary Magdalene, who were God’s hands and feet, couldn’t know the scope of the plan, couldn’t even know in any real sense, what time it was; yet they were ready to open the door when God came to them.

You may remember Jesus’ words in Luke 12 when he is giving instructions to his disciples. He says: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give alms. Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks.”

And then Jesus says one of the most startling things in all of the Christian Scriptures: “Blessed for those who the master finds alert when he comes. For he will fasten his belt and have you sit down to eat, and he will come and serve you.”

For me, this means that God’s Time is REALLY for us.

The festive worship commemorating St. Mary Magdalene was held last Sunday evening in the Cathedral in downtown Houston. It was a great blessing for all of us. As more than 70 men and women gathered for the event, there was something in the air, an anticipation that something memorable was about to take place.

The musicians, Anita Kruse, (pianist/composer), Jennifer Kenney (flutist), Sonja Bruzauskas (soloist/singer) gathered the community with their traditional Be Present Mantra, which goes:

“Be Present; act as the living presence dwells in you.”

[You might make that your mantra for today. See if it makes some difference as to how you live this day.]

Then the musicians moved us into the opening song from the Taize Community:

“Come and pray in us, Holy Spirit, come and pray in us,
Come and visit us, Holy Spirit, Spirit come, Spirit come.”

[Click here to see an image of the gathered Taize Community in France and bring yourself into an imagined gathering. Another couple of clips will take you to the music of this opening song]

http://www.taize.fr/en_rubrique12.html

http://www.taize.fr/en_article510.html

In this service it was the music and the scripture readings that led the way. And there were speakers that touched us deeply as well: They were the Rev. Mary Green, an Episcopal priest and chaplain at St. Luke’s Hospital, Dr. April DeConick, professor of Biblical studies at Rice University, and Pam Stockton, scholar and president of Brigid’s Place. I acted as presider and celebrant of the Eucharist.

To give a bit of background for the service, it just so happened that Mary Green had recently painted an icon of Mary Magdalene. We had become aware of this icon in our Magdalene Community. This icon of the Magdalene reflects the new image of the Magdalene, as First Apostle of the Resurrection, NOT her old image as model of penitence. Upon our request, Green’s icon had been placed in the Cathedral sancturary adjacent to the altar for forty days before the Feast Day. In this way the icon had been blessed, according to the Eastern Orthodox tradition.

So this Sunday night, as the congregation stood and sang “Come and pray in us, Holy Spirit,” Green processed into the Cathedral space with the icon, followed by our readers and speakers. It was a symbolic action, an intentional bringing in of a new image of Mary Magdalene. It was a way of marking a corrective to the manner in which she has formerly resided in churches across the globe. It was a celebration of her as a blessed companion of Jesus, spiritual guide in the early communities, “the apostle to the apostle” and as “equal-to-the apostles.”

Green had written a prayer of blessing of the icon. As it was placed at the top of the chancel steps and sprinkled with holy water, we all repeated the prayer, saying,

“Holy and Loving One, whose Christ is the icon of the invisible God: acccept, we pray, this new icon of St. Mary Magdalene as worthy to make present to us the First Apostle of your Resurrection. Grant to us eyes of faith to see in Mary Magdalene the divine grace that, even today, endures rejection and misunderstanding fo the sake of pure devotion to her Savior. Grant to us the same grace and passion for the Good News of the Risen Christ. Amen ”

After this, Dr. April DeConick addressed the congregatrion.

These are her words:

“It is a pleasure for me to be with you today in your beautiful sanctuary, celebrating a great woman of history – a devoted follower of Jesus, the Apostle to the Apostles, Saint Mary Magdalene. It is an extraordinary honor to carry into the sanctuary her icon, lovingly painted by Rev. Mary Green, and to be part of its consecration and blessing, as we celebrate the Magdalene, whose true personage is being reclaimed by us today.

As we have learned more about church history, we have come to realize that our past understanding of Mary as a repentant prostitute has marginalized her real historical actions and has diminished her actual historical stature. We know today that this image of Mary was created by Pope Gregory the Great in 591 by assimilating to the Magdalene a collage of stories about various women in the New Testament, including the anonymous prostitute in Luke who cries on Jesus’ feet and wipes them with her hair. Pope Gregory, a fiery preacher, used this woman-condensed-from-many-women as an exemplar of the model sinner who repents and is saved from the Last Judgment.

The Magdalene became the Everywoman, the ideal Christian. Like her, we could also turn away from our errors and devote ourselves to Christ. As such, her collage image as a repentant prostitute became very powerful in Western Christianity, so much so that it overshadowed her authentic heritage as the primary witness of Jesus’ death and resurrection, as a faithful disciple of Jesus, and as a teacher to the Apostles and the first Christians, a heritage that the Western churches have all but forgotten.

It is important to realize, however, that her authentic heritage was never lost in the Eastern Orthodox churches, churches that were not influenced by Pope Gregory. In Eastern Christianity, Mary Magdalene stands apart from Luke’s repentant sinner. Her biblically-based story in its Eastern version, is the story of a wealthy woman who was healed by Jesus. During his ministry, she financially helped support Jesus and his mission. When the other disciples fled at his arrest, Mary stayed by his side even standing at the foot of the cross. She was the first to witness the Resurrection. And so in Orthodox tradition, she is called “Equal to the Apostles.”

Her saint legend in the East goes on to claim that, after Jesus’ ascension, Mary journeyed to Rome where she was admitted to the court of Tiberius Caesar because of her high social standing. She told Tiberius how poorly Pilate had run Jesus’ trial and then told him that she had witnessed Jesus risen from the dead. Tiberius responded that a human being could no more rise from the dead than an egg turn red. She picked up an egg and it turned red immediately. After this banquet, Mary traveled the Mediterranean, preaching about the resurrection. Some Eastern traditions place her ministry in Ephesus where she eventually dies. The exchange of red eggs at Easter remains a popular Orthodox custom, a custom that we aren’t completely unfamiliar with in the West. How many Easters have you yourself colored eggs for Easter morning?

It is Mary’s Biblical authentic heritage that we wish to remember and reclaim for the Magdalene today. In order to accomplish this, we are going to reperform her story from the Bible as a Taizé worship service. This form of worship began to be developed in 1940 when a few Protestant brothers began living together in Taizé, a village in France. Eventually Catholic brothers joined them and together they created an ecumenical monastic community to serve the poor and alleviate suffering. Three times a day, the community gathers for prayer and meditative song in a worship service modeled off of a centuries-old tradition of monastic daily prayer. The songs are brief and repetitive, and their singing or chanting is meant to produce a contemplative atmosphere, a place and a space for us to quiet our minds and raise our hearts to God.

Icons are traditionally part of Taizé worship because they are believed to contribute to the beauty of the worship. In Eastern Orthodoxy, icons are thought to be windows open to the realities of the Kingdom of God, making these realities present to us on earth. They are not simply pretty pictures or decorations. They are believed to be symbols of the incarnation, bringing the divine presence of the saint or heavenly being into our human experience. They express and embody for us the higher reality. When icons are used in contemplation, it is believed that they can make that sacred reality present for us. So the onlooker, according to Eastern tradition, should make him- or herself ready to receive the mystery which it reveals, approaching the icon with dignity and a pure conscience.

So this evening, as we celebrate the Feast of Saint Mary Madgalene, I invite you to make yourself ready, to join together in song and contemplation. Feel free to move quietly and respectfully around the sanctuary during the service. You are invited to sit or kneel in the pew or on the floor, to come to the stairs if you wish to look upon the icon at any point during the worship service. Each song will be introduced by a Biblical reading which is meant to help you focus your contemplation and enter the Magdalene story, to help you experience her story as your own story.

Let us prepare our hearts to receive God’s abundant grace.”

And there was grace abounding for the rest of the service, with its icons, Taize Music, and Eucharist. We were learning to act as though the living presence of God dwells within us.

From the comments I received from various people, it was at the Liturgy of the Table where we all sang, “Holy Spirit, come to us” that the congregation felt so gathered and warmly blessed. For me, the Spirit was palpable and real. I couldn’t help thinking that something like this was what the early Christians felt in their gatherings of prayer, song, and eucharist. Somehow, tonight, we had slipped into some region in Egypt or Syria or Palestine where a Magdalene community who honored Mary Magdalene had gathered in the earliest centuries of the Christian era. We were there, and yet we were here.

You are invited to the annual celebration of the Feast Day of Mary Magdalene, Sunday, July 22, 2007, at Christ Church Cathedral, 1117 Texas Avenue, Houston. Worship begins at 6pm. A lecture by Dr. April DeConick will follow the service at 7:00 pm in the Cathedral’s Great Hall. Cost for the lecture is $20.00. Parking is free at the Cathedral parking lot on San Jacinto.

6:00 pm Taize Worship Service

The festive worship in the Cathedral at 6 p.m. will include songs from the Taizé Community, blessing of the new icon of Mary Magdalene by the Rev. Mary Green, a brief talk by April DeConick about Mary Magdalene and the Taize Community, and Eucharist.
Musicians for the service include Anita Kruse (pianist/composer), Jennifer Kenney (flutist), Sonja Bruzauskas (soloist/singer)

7:00 pm Leture Dr April DeConick: “Where Were the Women? What the Gospel of Mary Tells Us”

Who was Mary Magdalene really? A prostitute? A loyal disciple? Jesus’ wife? Dr. DeConick’s lecture will explore these themes and more as it unpacks the theology of the Gospel of Mary, a Gnostic “midrash” gospel. Mary emerges from the text as an early Gnostic church leader administering the eucharist and presenting a homily on its benefits, which include a mystical transfiguration and ascent to God.

April DeConick recently joined the Rice University Religious Studies faculty as Isla Carroll and Percy E. Turner Professor of Biblical Studies. Dr. DeConick is a historian of early Jewish and Christian thought, fascinated by the many ways the Jesus tradition emerges across the literature. She has a deep love for exploring the various expressions of early mysticism, including the spirituality of classic Gnostic thinkers. She is the author of Seek to See Him: Ascent and Vision Mysticism in the Gospel of Thomas; Voices of the Mystics: Early Christian Discourse in the Gospel of John, Thomas and Other Ancient Christian Literature . Soon to be published is her The Thirteenth Apostle: What the Gospel of Judas Really Says, to be published in December, 2007.

Several years ago I met Aman Mehrzai, an American Muslim, living in Houston. A parishioner introduced me to him, and our conversations led to his giving several talks to our youth groups about being a Muslim in American. Our Magdalene Community is starting a series of talks about various world religions this Sunday. So it seems like a good time for us to have some conversations online with Aman about Islam. Aman now lives in California, and I asked him to write a first letter to begin our conversation. I hope you will join in the conversation - he, too, as you can see from the last paragraph, thinks dialogue and conversation is a significant part of our healing and reconciliation today.

Here is his first letter:
Betty,

For years the great religions of Christianity and Islam have heard of each other mainly through myth and fables of defamation – often in the form of negative false literature in the old days, and more-so through media propaganda in the present. It’s Al-Jazeera (explaining why the West is wicked) versus Fox News (over why Muslims are evil); both sides often approaching the “story” about each other in an antagonistic and suspicious manner.

Well I am an oxymoron living in the midst of judgment and misunderstandings. I am Muslim, but American – with my great grandfather of 13 generations ago being a Jewish Rabbi who converted to Islam.

My parents loved God, but did not emphasize Him in the household. When they died, I was only 14 years old, and my love of God too died with them. I fell into a darkness of atheism, wondering and questioning why God would do this to me. Through alcohol and drugs I did not find the answer. I only finally realized that I wasn’t really an atheist – I was just mad at God.

My girlfriend’s father at the time, worked hard at making Jesus my personal savior. In the beginning I went to Church with him because I felt it would be good politics to keep things smooth between me and my girlfriend. But as I heard the pastor speaking of the compassionate stories of Jesus – I realized that this was no ordinary man he was talking about. I was moved by the charisma, love and relentless revolutionary ideas of the Messiah.

Under pressure from my girlfriend’s father, the pastor attempted to explain the trinity to me after sermon one day, but a big question mark arouse on my face in the shape of my eyebrow. His attempts to explain the trinity through multi-faceted examples with all earnest left me scratching my head. “The trinity is like a hard boiled egg,” said the pastor. “The shell, white and yolk are three, but one.” Without realizing that my response may be disrespectful I asked him, “What if I eat the yolk? What then?” The pastor gazed my face for signs of ridicule, but after realizing my sincerity, well, he simply grabbed my hand as a father would to a son and replied, “This is where you just believe my son. Logic could only take you so far.”

He was right; logic can only take me so far. I was now convinced that there was a God, but the trinity was a complicated story and deserved much more research. My journey started with the Church, Synagogue, Buddhist Temple, then to the Mosque, not necessarily for spiritual enlightenment, but for intellectual fulfillment. My love was in understanding why people believed what they did – I was interested in the roots. This internal journey led me to a physical journey to the Himalayas, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Morocco, Mauritania and Senegal in Africa, but the hardest journey of all was going deep through the mountains and dark crevasses of my heart – to understand why I am the way I am, and why I believe and love God.

You see Betty, questioning is deep! My physical journeys have stopped for now – but my internal journal will never stop, as I believe it will continue into the afterlife.

Living in a predominantly Christian country, I see, feel and understand the pains and fears of my countrymen and women towards Muslims. I am American. What I am not interested in, is proving through brute and bronze the strength of our Gods to each other. For this reason, I constantly visit different churches, in hopes of increasing nothing less than sheer understanding. We must come to know each other, and I am convinced that only through love and understanding will God grant us success in this life and the next. I am also convinced that this is what God wants us to do in this country as He is the one who controls the hearts – and only He can change them.

I finish my lengthy introduction with this thought; we can constantly claim in vain “united we stand.”

But I often ponder what this unity really means, if we make no effort other than listening to what the T.V. tube has to say as our primary source of understanding each other?

I pray that God gives us strength to open dialogue between you and me, and other Muslims, Christians and Jews alike, to act as stitches in the healing process of our beloved homeland, America.

Thank you for your time and patience,

Aman Mehrzai

Servant of God

Response from Betty:

Aman,

I think your first paragraph hits the mark - we sometimes approach each other with suspicion (thinking, what is the real agenda here? what does he/she want from me? will I get an evangelisitic pitch? ) And this is not just the case with persons of different religions but with persons of different races, class, and gender, to name a few of the occasions when red flags go up in alert. It probably has to do with our “sedimented layers” (to use a word from Heidegger) of ancient hostilities, either personal or collective, and/or with our fears of the unknown. We can’t exactly predict how our conversation will go with someone we don’t know or understand. Fear calls for an alert, and while that might be good in some cases, it greatly hampers new friendships. So the first step in any conversation is to settle down and recognize those layers and name them if we can. Then perhaps we can begin to build up trust. All this takes a great deal of time and effort. No wonder it happens so little.

Alas, news media thrive on conflict because it sells. Those reported conflicts deepen our suspicions on a daily basis. The question that glares here is: why does conflict sell? Why are we eager to read about commotion and crisis Does it fulfill an expectation of a sort? Is this learned behavior or something more?

Thank you for telling us your story of seeking God and the pastor’s portrait of a compassionate Jesus. Those of us in the Christian tradition are pleased with that portrait. I would agree that the egg metaphor takes us only so far. Ultimately, we have to throw in the towel in explanation and stand before Great Mystery.

I would be interested in learning more about your daily prayers and your spirituality whenever you think the time is right to go into that. Let’s see how our readers respond?

Betty

Conversations in the Magdalene Community about World Religions will take place on Sundays at the Rothko Chapel at 10:00 am according to the following calendar.
Judaism: July 15 and 22
Buddhism: July 29 and August 5
Islam: August 12 and 19
Native American: August 26 and September 2
Christianity: September 16

We are indebted to Janie Stevens of the Diocese of Texas for providing the symbols and materials for this series of Sundays from her “Peace Village” collection.

The final evening at the UBE Conference was fabulous! I wish we could have more evenings like this one - good food, iced tea, and chocolate! Ayesha had kindly squeezed me in at her family table so I had close to a front row seat. It seemed that everyone was in rare form and mood to celebrate, and celebrate, and celebrate. The spotlight was on black women - their gifts and talents, their compassion and love, their creative brilliance. The evening was entitled “A Gala Tribute to 30 Years of Black Women in the Priesthood.”

First let me tell you what I learned about the first woman that was honored: the Rev. Pauli Murray. You might want to see if you can get a copy of her autobiography : Song in a Weary Throat: An American Pilgrimage. (Try the public library.)

The Rev Pauli Murray was the first black female and second African-American Episcopal priest, who served in the ’70s and ’80s at the Church of Holy Nativity in Baltimore. Born in Baltimore, MD, in 1910, and graduating from Hunter College in New York, she became a teacher in 1933. During this time she wrote her first novel, Angel of the Desert. Her most famous poem is “Dark Testament.”

Later, when she attempted to enter the University of North Carolina Law School, she was told no - the school simply did not admit African-Americans. Not even help from the NAACP and a friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt could change that part of her story. But Pauli Murray was undaunted and dedicated her life to the struggle for equality and justice. Eventually, she graduated from Howard University Law School as the first woman and first in her class of 1944.

In 1946, Murray was jailed for refusing to sit on the broken seats on the back of the bus. But that did nothing to stop her cry for justice. She went on to publish important articles on civil rights. She received a masters of law from the University of California at Berkeley, was hired by the New York law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkin, Wharton, and Garrison, and lectured at the Ghana School of Law at Accra. President Kennedy appointed her to the President’s Commission on the Status of Women Committee on Civil and Political Rights and she became Distinguished Professor of Law and Politics at Brandeis University 1968-1973. It was in 1973 that she entered General Theological Seminary and was ordained to the priesthood. What gifts, what spirit, what imagination!

Read more about Pauli Murray by clicking here: http://www.tcnj.edu/~coar2/biography/murray.htm

On this Gala Evening we heard many stories of women led by the spirit - but having to go against the grain - against the popular mandate - and in some cases hearing a call that only they believed in. Their stories were filled with exclusions and repudiations but also with welcomes and triumphs. And in all this, there was a melancholy and pathos hanging in the air: why should our world be so divided into categories? Why are we so cruel to those who are not just like us? Why do we continue to deal out harm to one another? Why can’t we see that we all carry that spark of divinity within us - that the spirit of peace lives in all of us, if we could but see it, and feel it.

I couldn’t even begin to name all the people that contributed to this evening. The Rev. Canon Nelson Pinder, the UBE President, the Rev. Jennifer Baskervillle-Burrows, Co-Dean of the Conference, and the Rev. Dr. Katherine L. Ward, of Our Savior Chinese Episcopal Church, who read off her poetry as one who channels grace. And the dynamo women who stood up and told it the way it was: the charismatic Rev. Dr. Sandye A. Wilson and the Rev. Cheryl A.E. Parris. Well, as I said before, why can’t we have more evenings like this one!

The highlight of the evening was the honoring of 5 women Bishops:

(1) The Right Rev. Barbara C. Harris, who was elected suffragan (assisting) bishop of the Diocese of Massachusetts in 1988.
http://www.upenn.edu/almanac/v42/n25/harris.html
http://www.edow.org/diocese/bishops/harris_bio.html

(2) The Right Rev. Gayle E. Harris, who was elected suffragan bishop of the Diocese of Massachusetts, succeding Barbara Harris.
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/bishops/0407.html
http://www.diomass.org/welcome_message.html

(3) The Right Rev. Dena Harrison, elected as Bishop Suffragan in the Diocese of Texas in 2006, becoming the 13th woman elected as a bishop of the Episcopal Church.
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_74132_ENG_HTM.htm?menu=undefined+
http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/print.php?storyid=4817

(4) The Right Rev. Dr. Carol J. Gallager, member of the Cherokee nation and elected Bishop in the Diocese of Southern Virginia in 2002. http://www.thefreelibrary.com/ECUSA+diocese+elects+first+indigenous+woman+(Carol+J.+Gallagher)…-a030317023
http://thewitness.org/agw/gallagher121704.html

(5) THe Right Rev. Bavi Edna Rivera, was the first Hispanic woman elected as Bishop Suffragan in the Diocese of Olympia.
http://www.cdsp.edu/crossings/cr-winter06.html
http://www.olympia.anglican.org/inthenews/riveraelectedsuffragan2.cfm

equality
http://www.ube.org/episcopal church

One central component of the UBE Convention in Houston was the Presiding Bishop’s Forum. Participants included the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, Tony Daniels, the Rev. Canon Edward Rodman, the Rev Dr. J. Carleton Hayden, the Rev. Kim Baker, the Rev. Kortwright Davis, Antoinnette Daniels, and Wale Omosebi. The Forum was a further elaboration on the theme of the Conference: “Telling our Story: Hearing God’s Call for Reconciliation.”

Some of the thoughts that I took with me as I left this very moving session yesterday I will list below for your meditation. I cannot give direct quotes but I have tried to be as faithful to the spoken word as I can. I hope you will leave your own comments about these thoughts. After hearing the stories of exclusion on the basis of race from among these panelists, including exclusion from hospitals when emergency help was needed, I find myself even more committed to issues of racial justice in our world. Ingrained institutional racism is still alive and well in this country. When are we going to stop harming one another should be our cry.

As one panelist eloquently put it: God creates diversity. God creates difference. Yet we are all part of the one garden that God has made for us. Can we learn that diversity does not mean division and unity does not mean uniformity? Can we recognize that we have a common origin and that we live in common conditions and predicaments? Can we seek the Common Good and retain a Common Hope?

I pray that we can.

The Presiding Bishop Schori explained in her very quiet and unassuming way that she had come to the Forum to listen more than to speak - both as an outsider and as one who has a passion for liberation wherever it exists. But she did speak briefly and movingly, saying: Until we are a dappled people and welcome gifts from those of different cultures and experience, none of us will truly be free. It is important to hear stories of oppression in every place and then begin to build bridges so we might effect the liberation of all, including those who have dominated. It is good to celebrate our heritage but we can’t stop there. None of us will be reconciled until all of us are free.

And later she took up the topic of language when she said: Language is important - we use it as an instrument of oppression, violence, and reconciliation. When language is used for judgment, it becomes violent. When language is used for reconciliation, it becomes conversation. When conflict arises to a certain level, we have to ratchet it down so we can have conversation. Remember the incident with the women’s basketball team? They asked for conversation but the public anxiety had pushed it into conflict. When we can lower the level of conflict, then we can begin the conversation. This takes vulnerability but this is the work God calls us to do.

Some other thoughts I took with me from the various panelists are:

There is a difference between a ministry of peace and one of justice and reconciliation.

The legacy of slavery hangs heavy over us.

There is a difference between being colonized and being enslaved.

Reconciliatoin is a process that is never completed. Reconciliation involves all people - we have to move into it so we can all live together.

Some say, I don’t want to talk about reconciliation - why is this?

We need to look inside to find out if we are intentionally discriminating against each other. We can only become liberated, when we become liberators.

Why aren’t we talking about issues of gender and equality?

As for me, I take the view that the primary agent of reconciliation is God - God is the reconciler.
Our call is to witness to God’s reconciliation. God always acts first - there is the Divine initiative.
How does God do this? God continues to bring chaos out of human order - but once we have ordered the world according to our liking, we don’t want God to bring chaos.

Please leave your comments so we can begin more conversation.

Union of Black Episcopalians Katharine Schoriepiscopal churchracism