The Magdalene Mystique - The Path Inward

The Rev. Canon Edward W. Rodman
is Professor of Pastoral Theology and Urban Ministry and Carpenter Visiting Professor of Racism Studies and Social Change at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, MA. He is a moderator for the Presiding Bishop’s Forum to be held on Thursday, July 5, 9:30 am at the Hilton Hotel.
The Rev Canon Carelton Hayden is with the Office of Black Ministries of the Episcopal Church and Assistant at St. George’s Church. He will also serve as moderator for the Presiding Bishop’s Form entitled “The Need for Reconciliation and Liberation.”

Antoinette Davis is an honor gradutate of Orange Park Highschool, West Jacksonville, a politician and student. She is one of the presenters for the Presiding Bishop’s Reconciliation Forum.

Bonnie Anderson is the President of the House of Deputies to the General Convention of the Episcopal Church. She will be the keynote speaker at the Opening Plenary Session on July 3 at 9:00am at the Hilton Hotel.

The Most Rev. Katherine Jefferts-Schori, former oceanographer and scientist, is the 26th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. She will preach at the Reconciliation Eucharist at Christ Church Cathedral on July 4, 11:00 am and will make a presentation at the Presiding Bishop’s Reconciliation Forum at 9:30am Thursday, July 5 at the Hilton Hotel.

Rev. Canon Kortright Davis (unpictured) will also make a presentation at the Presiding Bishop’s Forum. He serves on the Advisory Committee of the Office of Black Ministries and teaches at Howard University of Divinity.

I draw your attention to the upcoming meeting in Houston of the Union of Black Episcopalians. For more information click on http://www.ube.org/main.html

“Set us free, O God, from every bond of prejudice and fear…that we may show forth in our lives the reconciling love and true freedom of God…” are the guiding words for the Union as well as “God acts on behalf of the oppressed.” These are important words for all of us to commit to memory and to live out in our daily lives.

The Union of Black Episcopalians was organized in 1968 as a union of black clergy and laity dedicated to the ministry of blacks in the Episcopal Church. The Union is active in the United States and the Caribbean, in Canada, Africa and Latin American.

I am an associate member of the Union and have been working with the host committee for the conference. I plan to attend the conference and will be able to report back to you some of the messages that are central to this organization and to all of us.

The Theme of the Conference is “Telling Our Story: Hearing God’s Call for Reconciliation”

Here is the calendar of events.

Monday, July 2, 2007

12:00pm – 5:00 pm Registration: Hilton Hotel
2:00 pm – 4:30 pm Chapter Leadership Training
4:30 pm – 6:00 pm Free Time
6:00 pm – 7:00 pm Dinner
8:00 pm – 9:30 pm Opening Eucharist: Christ Church Cathedral
9:30 pm – 10:30 pm Reception: Christ Church Cathedral

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

9:00 am – 5:00 pm Registration: Hilton Hotel
7:00 am – 7:30 am Morning Prayer/Bible Study
7:30 am – 8:30 am Continental Breakfast
9:00 am – 11:30 am Opening Plenary and Welcome
Keynote Address by Bonnie Anderson, President of the House of Deputies, Reports from 815
11:30 am –12:30 pm Reports of Bylaws, Nominations, Resolutions
Committees
12:30 pm – 1:30 pm ————–Lunch————–
1:30 pm – 3:30 pm Workshops on Revisioning UBE
3:30 pm – 4:30 pm Memorial Eucharist: Hilton Hotel
5:00 pm – 6:00 pm Dinner
7:05 pm Until Baseball Game: Houston Astros and Free Time

Wednesday, July 4th, 2007

8:00 am – 10:00 am Registration
7:00 am – 7:30 am Morning Prayer—Hotel
7:30 am – 8:30 am Continental Breakfast
11:00 am Reconciliation Eucharist: Christ Church Cathedral
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefforts Schori, Preacher
1:00 pm – 2:30 pm Reception
2:30 pm – 7:30 pm Free Time and Dinner On Your Own
Regional Meetings and Elections
7:30 pm – 9:30 pm Youth Eucharist: St. James Episcopal Church
9:30 pm Reception: St. James Episcopal Church
10:30 pm Youth Party—Hilton Hotel

Thursday, July 5th, 2007

9:00 am – 12:00 pm Registration
6:00 am – 7:30 am Presiding Bishop’s Prayer Walk with the Youth
7:00 am – 7:30 am Morning Prayer/Bible Study
7:30 am – 8:30 am Continental Breakfast
9:30 am – 12:00 pm Presiding Bishop’s Forum with Rev. Canon Ed Rodman, Rev Canon Carleton Hayden, Rev Canon Kortright Davis, Antoinette Daniels, and Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori
12:00 pm – 2:00 pm ————Awards Luncheon—————–
2:00 pm – 5:00 pm UBE Annual Business Meeting: Reports, New
Chapters, Bylaws Changes, Election of Officers
6:30 pm Gala and Awards Banquet
“Tribute to the 30th Anniversary of the Ordination of Women”

Friday, July 6th, 2007

8:30 am – 10:30 am Closing Eucharist: Hilton Americas Hotel
Installation of New Officers
10:30 am – 2:00 pm National UBE Board Meeting

Union of Black Episcopaliansepiscopal church

Our first service at the Rothko Chapel was held on September 11, 2005 - considering that date of remembrance, we dedicated our service to peace, harmony, and health. We first observed silence after the reading of a meditation that had been written for our space of Rothko paintings. We awaited to see the light, the insight, the Peace.

After posting the Love Song yesterday, I thought you might be interested in reading our first meditation in that space. Perhaps you can visualize being in the Chapel Space yourself as you read it. You might want to click onto the Rothko Chapel website to visulize your being there with us on that date. http://www.menil.org/rothko.html

Here’s the meditation we used on that day, now close to two years ago:

First we wrap ourselves in silence
In emptinesss and nothingness
In no-thing-ness
We let go of the things of this world that press in on us, that call us.

We sink more deply into ourselves in our rooted-ness
In our radicality - as rooted in the Good ad the Just, in the Beautiful and in the Love.
We remain still in this space of silence.

We wrap ourselves in the canvas of purple and dark hues that we see before us.
In the comfort of the true humanity and divinity that resides within each of us.
No matter the way we look, or our differences,
our age or the color of our skin, the gender we embody, the nationality or religious tradition out of which we live.
We are together here in community as true human beings.
and in the dark we await for the light.

We await to see.
We await for the silence to break into speech.
Mary Magdalene ventured boldly to the tomb while it was still dark,
She awaited for the light of angels and the prophetic seeing and speaking.
We follow her example. rothko chapelmary magdalenegospel of maryinterconnectedness

I hope you will enjoy a new song by David Dondero about the Rothko Chapel in Houston. The Rothko Chapel is the interfaith space where the Magdalene Community in Houston meets. As you enter the chapel space, you intuitively move into the silence and stillness and darkness shrouded by the deep purple hues of the abstact paintings that cover the wall. You instinctively pause and remain for a while in the stillness, as you either stand or sit. And somehow, wonders of wonders, in the pause and the stillness, you begin to see the light - the insight - the Light.

Listen to the music from David Dondero’s newest album Simple Love and consider your heart: among the lyrics we find “your heart is like the Rothko Chapel, cold dark void yet simple and intriguing, somewhat comforting, gets me believing almost anything.”
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/entertainment/4902884.html

rothko chapelmary magdalenegospel of maryinterconnectedness

Today is a good time to talk about penitential services. For one thing, it is neither Advent nor Lent, which are the usual times we discuss such matters. Now is the Season after Pentecost, which is marked with the color green and dedicated to our spiritual growth. Could it be that in Pentecost we can gain new insight into Advent and Lent?

Eveyone has different needs. Some find penitential services very important in their spiritual lives. I, for one, admit a resistance to such services. I have spent much of my life in self-blame and for me a penitential service is so familiar that I have grown to think I am rewinding old tapes when I should be moving on. For me to feed the self-blamer is counterproductive.

I have thought for some time that our attraction to the Magdalene has something to do with coming to a new consciousness about ourselves. What if her mystique has to do with a new awareness that we have stressed our sins for too long at the expense of our true humanity and divinity?

What if our fascination with the recent discoveries that have transformed her from a model of penitence into a spiritual leader has to do with our own transformation? What if our being drawn to her has to do with our realization that we, too, are rising out of the dust of a theology that has stressed our sins at the expense of our shared humanity and divintiy?

I recently received a letter from a dear friend who lives in California. She had read my book and mentioned that my comments about penitential services and self-blame rang very true for her. She said that long ago, she decided that God does not wish us to live in that manner. Instead, God wants us to be people who express our true humanity in a joyful, caring way. The most important challenge is to be in harmony with creation, and thus, be part of the Kingdom of the Human One, as the Gospel of Mary expresses it.

I hope you will weigh in on this matter. May we all grow this summer in our spiritual lives as the grass grows. mary magdalenegospel of maryinterconnectedness

interconnectedness

Katharine Jefferts Schori is a great gift to the Episcopal Church and to the world. I want all of you to have access to Bill Moyer’s interview of her that was aired recently on pbs.

She talks about many of the topics that we discuss on this website: the interconnectedness of all life (she mentions Sally McFague’s The Body of God) is a topic she delights in. She wants to bring religion and science more into dialogue with one another. She stresses the importance of a contextual reading of scripture and the inclusiveness in the full life of the church of gay and lesbian persons and women.

Toward the end of the interview she sketches broadly the leadership of women in the Jewish and Christian traditions. She mentions Miriam and Deborah from the Hebrew Scriptures. She mentions Mary Magdalene, whom she refers to as the “apostle to the apostles” who was rejected and transformed into a prostitute - one of the women whose insights made the church “uncomfortable.” I hope you will take time to soak in this interview. She is a great gift to all of us.

Here is the website information: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/06082007/watch2.html

Katharine Jefferts Schoriepiscopal news service

The Gospel of Mary (Magdalene) is a Gospel about our deepest roots, filled with fresh insights for us today. It offers the teaching that nature is good and that our true nature is rooted in the Good. One of our favorite teachings of Jesus in the text is as follows:

Translation of the Coptic by Jean-Yves Leloup:

“All that is born, all that is created, all the elements of nature are interwoven and united with each other.”

Translation by Karen King:

“Every nature, every modeled form, every creature, exist in and with each other.”

Translation by Esther deBoer:

“All natural phenomena, all that has been moulded, all that has been brought in to being exist in and with each other.”

It is a profound teaching and one we discuss often in our Magdalene Community. As one of our members put it: “It’s the inconnectedness of all things that attracts me to the Gospel. I have been reading about that and here in the Gospel of Mary we find this idea — it’s the first idea that surfaces in the Gospel — the disciples ask Jesus about matter - if matter will be utterly destroyed or not. His answer is that all the elements are interwoven and united with each other.”

Today in our Community we discussed this very idea. You might be interested in this website http://reluctant-messenger.com/gospel-magdalene.htm to see how the Gospel of Mary connects to Taoist teachings. Also check out our Magdalene Community blog for our readings this past Sunday. http://magdalenecommunity.blogspot.com/ We look forward to you comments. mary magdaleneinterconnectedness

I usually arise early. Sometimes I go for a walk in the early morning light. Other times I sit in our living room chair that looks out on our garden and trees. This morning I found myself reading Psalm 104 as I looked out upon the earth. It would have been next to impossible not to feel blessed - blessed to be alive and participating in breath.

I want you, too, to feel this blessing so I am bringing some of the psalm’s music to you this morning. Psalm 104 is an ancient creation hymn that gives praise to Mother Earth. It is in Wisdom that God has made all.

From Psalm 104:

“Bless the Lord, O my soul;
O Lord my God, how excellent is your greatness!
You are clothed with majesty and splendor.

You wrap yourself with light as a cloak
and spread out the heavens like a curtain.

You lay the beams of your chambers in the waters above;
you make the clouds your chariot;
you ride on the wings of the wind.

You make the winds your messengers
and flames of fire your servants.

You have set the earth upon its foundations,
so that it shall never be shaken.

You covered it with the Deep as with a mantle;
the waters stood higher than the mountains…

You send the springs into the valleys;
they flow between the mountains.

All the beasts of the field drink their fill from them,
and the wild asses quench their thirst.

Beside them the birds of the air make their nests
and sing among the branches.

You water the mountains from your dwelling on high;
the earth is fully satisfied by the fruit of your works…

O Lord, how manifold are your works!
in Wisdom you have made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.

Yonder is the great and wide sea
with its living things too many to number,
creatures both small and great…

I will sing to the Lord as long as I live;
I will praise my God while I have my being.

May these words of mine please God;
I will rejoice in the Lord…

Bless the Lord, O my soul. Hallelujah!

interconnectedness