The Magdalene Mystique - The Path Inward

Yesterday in the Episcopal Church the gospel reading included the passage from John where Jesus tells his disciples that after his death it will be the Spirit of truth who will guide them into “all the truth,” or as one scholar translates the Greek, into the “fullness of truth.” (John 16:13)

I have always loved this description of the Spirit as truth — perhaps because truth has always meant so much to me, and I have, for most of my life, been on a search to find it. I suppose that’s why I first took up the study of philosophy in my search for truth.

Jesus in the Gospel of Mary tells the disciples that if they search for the Spirit within, they will find peace. He is very clear in his description: that (1) the Spirit is to be found within the disciples and (2) when they discover that Spirit within, they are to follow it! So the mission is to search and find and follow the peace. This mission is not something that someone else can do for us, though it is important to listen to others about the truth and the peace they have found. But it is up to us in our own hearts and minds, individually and in community, to do this spiritual work. (These are the words of Jesus that led me to subtitle this website “the path inward.”)

To think there is a Spirit of truth within to guide us is a great comfort and empowerment. It is also a responsibility to express that truth/peace and to live by it. And discernment is not easy and is filled with obstacles. Perhaps that is why our Magdalene Community has taken up study and meditation and prayer in community to assist us in our inward path.

Thomas Merton has been helpful to me in understanding the path inward. In a small book entitled Spiritual Direction and Meditation,(Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1960), 52-53, he reminds us that St. Thomas and St. Bernard of Clairvaux describe meditation (consideratio) as “the quest for truth.” But he says that what they mean by meditation differs from what they mean by study, which is also a “quest for truth.” And both study and meditation lead to prayer and communion/union with God.

Merton continues: “Meditation and study can, of course be closely related. In fact, study is not spiritually fruitful unless it leads to some kind of meditation. By study we seek the truth in books or in some other source outside our own minds. In meditation we strive to absorb what we have already taken in. We consider the principles we have learned and we apply them to our own lives. Instead of simply storing up facts and ideas in our memory, we strive to do some original thinking of our own.

Meditation is for those, Merton continues, who want to enter into an intimate contact with truth itself, with God. They want to experience the deepest realities of life by living them. Meditation is the means to that end and it reaches its full development in prayer which seeks to possess the truth not only by knowledge but also by love. So for the saints study and meditation end not only in knowledge as an act of the intelligence but passes over into love.

I invite your comments if you resonate with some of these quotes and thoughts. Please click on the following to access a video entitled “Compassion: Dali Lama, Muhammad Ali, Thomas Merton” Thomas Merton

Sheryl, who is the technological wizard of this website will bring it here later. For those of you who check in early, I don’t want you to miss this video. Also click here to check out the video “Truth Happens” truth interconnectedness

Last week I had the delightful opportunity of giving a talk about the name “Maria.” I thought perhaps you might want to mull over with me the question about that name, the mysterious longing that goes with it - the mystique - the love that has been generated by that name through the centuries - the search for an ideal when we say, for example, ” Hail Mary [Maria] full of grace.” Then the flip-side of that name, the scandal, the sensual, the name for the one thought unworthy and sinful.
So what’s in a name? Perhaps we should talk about this question found in Shakespeare within this context.

You know that there have been thousands of historical embodiments of the name Maria. These embodiments contrast and individuate – they blend and merge – they form a type. So what has this type said in the past and what does it say to us today?

Take the three monotheistic religious traditions, Judaism, Christianity, Islam: search for Maria and you will find.

There’s Miriam in Judaism – prophet and seer in her own right at the Exodus victory who “took a tambourine in hand; and all the women went out after her with tambourines and with dancing.” If you trace that Hebrew name Miriam into Egypt where the Hebrew scriptures were translated into Greek you will find the name is Marium – only one more step in the West when Greek is translated into Latin – the name becomes Mary – Maria in the West. Same silken thread of a golden name: Miriam, Marium, Maria or Mary.

Prophet and visionary who breaks out in song and dance – perhaps that’s what we want to embody when we name our child Maria, Miriam, Marium, or Mary.

Probably the most famous Maria is in Christianity, the mother of Jesus. The stories of Advent still ring in our ears: at times we can almost hear the rustling of Gabriel’s wings has he lights down at the young Maria’s doorstep to make his grand announcement to you a child is to be born. The Christmas carols and stories and the moving Magnificat.
Christmas it seems is even more popular in Christianity, and across the globe, than Easter.

Mother bearing a child – one who has been looked upon with favor? Is this what we are looking for with the name Maria?

We know that that name Maria, given to the mother of Jesus, weaves itself more deeply into the Church through the centuries, taking on greater and greater veneration and mystical weight and attraction through the centuries. And her golden name gets woven into the fabric of Islam and into the Qur’an. Interestinly, Maria the Virgin is mentioned, either directly or indirectly, 35 times in the Quan, much more so than in the Bible.

It seems that both motherhood and saintly purity and prophetic visionary are attributes that combine with her name in the Qur’an. She is counted originally pure and filled with grace. In her own infancy she is visited by angels and is given to visions. And at the birth of Jesus, when she is defamed, the infant Jesus speaks from his cradle in her defense.

Such incredible spiritual power given over to this embodiment of the name Maria. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, her name is interchanged with Theotokos, the mother of God.

From whence come these spiritual energies projected upon this lone maiden? The name that sweeps across the globe as mediator and friend.

Is this what we mean by the name Maria? Mediator full of grace and purity and friend?

What this is all about seems worthy of more conversation. The power of a name – perhaps it’s not the name but the person. Perhaps it’s in the one who is saying the name. Perhaps the power is in us and gets projected outward.

Could there be hiding somehow a flash of insight as to our very origins in the Great Mother, the womb of the earth, the voice of creation?

Of course it’s not just the Virgin who has famously incarnated this name. We will find not just one famed creature but many with this name. And just how many there are becomes a problem in church history.

Take the Marias at the empty tomb of Jesus. Maria of Clopas, Maria the mother of Joseph, who may or may not be the mother, also, of James. Then there was “the other Maria,” as though we know which one this is – now we have more than 3 though art history decided there were three Maries who went to the tomb. We can’t forget Mary Magdalene who was in all four gospels present at the cross and the tomb.

How many Marias were there? a frustrated Church Father asked.
And there begins in church history a problem with Maria.

One scholar threw up her hands and said there’s a muddle of Marias.

Why should this be so? Why so many Marias? It’s a very long tale but just to give you the highlights as to what happens to these various Marias in church history. One Maria gets superimposed on another so one is excluded and the other comes to the fore: The Magdalene and her apostolic witness gets replaced by the Virgin – the spiritual mysticism of the Magdalene has to go down under. This happened in the eastern branch of Christianity.

And in the West, the name Maria becomes a name that gets attached to many of the unnamed women in the Bible, so the unnamed woman taken in adultery, the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, the anointing woman from the city, are named Maria, by their identification with Maria of Magdala.

Somehow, when it is said and done in history, we come up with the unlikely conclusion about the name Maria, one a virgin and the other, how shall we say it, a prostitute, well, a sinful woman, though a repentant one, the woman in art history that becomes the sensual soul of Christianity – the most popular saint in the Medieval Period – the ravishing Maria of Magdalene, artists’ dream, the sinner dressed in scarlet with flowing strawberry blond hair, or praying in a hermit’s cave in the desert wilderness repenting of her sins. Two ends of the spectrum, one positive and the other negative, signifying woman.

Do you find a problem with this manipulation of a name? What’s going on here? Can we figure this out? Is it a problem with the name or the person? Or is the person not the problem at all. Perhaps the problem is in us. Mary the Mother of Jesus

Perhaps you have already read that the Archbishop of Canterbury has made a first move (in what seems to me more like a game of chess than a reality) in thinking about who will be and who will not be included in the global gathering at Lambeth, scheduled for three weeks in the summer of 2008 in London. Why am I reminded of one reporter’s words some months past who suggested that there might not be a Lambeth at all. Is this now a wish on my part? Frankly, it’s hard to continue to care. But at this time it looks like Lambeth will take place without New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson and Bishop Martyn Minns of Virginia. For details of this first move by the Archbishop, read from the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/23/us/23anglican.html?_r=1&oref=sloginI have learned to study carefully the words of Bishop Katherine when these decisions comes down from on high. Note that she urges a “calm approach.” And she also added that “the situation could change over the next 14 months.”

My gut feeling is that she is right that the situation will change, and perhaps overnight. That is why I consider this a first move. (And there are signs already that the two lines are lining up.) If this is the game of chess that it feels like, there will be continual moves by the Bishops right up to the time we get to Lambeth.

This is the sort of game that makes me want to take a break. The game (and it is of course a serious game, I understand that) confirms my suspicions that church history is not taken seriously enough. Here we go again excluding and including those not found on the approved list. This all feels so tiresome and so old.
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Our Monday Group is reading from The Magdalene Mystique, Chapter 6, “Images for a New Humanity in Dura-Europos.” You might want to see the specific images of the women I am referring to by clicking on http://www.philthompson.net/pages/icons/duraeuropos.html Go to the painting shown under “Home Worship of the Early Christians” to see the women.

While I was writing the book, I was continually energized by contemplating these images. I kept going back to them. For me, these images express features for envisioning a new humanity: that seems to have been their purpose in the early third century. My hope is that they can become that for us today.

I included several chapters about Syria and early Syriac Christianity in the book for several reasons:

While many of us know the story of Paul’s vision on the road to Damascus, located in the southwest portion of Syria, few of us know much about the rest of Syria and the development of Christianity there. It is only now that scholars are giving the region (referred to as the Syrian Orient) the attention it deserves. Perhaps this increased interest has to do with our newly discovered Nag Hammadi manuscripts, since some of them, including the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Philip, may have been written there.

The Syrian Orient holds contemporary interest for us as well since this is the geographical area we know now as modern Iraq and Iran. Would you agree that it behooves us to acquaint ourselves with this region’s ancient history? Isn’t it important that we enter into a study of these regions so we might better understand it people?

Archeologists uncovered the images of these women, and what might some think is the oldest surviving image of Mary Magdalene, in 1929. The paintings were found in a frescoed Christian building in Dura-Europos, which is located on the west bank of the Euphrates River in Syria. The paintings differ considerably from the icons we have discovered of the women at the tomb in the West. In the Dura painting the figures of the women are dignified and solemn, giving weight to the epiphany they are about to witness. These figures are of heroic proportions, models of strength and vision and witness — not cowering or weeping as in later Roman and Greek representations. Calm, impressive, and holy, the women move forthrightly to the tomb of Jesus.

The powerful impact of the painting depends on the viewer’s familiarity with the story of the women at the tomb - the rolled-back stone with visitations from angels and the anticipation of a momentous occasion. The story must have been well known to those congregating in this space and its significance recognized in the founding of the Christian movement. It is thought that the space is a liturgical and baptismal space. So the women function as models to the initates for baptism who are ceremoniously approaching the image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd over the baptismal font.

Why do we find in Syria such powerful images of women is a question worth pondering. They are not outsiders but appropriate images for initiates (both men and women) into the community. Is it possible that such images can function as models of vision and courage for all of us today - as representing, not just women, but in general a new humanity at its inquiring best about to discover who we really are?

I was able to catch another viewing of the documentary Something About Mary Magdalene. This time I caught the exact words of the film’s remark about “the obsession for Mary Magdalene” that we blogged about earlier. The actual text goes this way: “Ever since the Da Vinci Code and the film The Lost Tomb of Jesus people have had an obsession for Mary Magdalene and her role in the life of Jesus.” Then the film goes on mentioning the belief that Mary Magdalene and Jesus were a couple. The rest of the film, however, focuses on Mary Magdalene’s legacy for the Christian faith. The implication is that the obsession has to do with her role in the life of Jesus, but this ignores her role as a person in her own right.

It is over against the obsession with Mary Magdalene and Jesus as a couple that the documentary stresses the role Mary Magdalene played in the birth of Christianity. One scholar, Esther de Boer, put it movingly this way: “With her, after the death of Jesus and all the grief, she was the one who was saying, I believe that he is still alive, that he is talking to us and he is in us and we can follow him though he is not physically around anymore.” For de Boer The Da Vinci Code covers up the real meaning of Mary Magdalene: what is important to see is that she belongs at Jesus’ side as the founder of Christianity.

Other scholars in the documentary stressed the Magdalene’s importance to the Christian movement: Susan Haskins referred to her as “the centerpiece of Christianity” and Pheme Perkins said that without Mary Magdalene and her message of the risen Christ, there would not have been Christianity; she is given the message because she is worthy. Marvin Meyers points out that in the extracanonical texts we find a more dynamic and intelligent image of Mary Magdalene; she was Jesus’ closest confidant — they were soul-mates. One Catholic scholar disagreed with these assessments calling them “revisionist.”

In our Monday Group, we also discussed DeBoer’s thesis that Mary Magdalene is to be identified with the beloved disciple in the Gospel of John. In our discussion we found it to be a very attractive theory. I would like to hear from you about this, as well as the point made above. If you are interested in the beloved disciple theory, take a look at John 19: 25-26. Notice how in 25 we have a list of women, the exact number however unclear. Then notice that 26 refers to “the beloved disciple.” Isn’t it logical to think that Jesus is referring to one of the women in 25? Then follow this line of thought into Chapter 20 at the tomb and the reference to “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” There are several difficulties with the theory and a central one is that the beloved disciple is referred to as “him” in various places. But DeBoer has an answer for that: She suggests that there was an intentional obscuration through the reference to her as “him.” At the time when the testimony of women was not recognized, the obscuration was needed. At the time it was probably already established that Mary Magdalene was at the crucifixion and resurrection and the Gospel wanted to establish her as a credible witness without giving it away that she was the beloved disciple. Let me hear from you about this.

The Friday group reading The Secrets of Mary Magdalene was lively in its study of Chapter 2. We want to include you in our conversation so below you will find quotes from the book we spontaneously selected to discuss. Also you will find some thoughts and questions that came up in our conversation. If you are keeping up with us in the reading, if not but have a view you want to express, I hope you will enter into our on-line conversation.

Our discussion from The Secrets of Mary Magdalene (Chapter 2 “Embracing the Traditions of Women and the Sacred”) centered upon the following:

From When God was a Woman by Merlin Stone:
Quote: ‘The archaeological artifacts suggest that in all the Neolithic and early Chalcolithic societies the Divine Ancestress, generally referred to by most writers as the Mother Goddess, was revered as the supreme deity.”

Discussion: There was doubt among members of the community as to the validity of this claim. More importantly it was felt that within our Magdalene Communty we are trying to avoid the exclusivity of one gender.

From “Sex n the Temple,” an interview with Nancy Qualis-Corbett:

Quote: “The sacred prostitue, perhaps an initiate, could experience the fullness of womanhood, her feminine nature awakened to life. The element of divine love now resided in her.”

Discussion: Questions came forth from the community such as

“Was the “sacred prostitute” a man-made concept?

Would an initiate or goddess even want to experience “the fullness of womanhood, her feminine nature awakened to life” this way?

Shouldn’t we stop including the name of Mary Magdalene when the word prostitution comes up?

What is the relationship between goddess worship and the worship of the Magdalene Community?

From : “Mary Magdalene and the Sacred Union,” an Interview with Margaret Starbird

Quote: “In Luke, the women seem to be demoted from active participants in the movement to “ministering to/providing for them out of their goods.”

Discussion: We centered our conversation about the meaning of “from their means” and although the gosepls seem to add that phrase causally, we might be looking at the backbone and strength of the survival of the movement.

Let us hear from you. Many blessings of peace for this week. margaret starbirdmerlin stonesacred prostitutemary magdalene

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the Dalai Lama recently made a visit to Houston. On the Rice University campus, he spoke about compassion and tolerance.

Among his many inspiring thoughts his words about the young generation of the 21st century stand out for me. He rather bluntly stated that his generation (and those of us who lived through the latter part of the 20th century), instead of solving the problems, “created more problems in some cases.”

Yet he is optimistic, he declared, for the “young generation will create new reality in the 21st century.”

I think by “new reality” he means the younger generation will create a new way of seeing and thinking and feeling in the 21st century; they will practice compassion and tolerance. I don’t know about you but for me, I want to be in on that new creation.

The Dalai Lama did not go into the assumptions he is making when he speaks of this hope. I refer you to his The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living, especially Chapter 4 when he speaks of “Reclaiming our Innate State of Happiness.” In this Chapter he carefully sets out the new thinking about human nature that has arisen in recent scientific studies.

He first describes the old way of thinking about human nature and cites some of the philosophical and psychological giants holding the view:

Thomas Hobbes: “saw the human race as being violent, competitive, in continual conflict, and concerned only with self-interest.”

George Santayana: “wrote that generous, caring impulses, while they may exist, are generally weak, fleeting, and unstable in human nature but, ‘dig a little beneath the surface and you’ll find a ferocious, persistent, profoundly selfish man.’”

Freud: “claimed that ‘the inclination to aggression is an original, self-subsisting, instinctual disposition.’”

Contrast these views, the Dalai Lama suggests, with recent scientific studies “indicating that aggression is not essentially innate and that violent behavior is influenced by a variety of biological, social, situational, and environmental factors.”

Take the 1986 Seville Statement on Violence (drawn up and signed by twenty top scientists), for example, that refuted the idea that humanity is innately aggressive: while acknowledging that of course violent behavior does occur, these researchers categorically stated that “it is scientifically incorrect to say that we have an inherited tendency to make war or act violently. That behavior is not genetically programmed into human nature.” And they continued: while we have the neural apparatus to act violently, that behavior isn’t automatially activated. There’s nothing in our neurophysiology that compels us to act violently. In brief summary, the Dalai Lama says that “most researchers in the field currently feel that fundamentally we have the potential to develop into gentle, caring people or violent, aggressive people, the impulse that gets emphasized is largely a matter of training.”

And from psychologists today we hear refutations that humans are innately selfish and egoistic: C. Daniel Batson and Nancy Eisenberg at Arizona State University have conducted numerous studies that demonstrate that humans have a tendency toward altruistic behavior. And sociologist Linda Wilson has theorized that altruism may be part of our basic survival instinct - the very opposite of what earlier thinkers theorized when they said that aggression and hostility were hallmarks of our survival instinct.

When the Dalia Lama was at Rice, he emphasized the natural bond between mother and child. And in his Art of Happiness, he speaks of the “tendency to closely bond with others, acting for the welfare of others as well as oneself,” as deeply rooted in human nature. This need to form close social ties persists up to the present day. “Reaching out to others may be as fundamental to our nature as communication.”

I would like your input on your experience of human nature. Our Magdalene Community has found in the Gospel of Mary an optismitc view of human nature and our quest is to reclaim our true humanness. Some have told me this is pie in the sky but I don’t think so. Also, in our Community, we are aware that the Gospel of Mary was a stream of Christianity that got lost in the West though it possibly moved into the East. Let me hear from you on this.

Something About Mary Magdalene, This Sunday, May 13th 10 am on the History Channel

Some of you may have already seen this documentary but I want to highlight it again. When I was at a conference last November in Washington D.C., I spent some time over dinner with Esther DeBoer. At that time, she was in the process of filming this documentary. If you have a chance to tune into the history channel on Sunday, look for Esther especially and her work on Mary Magdalene as the beloved disciple.

Here is a summary of the film from the history channel:
“Mary Magdalene has been a Christian icon for almost 2,000 years, but her role in Christianity is getting a dramatic reassessment. Was Mary a prostitute, Jesus’ wife, or was she something even more surprising? Explore the new image of Mary coming into focus among scholars, a picture drawn from the heretical gospels found buried in Egyptian sand in the last century, and controversial new interpretations of New Testament scripture. Is Mary Magdalene the co-founder of Christianity and the Church, the mysterious so-called “beloved disciple” in the Gospel of John? Is there evidence of a rivalry between Mary Magdalene and St. Peter in the early Church? Discover a woman who was a powerful source of inspiration among the earliest Christians, and for growing numbers of women in the Church today, is a beacon for the future.”

Rating: TVPG

Running Time: 60 minutes

This Sunday morning Anita Kruse and I will be at the bookstore at Christ Church Cathedral downtown for conversation and signing. It would be fun to make this a Magdalene Mystique Event!

WHEN: Sunday, May 13, 2007
9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

WHERE: Christ Church Cathedral Bookstore
1117 Texas Avenue
Houston, Texas 77002
(Park across from the Cathedal buildings on San Jacinto in the garage)

See more about the CD and book on this site.

The church never ceases to amaze me.

Recently, within Catholicism, 30 theologians have been meeting for several years to study the doctrine of Limbo. This week the Vatican announced that the commission has decided to let go of this doctrine that had given rise to much pain in the past for unbaptized babies not allowed to be buried in consecrated ground. See Vatican Panel Discounts Limbo for Unbaptized.
But there are those (would you believe it?) within Catholicism that object. One traditional Catholic declared that the recent decision was heretical since it suggests that salvation is possible without baptism. He fears that this new change announced by the Vatican will undermine the church’s advice to parents to baptize their children within the first 10 days of their life.

A commission member, however, defends the decision and suggests that this change shows that Benedict is not afraid to look at something that has been taught in the church for centuries and to say what is central to our faith and what is peripheral: “what can change and what can’t.”

It’s one thing for the Pope (and a theological commission) to say within Catholicism what can change and what can’t. But here’s a more troublesome case: Another group of thirty (30 Epsicopal congregations in America in this case) have decided what can change and what can’t.

But for whom are they making these determinations? And by what authority? As far as I can tell, they have made these decisions for themselves.

For more information about this matter, see the New York Times Sunday article “U.S. Bishop, Making It official, Throws in Lot with African Churchman.”
For whom has this been made official? Am I missing something here? As I understand the situation, Archbishop Akinola of Nigeria crossed boundaries (over against ancient practice) by installing Bishop Martyn Minns of Virginia as the new leader of a diocese for those congregations who want to leave the Episcopal Church. And all this in spite of letters from Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori of the Episcopal Church in the United States and Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams urging that his visit not take place. The celebration went on as scheduled during which Akinola handed the pastoral staff to Bishop Minns as “a true apostle of Christ.” The hope within this group, so the article reports, is that the new dicocese (CANA) will eventually replace the Episcopal Church as the rightful representative of the Anglican Communion in the United States.

The church continues to amaze me. But it’s getting more difficult to suspend disbelief.

If the church wants to spend its time arguing on these matters, so be it. But it certainly makes me see why the church is thought by so many to be irrelevant. One close friend said recently: there’s nothing going on in the church. Period. I’m beginning to see what he means. ecusaanglicanepiscopalakinolaCANAmartyn minns