SEEING WITH THE EYS OF THE HEART: Mary Magdalene series
This morning I want to start my reflection on seeing with the eyes of the heart counter-intuitively – with a song. It is my preferred way of easing into a conversation about spirituality because, at least for me, songs are suggestive. Evocative rather than didactic. They invite you into an experience with something in an open-ended and alluring manner, a way that is illustrative not precise. Pablo Casals said, “Music is the divine way to tell beautiful, poetic things to the heart.” Igor Stravinsky said, “I have never understood a single bar of music in my life – but I’ve felt it.” And Leonard Bernstein noted that, “Music can express the unnamable and communicate the unknowable.For some reason, this song FEELS like Mary Magdalene to me. I’ll say a few words about it after-wards, but let me just play it and ask you to sense its invitation to rest. Soak up something of its grace and see if, at some level, it doesn’t feel to you like deep calling to deep. I hear the heart of creation singing to each of our hearts in this tune with a voice that is calling us home. Lisa Null’s, “I’m Going Home to Georgia.”
My body is tired, my spirit is burned:
I’m going home to Georgia
My poor heart is aching with all I have seen:
My poor heart is aching with all I have seen:
I’m going home to Georgia
Sing me a song, set my spirit at rest,
Sing me a song, set my spirit at rest,
you know all the tunes I love best
Maybe it'll lighten this weight on my chest:
Maybe it'll lighten this weight on my chest:
I'm going home to Georgia.
In all of my travels and all I have seen:
In all of my travels and all I have seen:
I’m going home to Georgia
It's none of your business just where I have been:
It's none of your business just where I have been:
I’m going home to Georgia
Pour me a drink that will settle my thirst
Pour me a drink that will settle my thirst
you always knew what I loved best
Maybe it'll dampen this pain in my chest:
Maybe it'll dampen this pain in my chest:
I’m going home to Georgia
I've brought you a secret as true as a rose:
I've brought you a secret as true as a rose:
I’m going home to Georgia
The more tarnished it gets, still the brighter it grows:
The more tarnished it gets, still the brighter it grows:
I’m going home to Georgia
In all of my wandering I could never forget
In all of my wandering I could never forget
you were the one I loved best
Lay yourself down, put your head on my breast:
Lay yourself down, put your head on my breast:
I’m going home to Georgia.
I find that I am drawn to this simple song like I am drawn to the wisdom of St. Mary Magdalene especially during these times when I recognize that my soul, my heart, or my life feels tarnished. God knows we’ve all been worn out and wearied by the ups and downs of living these past 14 months – and it’s been going on even longer if we add in the terror of the Trump regime. So, as a part of my spiritual practice I’ve started to honor those times when I just ache for solace. I don’t need words or answers or understanding; I just need a rest. I know that to everything there is a season: a time to suck it up and deal, but also a time to break down and step back. And the lyric of this song that caresses my heart is: It’s NONE of your business just where I have been.
That might sound snarky or brash to some, but to me it sounds like pure, sweet, and amazing grace where love trusts and listens and embraces without judgement. With love, it doesn’t matter how my peculiar ups and downs came about or even where they came from. In sacred love, we’re all welcomed to the feast, all nourished by grace, all embraced from within the safety of God’s rest. I think that’s why I have always loved Tom Petty when he sang much the same thing in “Last Dance with MaryJane.” In his broken-hearted, slacker, rock’n’roll challenge St. Thomas sings: buy me a drink, sing me a song, take me as I am cuz I can’t stay long! Yes, it’s a little rougher around the edges, but that’s what a yearning for the embrace of radical grace sounds like sometimes – especially to those who have eyes to see and ears to hear God’s invitation everywhere! Many of us don’t trust this to be true right away – we’ve been trained to separate the sacred from the secular, the arts from religion, so that the holy is always distinct from our humanity. That’s why I make a point to use totally non-religious songs at the start of some reflections: they gently and obliquely ask us to listen for our STILL speaking God who is committed to bringing us rest and grace no matter where we live.
Those songs remind us that ours isn’t really an abstract and intellectual faith, but an incarnational spirituality where the words and ideas of the holy are fused forever with our human flesh. “In all of my wanderings I could NEVER forget you were the one I loved best, lay yourself down, put your head on my breast – and come home.”
As I prayerfully study the texts of our tradition, trying to incorporate the insights from a few of the extra-canonical gospels as well, a pattern appears to me suggesting that St. Mary Magdalene has been singing this song to the first followers of the Jesus Movement who continued to question her right to celebrate Christ’s love in public. The gospel of Thomas along with the gospel of Mary Magdalene amplifies a tension and rivalry that is always present but just below the surface of our canonical text where St. Peter regularly questions the veracity and integrity of the woman chosen by Christ to be the apostle to the apostles. In Mary’s gospel she tells the disciples that her soul is now able to sing the grace of God because of Christ’s resurrecting love:
What has bound me has been slain. What encompassed me has been vanquished. Desire has reached its end and I am freed from ignorance. I left one world behind with the aid of another, and now as image I have been freed from the analog. I am liberated from the chains of forget-fulness which have existed in time. From this moment onward, I go forward into the fullness of life beyond the limits of time, where time rests in the stillness of eternity. In this rest, I repose in silence.
Rest, music, beauty, trust, grace, and peace abound in Mary’s soul – yet Peter chooses to keep on carping as he denigrates Mary as an emotionally unstable woman. We know OUR texts have erased and silenced the magnitude of her witness. The gospel of Thomas adds some juice to the historic conflict between these disciples telling us that after Mary proclaims the beauty of her encounter with Christ’s healing grace within her soul, Peter orders Mary to leave the community:
“Mary must leave us now for women are not worthy of this life.” To which the Fully Human One, Jesus of the resurrection, replies: “Then I myself will lead her making her male if she must become worthy as the rest of you men! I will transform her into a living spirit because any woman changed in this way will be a part of the kingdom of God.”
I find that I am drawn to this simple song like I am drawn to the wisdom of St. Mary Magdalene especially during these times when I recognize that my soul, my heart, or my life feels tarnished. God knows we’ve all been worn out and wearied by the ups and downs of living these past 14 months – and it’s been going on even longer if we add in the terror of the Trump regime. So, as a part of my spiritual practice I’ve started to honor those times when I just ache for solace. I don’t need words or answers or understanding; I just need a rest. I know that to everything there is a season: a time to suck it up and deal, but also a time to break down and step back. And the lyric of this song that caresses my heart is: It’s NONE of your business just where I have been.
That might sound snarky or brash to some, but to me it sounds like pure, sweet, and amazing grace where love trusts and listens and embraces without judgement. With love, it doesn’t matter how my peculiar ups and downs came about or even where they came from. In sacred love, we’re all welcomed to the feast, all nourished by grace, all embraced from within the safety of God’s rest. I think that’s why I have always loved Tom Petty when he sang much the same thing in “Last Dance with MaryJane.” In his broken-hearted, slacker, rock’n’roll challenge St. Thomas sings: buy me a drink, sing me a song, take me as I am cuz I can’t stay long! Yes, it’s a little rougher around the edges, but that’s what a yearning for the embrace of radical grace sounds like sometimes – especially to those who have eyes to see and ears to hear God’s invitation everywhere! Many of us don’t trust this to be true right away – we’ve been trained to separate the sacred from the secular, the arts from religion, so that the holy is always distinct from our humanity. That’s why I make a point to use totally non-religious songs at the start of some reflections: they gently and obliquely ask us to listen for our STILL speaking God who is committed to bringing us rest and grace no matter where we live.
Those songs remind us that ours isn’t really an abstract and intellectual faith, but an incarnational spirituality where the words and ideas of the holy are fused forever with our human flesh. “In all of my wanderings I could NEVER forget you were the one I loved best, lay yourself down, put your head on my breast – and come home.”
As I prayerfully study the texts of our tradition, trying to incorporate the insights from a few of the extra-canonical gospels as well, a pattern appears to me suggesting that St. Mary Magdalene has been singing this song to the first followers of the Jesus Movement who continued to question her right to celebrate Christ’s love in public. The gospel of Thomas along with the gospel of Mary Magdalene amplifies a tension and rivalry that is always present but just below the surface of our canonical text where St. Peter regularly questions the veracity and integrity of the woman chosen by Christ to be the apostle to the apostles. In Mary’s gospel she tells the disciples that her soul is now able to sing the grace of God because of Christ’s resurrecting love:
What has bound me has been slain. What encompassed me has been vanquished. Desire has reached its end and I am freed from ignorance. I left one world behind with the aid of another, and now as image I have been freed from the analog. I am liberated from the chains of forget-fulness which have existed in time. From this moment onward, I go forward into the fullness of life beyond the limits of time, where time rests in the stillness of eternity. In this rest, I repose in silence.
Rest, music, beauty, trust, grace, and peace abound in Mary’s soul – yet Peter chooses to keep on carping as he denigrates Mary as an emotionally unstable woman. We know OUR texts have erased and silenced the magnitude of her witness. The gospel of Thomas adds some juice to the historic conflict between these disciples telling us that after Mary proclaims the beauty of her encounter with Christ’s healing grace within her soul, Peter orders Mary to leave the community:
“Mary must leave us now for women are not worthy of this life.” To which the Fully Human One, Jesus of the resurrection, replies: “Then I myself will lead her making her male if she must become worthy as the rest of you men! I will transform her into a living spirit because any woman changed in this way will be a part of the kingdom of God.”
Cynthia Bourgeault comments that Jesus is NOT celebrating male supremacy here, but rather asserting that only those who do their inner work of allowing grace and rest to purify their heart are worthy of being called a disciple. In their understanding a disciple is NOT defined by tradition, gender, race, class, or culture: a disciple is one who does the inner work so that it can be shared outwardly in acts of radical hospitality to others and profound trust in the power of God’s love. St. Mary Magdalene’s stunning song of in-ward transformation puts her in conflict with many of the male disciples. Bourgeault writes:
She, more than they, caught the incredible subtlety of what Jesus was teaching. She saw that he really did come from another realm of being and that his purpose was to make that realm manifest here and now. She was able to penetrate into the integral, nondual vision of wholeness celebrated by Jesus. And this was absolutely galling to the other apostles, particularly to Peter, who held a more traditional view of the role of women in spiritual groups.
Mary discerned well before her male colleagues that in order to share a sense of God’s peace and compassion with others in the wider world, she first had to come home to the grace-filled rest that lays within. This was key for incarnating Christ’s love in creation because you can’t give what you ain’t got! She loved Jesus and was devoted to his mystical path of kenosis – his upside down spirit-uality of self-emptying – and the more she loved, the more she was empowered to pass on this love to those who needed it most. The wounded. The weary. The worn out and broken. Learning from Jesus and making his path her own, Magdalene multiplied the miracles that he first set in motion. By doing as he did, by refusing to cling to anything else, Magdalene gave shape and form to the path of a true disciple.
Jesus paid careful attention to the mystical prophets of ancient Israel like Isaiah and Ezekiel. He listened to and evaluated the wisdom his Wildman cousin John the Baptist shared with him in his formative years, he questioned the sacred within the solitude and soul-searching vision quest of his 40 days in the desert, he listened to the cries of the wounded and brought their pain into his own contemplative prayers. And, in due time, like the late Thomas Merton discovered, Jesus tapped into his truest, most grace-filled sense of rest within. Merton writes:
At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our mind or the brutal-ities of our will. This little point of nothingness and absolute poverty is the pure glory of God within us. It is so to speak God’s name written in us… It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in every-body, and if we could see it, we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely...I have no program for this seeing as it is given as a gift, the very gate of heaven open to us and everyone everywhere.
I believe this is what Jesus was trying to tell the Pharisees when he said: The kingdom of God does not come to us with observation; nor can we say, ‘See it here!’ or ‘See it there!’ For the kingdom of God is within and among you all. Yes, the blessings of the kingdom are even within those who opposed and plotted against Jesus: they have the kingdom of rest and grace within, too. And not merely because Jesus was standing in their midst as some of our fundamentalist friends teach. They would have us believe that the kingdom is only where Jesus is – but that’s too exclusive – too small for the God who lives in the heart of the cosmos as Creator. No, our truest home, our eternal diamond, our most sacred resting place, the very kingdom of God’s grace and peace – is within.
It is among us, too whether we recognize it or not. That’s fundamentally why Jesus insisted on teaching and showing his friends how to nourish a measure of intimacy with the kingdom within. It has to do with learning to see through the eyes of the heart – looking and trusting beyond the obvious, beyond our fears and prejudices, beyond what we consider rational into the eternal where God’s deepest love resides – for then we are in kingdom country and even our enemies can taste and see the goodness of the Lord should they choose to cultivate a purity of heart.
Once I was in conversation with a Russian Orthodox monk who asked me: why do you liberals keep insisting that the kingdom of God is a place? Or a political agenda? Don’t you know that we slip in and out of the kingdom hundreds of times every day? When I replied that my theology celebrates a God of justice and true compassion, he smiled. And after a moment of quiet said, “Absolutely true, brother, but don’t ever think that you can accomplish the blessings of the kingdom in this world without first nourishing and knowing it within your heart.” Cynthia Bourgeault puts it like this:
She, more than they, caught the incredible subtlety of what Jesus was teaching. She saw that he really did come from another realm of being and that his purpose was to make that realm manifest here and now. She was able to penetrate into the integral, nondual vision of wholeness celebrated by Jesus. And this was absolutely galling to the other apostles, particularly to Peter, who held a more traditional view of the role of women in spiritual groups.
Mary discerned well before her male colleagues that in order to share a sense of God’s peace and compassion with others in the wider world, she first had to come home to the grace-filled rest that lays within. This was key for incarnating Christ’s love in creation because you can’t give what you ain’t got! She loved Jesus and was devoted to his mystical path of kenosis – his upside down spirit-uality of self-emptying – and the more she loved, the more she was empowered to pass on this love to those who needed it most. The wounded. The weary. The worn out and broken. Learning from Jesus and making his path her own, Magdalene multiplied the miracles that he first set in motion. By doing as he did, by refusing to cling to anything else, Magdalene gave shape and form to the path of a true disciple.
Jesus paid careful attention to the mystical prophets of ancient Israel like Isaiah and Ezekiel. He listened to and evaluated the wisdom his Wildman cousin John the Baptist shared with him in his formative years, he questioned the sacred within the solitude and soul-searching vision quest of his 40 days in the desert, he listened to the cries of the wounded and brought their pain into his own contemplative prayers. And, in due time, like the late Thomas Merton discovered, Jesus tapped into his truest, most grace-filled sense of rest within. Merton writes:
At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our mind or the brutal-ities of our will. This little point of nothingness and absolute poverty is the pure glory of God within us. It is so to speak God’s name written in us… It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in every-body, and if we could see it, we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely...I have no program for this seeing as it is given as a gift, the very gate of heaven open to us and everyone everywhere.
I believe this is what Jesus was trying to tell the Pharisees when he said: The kingdom of God does not come to us with observation; nor can we say, ‘See it here!’ or ‘See it there!’ For the kingdom of God is within and among you all. Yes, the blessings of the kingdom are even within those who opposed and plotted against Jesus: they have the kingdom of rest and grace within, too. And not merely because Jesus was standing in their midst as some of our fundamentalist friends teach. They would have us believe that the kingdom is only where Jesus is – but that’s too exclusive – too small for the God who lives in the heart of the cosmos as Creator. No, our truest home, our eternal diamond, our most sacred resting place, the very kingdom of God’s grace and peace – is within.
It is among us, too whether we recognize it or not. That’s fundamentally why Jesus insisted on teaching and showing his friends how to nourish a measure of intimacy with the kingdom within. It has to do with learning to see through the eyes of the heart – looking and trusting beyond the obvious, beyond our fears and prejudices, beyond what we consider rational into the eternal where God’s deepest love resides – for then we are in kingdom country and even our enemies can taste and see the goodness of the Lord should they choose to cultivate a purity of heart.
Once I was in conversation with a Russian Orthodox monk who asked me: why do you liberals keep insisting that the kingdom of God is a place? Or a political agenda? Don’t you know that we slip in and out of the kingdom hundreds of times every day? When I replied that my theology celebrates a God of justice and true compassion, he smiled. And after a moment of quiet said, “Absolutely true, brother, but don’t ever think that you can accomplish the blessings of the kingdom in this world without first nourishing and knowing it within your heart.” Cynthia Bourgeault puts it like this:
My bare bones take on Jesus is that he comes (into the world) as the “master cardiologist,” the next in the great succession of Hebrew prophets, to share the “heart surgery” first announced by Ezekiel when he proclaimed: The Lord our God will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries, and bring you into your own land (of rest.) I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your wounds, and from all your idols I will cleanse you, too. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. Then you shall live in the land I gave to your ancestors, and you shall be my people and I will be your God. The powerfully original method Jesus used to awaken heart perceptivity—a radical non-clinging or “letting go”— was heretofore unknown in the Semitic lands.
And who incarnated the wisdom of letting go and non-clinging better than the one we now call St. Mary Magdalene? Over and again, she learned from Jesus to love extravagantly, giving herself away in trust just as he did. And should we have any doubt this is true, ask yourself what did Jesus say to her in the resurrection story as recorded in St. John’s gospel?
After calling her by name, he says: “Do not cling to me.” Noli me tangere in church Latin. For nearly 1600 years Western Christianity has insisted that Jesus said this to Magdalene because he did not want to be tarnished by sinful flesh; he had not yet ascended to his Father in heaven, so he urged Mary to stay back. Some have gone so far as to say that Jesus told Mary not to cling to him because she was a woman. In the very next chapter of St. John’s gospel Jesus allows Thomas to touch his wounds and flesh before he ascended to the father, so why not Mary? Their conclusion is it MUST have something to do with sin and gender.
But those interpretations fail to recognize that Jesus is reminding Mary of the heart of their shared spirituality: don’t cling to anything, let it ALL go in trust, relinquish control to extravagant love of God; for as you do, you’ll be enveloped in the essence of the holy. St. Paul made this claim foundational when he taught new believers how to see with the eyes of the heart. In Philippians 2 the apostle writes: Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus”: Though his state was that of God, yet he did not deem equality with God something he should cling to. Rather he emptied himself, and assuming the state of a slave, he was born in human likeness.
Jesus emptied himself – the exact opposite of clinging, controlling, or possessing – for Jesus model-ed with his life a new way of coming close to God’s rest: Let go! Don’t cling! Don’t hoard! Don’t assert your importance! Don’t fret. “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom!” (Luke 12:32).
Magdalene, learned this, practiced this, and shared it better than the rest. Noli me tangere is not a rebuke. It’s an affirmation of the spirituality they shared. And this is the reason I’m so drawn to St. Mary Magdalene – it’s the reason I’ve chosen to devote the Eastertide to this inquiry, too – she reframes what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, the Fully Human One, and, reshapes how we come to grips with the Cross as well. For nearly 300 years during the early days of Christianity, her wit-ness – and the gospel written under her name – gave guidance to parts of the emerging Jesus movement. Before there was an official Creed, a well-calibrated canon, and an institutional hierarchy with resources and accountability, the Jesus Movement was a wildly diverse coalition of believers who all loved and trusted Jesus as Lord albeit with a variety of meanings to this love.
That’s intriguing, Magdalene’s solidarity of compassion, her cosmic understanding of the Cross, her devotion to the letting go spirituality of Jesus, and her commitment to seeing with the eyes of the heart that attracts and impels me to trust that she has food to offer my hungry soul. Since Easter we’ve been looking at Mary’s courageous and loving witness outside Christ’s tomb after the crucifixion of Good Friday. To use the words of Bourgeault: most of us have never considered – and maybe never even heard – what this heroic and selfless act of love means. Magdalene refused to abandon Jesus. When everyone else betrayed and/or fled in fear of their lives, she stood witness. “No wonder Mary Magdalene came so unerringly to the tomb on Easter morning; she had stood by in a silent, unflinching vigil the whole time Jesus was being laid to rest there… and perhaps she never left…” Which gives an entirely new slant to our old, old story – asking us to reconsider what a spirituality of not clinging might mean?
Mary confirms that Jesus opened up a new way of doing spirituality. Most spiritual practices are all about ascent – moving into the lofty, noble, and pure realm of grace and compassion by looking upward. Think of Jacob’s Ladder. Or the various biblical mountains where holy pilgrims go to commune with the sacred. The path of ascent has a long, long history that has nourished many. It insists on giving away everything that distracts or pulls us down so that we focus our energy on what is above. It is the way of asceticism, purification, fasting, and concentration on what is holy. But as Jesus shows us ,the path of ascent is not the only sacred way – and let me quote Bourgeault again because her prose is so powerful:
There is another route to the center of the sacred: a more reckless and extravagant path which is attainted NOT through storing up energy or concentrating on the life force above, but through throwing it all away – or giving it all away. The unitive point is reached not through the concentration of being but through he free squandering of love; not through acquisition or attainment but through self-emptying in love; not through up but through down… through solid-arity not ascetic solitude. The path that Jesus walked through the end, even in the Garden of Gethsemane where he struggled in anguish, was one where he did not hoard, nor cling to even life itself. “Not my will, but yours be done, O Lord, for into your hands I commend my spirit. Jesus came and went giving himself fully into life and death, losing himself, squandering himself, gambling every gift God bestows NOT in a love stored up and held in private but in a love utterly poured out that opened the gated to the Kingdom of Heaven.
As some have made clear – especially Magdalene – Jesus shows us there is NOTHING to be renounced or resisted. Everything can be embraced if we are free not to cling to it. And this happens when we can see with the eyes of the heart. When we can interrupt our feelings, our obsessions, our fears, and prejudices long enough that we quit clinging to them because love is so much more satisfying. Spiritual masters of the mystical wisdom of Jesus say that our heart does not need to be grown or helped to evolve. “Every heart is already a perfect replica of the divine heart.”
What does need purification, as Jesus taught, is focusing our heart so that it stays aligned with God. And what causes us to lose focus? Our passions. Our insistence on only following our feelings with-out taking into consideration what the holy is saying to us beyond the obvious. This is how we get lost. This is where we lose touch with the inner diamond – we forget the loving rest and grace that God has placed within us all – and become lost in our feelings and fears.
And who incarnated the wisdom of letting go and non-clinging better than the one we now call St. Mary Magdalene? Over and again, she learned from Jesus to love extravagantly, giving herself away in trust just as he did. And should we have any doubt this is true, ask yourself what did Jesus say to her in the resurrection story as recorded in St. John’s gospel?
After calling her by name, he says: “Do not cling to me.” Noli me tangere in church Latin. For nearly 1600 years Western Christianity has insisted that Jesus said this to Magdalene because he did not want to be tarnished by sinful flesh; he had not yet ascended to his Father in heaven, so he urged Mary to stay back. Some have gone so far as to say that Jesus told Mary not to cling to him because she was a woman. In the very next chapter of St. John’s gospel Jesus allows Thomas to touch his wounds and flesh before he ascended to the father, so why not Mary? Their conclusion is it MUST have something to do with sin and gender.
But those interpretations fail to recognize that Jesus is reminding Mary of the heart of their shared spirituality: don’t cling to anything, let it ALL go in trust, relinquish control to extravagant love of God; for as you do, you’ll be enveloped in the essence of the holy. St. Paul made this claim foundational when he taught new believers how to see with the eyes of the heart. In Philippians 2 the apostle writes: Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus”: Though his state was that of God, yet he did not deem equality with God something he should cling to. Rather he emptied himself, and assuming the state of a slave, he was born in human likeness.
Jesus emptied himself – the exact opposite of clinging, controlling, or possessing – for Jesus model-ed with his life a new way of coming close to God’s rest: Let go! Don’t cling! Don’t hoard! Don’t assert your importance! Don’t fret. “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom!” (Luke 12:32).
Magdalene, learned this, practiced this, and shared it better than the rest. Noli me tangere is not a rebuke. It’s an affirmation of the spirituality they shared. And this is the reason I’m so drawn to St. Mary Magdalene – it’s the reason I’ve chosen to devote the Eastertide to this inquiry, too – she reframes what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, the Fully Human One, and, reshapes how we come to grips with the Cross as well. For nearly 300 years during the early days of Christianity, her wit-ness – and the gospel written under her name – gave guidance to parts of the emerging Jesus movement. Before there was an official Creed, a well-calibrated canon, and an institutional hierarchy with resources and accountability, the Jesus Movement was a wildly diverse coalition of believers who all loved and trusted Jesus as Lord albeit with a variety of meanings to this love.
That’s intriguing, Magdalene’s solidarity of compassion, her cosmic understanding of the Cross, her devotion to the letting go spirituality of Jesus, and her commitment to seeing with the eyes of the heart that attracts and impels me to trust that she has food to offer my hungry soul. Since Easter we’ve been looking at Mary’s courageous and loving witness outside Christ’s tomb after the crucifixion of Good Friday. To use the words of Bourgeault: most of us have never considered – and maybe never even heard – what this heroic and selfless act of love means. Magdalene refused to abandon Jesus. When everyone else betrayed and/or fled in fear of their lives, she stood witness. “No wonder Mary Magdalene came so unerringly to the tomb on Easter morning; she had stood by in a silent, unflinching vigil the whole time Jesus was being laid to rest there… and perhaps she never left…” Which gives an entirely new slant to our old, old story – asking us to reconsider what a spirituality of not clinging might mean?
Mary confirms that Jesus opened up a new way of doing spirituality. Most spiritual practices are all about ascent – moving into the lofty, noble, and pure realm of grace and compassion by looking upward. Think of Jacob’s Ladder. Or the various biblical mountains where holy pilgrims go to commune with the sacred. The path of ascent has a long, long history that has nourished many. It insists on giving away everything that distracts or pulls us down so that we focus our energy on what is above. It is the way of asceticism, purification, fasting, and concentration on what is holy. But as Jesus shows us ,the path of ascent is not the only sacred way – and let me quote Bourgeault again because her prose is so powerful:
There is another route to the center of the sacred: a more reckless and extravagant path which is attainted NOT through storing up energy or concentrating on the life force above, but through throwing it all away – or giving it all away. The unitive point is reached not through the concentration of being but through he free squandering of love; not through acquisition or attainment but through self-emptying in love; not through up but through down… through solid-arity not ascetic solitude. The path that Jesus walked through the end, even in the Garden of Gethsemane where he struggled in anguish, was one where he did not hoard, nor cling to even life itself. “Not my will, but yours be done, O Lord, for into your hands I commend my spirit. Jesus came and went giving himself fully into life and death, losing himself, squandering himself, gambling every gift God bestows NOT in a love stored up and held in private but in a love utterly poured out that opened the gated to the Kingdom of Heaven.
As some have made clear – especially Magdalene – Jesus shows us there is NOTHING to be renounced or resisted. Everything can be embraced if we are free not to cling to it. And this happens when we can see with the eyes of the heart. When we can interrupt our feelings, our obsessions, our fears, and prejudices long enough that we quit clinging to them because love is so much more satisfying. Spiritual masters of the mystical wisdom of Jesus say that our heart does not need to be grown or helped to evolve. “Every heart is already a perfect replica of the divine heart.”
What does need purification, as Jesus taught, is focusing our heart so that it stays aligned with God. And what causes us to lose focus? Our passions. Our insistence on only following our feelings with-out taking into consideration what the holy is saying to us beyond the obvious. This is how we get lost. This is where we lose touch with the inner diamond – we forget the loving rest and grace that God has placed within us all – and become lost in our feelings and fears.
The dictionary tells us that the word passion comes from the Latin verb patior – to suffer – not abstractly, mind you, but as one stuck, caught or grabbed by feelings that render us “blindly reactive. Small wonder that over time being stuck in our feelings was articulated into the doctrine of the seven deadly sins: pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth. Each of these obsessions and/or addictions START with thoughts that become hard wired within. The more we allow ourselves to be caught by them, the more we cling to them even when we don’t want to.
The way out of this trap is to interrupt our broken thoughts: prayer, spiritual practices, acts of compassion, and contemplation are ways to change the direction of our heart and mind so that we are no longer stuck. Jesus was ALWAYS slipping away to spend time in solitude so that he could be certain he wasn’t clinging to fear or obsession. The late Fr. Thomas Keating teaches that centering prayer is a time-tested way to interrupt our clinging and dangerous thoughts with the gentle silence of God’s grace.
Fr. Ed Hays has a slightly different tact: he speaks of learning the wisdom of our wounds which follow the upside-down, relinquish spirituality of Jesus. When our feelings tell us one thing we need to pause and see if they are not actually encouraging us to do the exact opposite. When you’re feeling sorry for yourself and you feel like hiding away, the wisdom of your wound is probably telling you it would be best to spend some time with those who love you rather than hide away.
Same is true for when you are filled with a rage that wants to scream – the wisdom of the wound is saying why not be still? When you want to strike out, consider stepping back and waiting. When you want to hoard, best let it go. When you want to run away, better to stay. Are you with me? This is the practical application of “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all its righteousness.” It is the applied spirituality of Jesus who doesn’t run away but gives himself totality to God’s love. It is what Magdalene learned and shared and seeks to share with us, too.
Last week I suggested trying a few simple ways to interrupt what is normative so that it might awaken you to the moment. There are other ways to interrupt when we usually do so that there is room to change directions: I’ve been gardening a lot this week. Pulling weeds, tossing stones, planting bulbs slows me down and helps me know just exactly where my feet are and what I’m feeling. Same is true with the music I listen to: sometimes I have to go through a number of songs to really get in touch with what I am feeling. And when I KNOW what I’m feeling then I have to ask Jesus if following those feelings will lead to the rest he promises me. More often than not, its just the opposite: staying when I want to run away, crying when I want to lash out, stepping back when I’m feeling like a know it all.
That’s why I kept going back to Lisa Null’s song – and playing it and playing it until I head its truest meaning – a call to rest into the extravagant grace of God’s love. I wonder if you might find a song prayer that helps you connect with what the sacred aches for you to hear? A work of art or poetry that encourages solace and grace? Let these words of Mary Magdalene be both pledge and promise for you: What has bound me has been slain. What encompassed me has been vanquished. Desire has reached its end and I am freed from ignorance. I left one world behind with the aid of another, and now as image I have been freed from the analog.
I am liberated from the chains of forgetfulness which have existed in time. From this moment onward, I go forward into the fullness of life beyond the limits of time, where time rests in the stillness of eternity. In this rest, I repose in silence.
The way out of this trap is to interrupt our broken thoughts: prayer, spiritual practices, acts of compassion, and contemplation are ways to change the direction of our heart and mind so that we are no longer stuck. Jesus was ALWAYS slipping away to spend time in solitude so that he could be certain he wasn’t clinging to fear or obsession. The late Fr. Thomas Keating teaches that centering prayer is a time-tested way to interrupt our clinging and dangerous thoughts with the gentle silence of God’s grace.
Fr. Ed Hays has a slightly different tact: he speaks of learning the wisdom of our wounds which follow the upside-down, relinquish spirituality of Jesus. When our feelings tell us one thing we need to pause and see if they are not actually encouraging us to do the exact opposite. When you’re feeling sorry for yourself and you feel like hiding away, the wisdom of your wound is probably telling you it would be best to spend some time with those who love you rather than hide away.
Same is true for when you are filled with a rage that wants to scream – the wisdom of the wound is saying why not be still? When you want to strike out, consider stepping back and waiting. When you want to hoard, best let it go. When you want to run away, better to stay. Are you with me? This is the practical application of “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all its righteousness.” It is the applied spirituality of Jesus who doesn’t run away but gives himself totality to God’s love. It is what Magdalene learned and shared and seeks to share with us, too.
Last week I suggested trying a few simple ways to interrupt what is normative so that it might awaken you to the moment. There are other ways to interrupt when we usually do so that there is room to change directions: I’ve been gardening a lot this week. Pulling weeds, tossing stones, planting bulbs slows me down and helps me know just exactly where my feet are and what I’m feeling. Same is true with the music I listen to: sometimes I have to go through a number of songs to really get in touch with what I am feeling. And when I KNOW what I’m feeling then I have to ask Jesus if following those feelings will lead to the rest he promises me. More often than not, its just the opposite: staying when I want to run away, crying when I want to lash out, stepping back when I’m feeling like a know it all.
That’s why I kept going back to Lisa Null’s song – and playing it and playing it until I head its truest meaning – a call to rest into the extravagant grace of God’s love. I wonder if you might find a song prayer that helps you connect with what the sacred aches for you to hear? A work of art or poetry that encourages solace and grace? Let these words of Mary Magdalene be both pledge and promise for you: What has bound me has been slain. What encompassed me has been vanquished. Desire has reached its end and I am freed from ignorance. I left one world behind with the aid of another, and now as image I have been freed from the analog.
I am liberated from the chains of forgetfulness which have existed in time. From this moment onward, I go forward into the fullness of life beyond the limits of time, where time rests in the stillness of eternity. In this rest, I repose in silence.
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