Intimacy Without Biography: How We Already Know Each Other in God

Beyond secrets and stories lies transpersonal intimacy.

Where the Idea Was Born

This scroll was sparked while following Through Holy Week with Mary Magdalene, where Cynthia Bourgeault traced the thread between personal love and divine union. Somewhere between Bethany’s oil and the tears at the tomb she said: “We already know each other in God.”

That line hit like a tuning fork in the chest. We don’t meet strangers—we meet the part of God we forgot had our face on it. Religion keeps selling us tickets to a reunion that already happened. We don’t need access to God; we’re the Wi-Fi signal He’s broadcasting through.

The Nature of Intimacy

Cynthia was asked what intimacy really means, especially when we feel close to people we hardly know. She said that, on the level of personality, intimacy usually means knowing each other’s stories—sharing secrets, spending time together, and developing trust. That’s the kind of closeness most of us think of first.

But there’s another kind of intimacy that doesn’t depend on any of that. It’s what she called transpersonal intimacy—the recognition of the same divine life shining in another person.

Thomas Merton described it as the point vierge at the center of the heart, a hidden spark that belongs entirely to God. At that level there are no strangers. When you meet someone from that depth, you’re touching the same life that animates both of you. It’s the awareness that what’s most real in me is also what’s most real in you.

The Body of Christ as Shared Life

Paul described humanity as one living body animated by the Spirit. That’s what later teachers meant when they talked about the “body of Christ.” It’s the idea that we’re already connected at the level of being itself.

When we act with compassion or recognize the same life in another person, we’re not creating unity—we’re noticing what’s already there. The body of Christ isn’t the church; it’s the wiring. The church is just one of the outlets.

The Christ Pattern Everywhere

Paul said that in Christ “all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17).
Richard Rohr calls this the Universal Christ—the living pattern of divine presence woven through everything that exists.

It’s the same truth Merton glimpsed at the point vierge and Mary Magdalene embodied when she recognized the risen Jesus not by face but by name.
She didn’t meet a stranger; she remembered the One who had always known her.

To see Christ in another isn’t sentimentality. It’s spiritual physics.
When you finally get that, evangelism dies and compassion takes its place.
You stop trying to convert people and start trying to remember them.

Practicing the Recognition

To taste this, stop trying to connect.
Sit. Breathe. Notice the quiet hum beneath thought.

That stillness isn’t empty; it’s what Jesus meant when he said, “The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21).
Presence itself is communion.
You don’t need to trade stories to feel divine recognition—just notice the current already flowing through both of you.

You’re not looking for God.
God is using your eyes to find Himself.

That’s Christ in you recognizing Christ in another.
That’s intimacy without biography.

The Magdalene Seal

Mary Magdalene was the first to live this truth out loud.
At the tomb she didn’t recognize Jesus by appearance or story—she knew him when he spoke her name.
That single moment revealed the whole secret: recognition is resurrection.

Blessed be the ones who stop rehearsing their stories long enough to remember they were never strangers.

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