This is what stays with me: Mary is not defending an identity. She is remembering the root.
That feels deeply Islamic to me. The soul is not trying to become worthy of the Good. It is trying to return to what Allah placed within it before fear, shame, and the nafs started speaking so loudly.
The accuser always wants a trial.
But remembrance does not need to win the courtroom.
Thank you for this reminder of the backdrop we live in. If we can stop trying to defend and explain ourselves to the accuser, we would have so much more energy. “But the soul does not awaken by winning the argument with the accuser. The soul awakens by returning to the Good.”
Thank you. I’m felt like this got to the root of why the male dominated evangelical culture is proliferating fake Christianity, and really falters and fails to create a vision of good that actually seeds good. It was refreshing for me. Grateful.
I’m not schooled in the Abrahamic scriptures, so I don’t really have the authority to comment on the textual or theological specifics here.
But what stayed with me is less comparison and more recognition.
The movement away from inherited guilt toward remembrance, the sense that what is called “the Good” is not manufactured but uncovered, the idea that what is veiled is not absent: all of that feels familiar in a different language.
Even the tension between accusation and recognition feels like it is circling something simpler underneath the forms: not two competing truths, but one reality appearing as distance.
It’s hard not to hear, faintly, “tat tvam asi” in that space, not as a conclusion, but as a residue.
What a beautiful way to wake up, both literally & spiritually. Moving from overwhelmed to excited about how much I DON’T KNOW about Magdalene (& Islam, but already knew I had barely scratched the surface of that) & that there’s someone who can initiate me into that knowledge & guide me onto that path & into that wisdom history that’s pretty much a stranger to me. You always surprise me with nuggets of truth i never knew existed & written in the best word stew that exists, history, spiritual teachings, touching the heart & lunatic laughing at the same time. Once again more thanx than the law allows but that’s why i break it over & over. Heals my pain like nothing else. 🌠🙌🙏🫶🤎☕️🔦
Mary Magdelene's "Good" was such a threat to the still emerging Christian systems from 300 to 500 AD or so that it was Pope Gregory The Great in 591 AD that recast her as a "prostitute." That's how Insecure that whole male dominated "fake" organization actually was. Then in 1969, a mere 1400 or so years later, that particular claim was redacted, because it wasn't selling anymore. Do you remember the fanfare about that moment? Of course not! A bunch of sleepy, insecure men running a business called "Prophet for Profit" were busy scrambling and hiding their now glowing abuses, so they could keep pretending that their fake religion still mattered. It doesn't! It is circling the drain as it so well deserves. Keep posting pieces like this. We all need to wake up and see the truth, or the "Good" rather, from in our own Hearts!!!
No I do NOT remember the fanfare of that moment in 1969 - I was in 9th grade but growing little feminist teenager that i was i would have IF there had been fanfare. Knew none of that - appreciate being educated, Maurice.
Your words are so powerful. Mary Magdalene has many things to teach us as a woman of truth, surrendered to God. And, she needs to support you have just given her for her spirit and her legacy to live on. Thank you!
This is so true. We all struggle with nafs, and it seems more and more people are discovering that it is a better servant that it is a manager of our lives. Thank you.
That love was, of course all of love and eternally itself. And then I seemed to fall back into time and alienation with the world, within the world and its cultural trances. It was too much love, an abundance that shattered the tiny vessel of myself. I got everything I ever wanted but I could not lock it in a vault or possess it ... or keep it... or comprehend it.
For some, the doorway is silence. The silence of one's own voice, of knowing, of self image, etc. For me it was so much love ... an impossible infinitude of love. One does not survive that. One cannot name it or explain it. One goes on living in a Kosmic Homesickness.
This is what stays with me: Mary is not defending an identity. She is remembering the root.
That feels deeply Islamic to me. The soul is not trying to become worthy of the Good. It is trying to return to what Allah placed within it before fear, shame, and the nafs started speaking so loudly.
The accuser always wants a trial.
But remembrance does not need to win the courtroom.
It just returns home.
I so love it that you shared that……love the teaching as you teach with love 💗
Thank you for this reminder of the backdrop we live in. If we can stop trying to defend and explain ourselves to the accuser, we would have so much more energy. “But the soul does not awaken by winning the argument with the accuser. The soul awakens by returning to the Good.”
I love this (and learned a lot about the heart of Islam from it). Thank you for writing!
Thank you. I’m felt like this got to the root of why the male dominated evangelical culture is proliferating fake Christianity, and really falters and fails to create a vision of good that actually seeds good. It was refreshing for me. Grateful.
I’m not schooled in the Abrahamic scriptures, so I don’t really have the authority to comment on the textual or theological specifics here.
But what stayed with me is less comparison and more recognition.
The movement away from inherited guilt toward remembrance, the sense that what is called “the Good” is not manufactured but uncovered, the idea that what is veiled is not absent: all of that feels familiar in a different language.
Even the tension between accusation and recognition feels like it is circling something simpler underneath the forms: not two competing truths, but one reality appearing as distance.
It’s hard not to hear, faintly, “tat tvam asi” in that space, not as a conclusion, but as a residue.
What a beautiful way to wake up, both literally & spiritually. Moving from overwhelmed to excited about how much I DON’T KNOW about Magdalene (& Islam, but already knew I had barely scratched the surface of that) & that there’s someone who can initiate me into that knowledge & guide me onto that path & into that wisdom history that’s pretty much a stranger to me. You always surprise me with nuggets of truth i never knew existed & written in the best word stew that exists, history, spiritual teachings, touching the heart & lunatic laughing at the same time. Once again more thanx than the law allows but that’s why i break it over & over. Heals my pain like nothing else. 🌠🙌🙏🫶🤎☕️🔦
Mary Magdelene's "Good" was such a threat to the still emerging Christian systems from 300 to 500 AD or so that it was Pope Gregory The Great in 591 AD that recast her as a "prostitute." That's how Insecure that whole male dominated "fake" organization actually was. Then in 1969, a mere 1400 or so years later, that particular claim was redacted, because it wasn't selling anymore. Do you remember the fanfare about that moment? Of course not! A bunch of sleepy, insecure men running a business called "Prophet for Profit" were busy scrambling and hiding their now glowing abuses, so they could keep pretending that their fake religion still mattered. It doesn't! It is circling the drain as it so well deserves. Keep posting pieces like this. We all need to wake up and see the truth, or the "Good" rather, from in our own Hearts!!!
No I do NOT remember the fanfare of that moment in 1969 - I was in 9th grade but growing little feminist teenager that i was i would have IF there had been fanfare. Knew none of that - appreciate being educated, Maurice.
Your words are so powerful. Mary Magdalene has many things to teach us as a woman of truth, surrendered to God. And, she needs to support you have just given her for her spirit and her legacy to live on. Thank you!
This is so true. We all struggle with nafs, and it seems more and more people are discovering that it is a better servant that it is a manager of our lives. Thank you.
Beautiful!
I just stumbled my way into writing this a moment ago.
"I'm a lot like Nasreddin, only I'm searching for a lost love which was never lost."
I'm becoming more like a Sufi by the moment, and laughing at my stupidity.
That love was, of course all of love and eternally itself. And then I seemed to fall back into time and alienation with the world, within the world and its cultural trances. It was too much love, an abundance that shattered the tiny vessel of myself. I got everything I ever wanted but I could not lock it in a vault or possess it ... or keep it... or comprehend it.
I still cannot. It broke me so utterly.
For some, the doorway is silence. The silence of one's own voice, of knowing, of self image, etc. For me it was so much love ... an impossible infinitude of love. One does not survive that. One cannot name it or explain it. One goes on living in a Kosmic Homesickness.
Beautiful 💕✨
Thank you again. Your insights go down paths that are challenging, wonderfully so.