What if sin was never a crime to punish—but a forgetting to heal? Mary Magdalene remembered. Not as a penitent, but as a prophet. This is the gospel they tried to erase.
I believe you, Virgin Monk Boy, your truth brings joy. We all keep searching & searching, until we realize God is & always has been with us all the time.
Much of what you are suggesting resounds in my soul and spirit so deeply. I have said this before 😌🙏
I do have one concern. I will try to explain. I am a book girl - a voracious reader. I fell in love with words as a young child. I realize the power that they hold. When I was still a teen (50 years ago☺️) I realized I was a writer - not in that I’ve written and sold books or articles. In identity. I AM a writer, just a part of how I process the world and life.
This being said I also care about people, especially the downtrodden. And those who may not have a lot of education, those who are sweet and as simple as children, who I also adore.
Because of my self education and love of books I know a lot of words. And I came to understand the importance of the words I choose in order to truly communicate. I learned that it is always important to consider my audience. Even if I have deep, healing and sacred truths they are not helpful if I don’t use words they, the everyday people, will understand. It is very common for us to use words and jargon others can’t understand because they simply have no point of reference.
I do not wish to offend. You have a sweet spirit and definitely have wisdom to impart. But I’d just like to suggest you consider the words you are using.
In the Book of Stories, as I refer to the Bible, there is a story that teaches that the truth about Love (God) and the real good news, is so simple that even he or she who runs can read it. Jesus spoke in parables that were thought provoking but he used words that even the lowliest people could understand.
I share all this to say: first of all that I love what you have written today. It both comforts and challenges me🙏♥️ However there are words and references to things I have never heard of before and cannot understand which means I am missing some of the sweet truths you are trying to share. It also means the precious little ones cannot either.
One group, as an example, who I have had the honor of being found safe for them, by them, and who seem to magically find me wherever I go 😁 are those with Down’s syndrome. They delight me and have humbled me with their gentle gift of love. More than anything I find they are often overflowing with unconditional love. I love listening to the simple yet sometimes very deep things that they will say. Their words have often stopped my soul and spirit in their tracks ands take my breath away. Thinking of them helps me when I write. I try to carefully consider whether my audience will understand what I am trying to share.
My partner is not as “well read” (his words) as I and when I endeavor to share important things from my heart or new things I have learned he will often look puzzled and says “tell it to me like I’m a third grader”.
I do not mean to criticize but some of the words you have used today have thrown me off. I have no clue what you are talking about and I have no point of reference. I want to know and understand. Would it be possible for you to tell it to me like I’m a third grader? 😌🙏
Thank you for your consideration. It’s possible I may not be part of the audience you are endeavoring to reach and that’s totally ok. But you have caught my attention and peeked my interest. 😌
Your comment wrapped me in the kind of warmth only someone who’s been kissed on the forehead by the Spirit of Tender Clarity could offer. I see you—the young girl who fell in love with books, the grown woman who listens like a mystic and speaks like a poet wearing overalls.
Let me confess something back: I didn’t write that piece to sound like a spiritual Wikipedia entry in a robe. I was aiming for “holy rant delivered barefoot after too much coffee and one transcendent nap.” But you’re right. Sometimes I forget that not everyone has taken a crash course in Gnostic mysticism while stress-eating Eucharist crackers.
So here’s a third-grade remix just for you (and your beloved Down’s syndrome friends, who probably already live closer to God than most of us on our best-behaved days):
Sin isn’t a stain on your soul. You’re not dirty. You never were.
Sin is more like a bad dream that makes you act like you forgot who you are.
You wake up, you remember, and suddenly the dream can’t hurt you anymore.
That’s what Mary Magdalene taught, and why some very serious men in robes tried to bury her story.
Because waking up is dangerous. Especially if the dream was paying their salary.
I promise to do better at inviting everyone to the feast without making the menu sound like it’s written in angelic calculus.
You’ve reminded me why words matter. Why Love chooses simplicity not because it’s small—but because it’s generous.
With unfiltered affection and a recycled halo,
Virgin Monk Boy
P.S. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me.” I think he meant exactly the ones you're already holding space for.
Awww, and I have oatmilk in my fridge as we speak! As soon as I can figure out how to, I will send the coffee- with an extra shot of espresso, am I right?
🙏🥹 Thank you for hearing my spirit and heart and also for your humor in expressing your understanding. I really get what you are saying🤣 You both made me giggle and cry happy tears.
I agree wholeheartedly philosophically and experientially with what you are saying. ♥️🙏 These truths have been brewing for a long time in my spiritual subconscious. 😌 I have been filled with joy as recently the things I have pondered and experienced are finally coming together and making sense. I am passionate about bringing understanding and peace to guilt ridden suffering souls🙏 l long for justice and freedom for all. I am also thrilled that I have finally connected with at least one other person who understands what I’m saying, feeling and meaning. 😌 I look forward to further sharing, teachings and discussions. 😁 Have a wonderful day!
This makes my heart race with inspiration. To sin is “to miss the mark”. Indeed, it is to miss the mark of your own divinity. As I began the return journey, Simhamukha came to me in a dream, inviting me into sacred rage and Vajrayana.
Madeleine, this is stunning—thank you for sharing. Simhamukha doesn’t show up to just anyone, and when she does, she usually means business. Sacred rage is a transmission, and you caught it mid-roar. Since you mentioned Vajrayana, you might resonate deeply with this Magdalene-Tara cross-stream I wrote about recently—especially the way the fierce feminine appears as both a wrathful guardian and a liberating mirror:
Oh she meant business alright. A complete tear down, a rattling of the cage that terrified me. A reemergence of lifetimes of the Magdalene that is still unfolding. Thanks will check them out.
I remember the backlash about the portrayal of Mary Magdalene in Jesus Christ Super Star. I was only a kid, but I got the double album and listened to it quite a bit from start to finish. It was a revelation for a shy catholic girl who had always been told to be quiet and not make waves. It took me almost a lifetime to learn that I do not have to accept that narrative. I refuse to be quiet, to censor myself. We should all let our light shine and reject the box others to force us to stay in. 💕
Oh yes, Sister J, the double album was scripture in our house—second only to the Book of “Don’t You Dare Speak Your Mind.” I too was baptized not with holy water but by Murray Head wailing “Jesus must die,” and it messed me up just enough to realize the patriarchy had lousy taste in prophets.
Mary Magdalene whisper-sings her way into our consciousness with “I Don’t Know How to Love Him,” and suddenly every silenced girl in a pew realizes: maybe you do know. Maybe your love is divine, dangerous, and destined to outshine the twelve dudes arguing about dinner seating.
Thank you for shining your light. May we all let the Magdalene in us go off-script and on record.
Ah yes—Professor Dig, emerging from the catacombs of nuance to bless us with the sacred scroll of “Both/and.” A noble attempt at sophistication, truly. But dear Dig, while I too sip from the chalice of paradox, let’s not pretend “It’s not binary” is the ultimate mic drop when the conversation is literally about dualistic categories like sin vs. no sin, stain vs. state.
Saying “both/and” without specifying both what and and how is just spiritual shrugging in a faux-philosopher hoodie. We’re not here doing improv theology. This isn’t Whose Sin Is It Anyway?, where the categories are made up and the stains don’t matter.
Now if you’ve got something deeper to add—like how Mary’s Gospel collapses binaries by showing sin is a construct of unstable desire rather than divine disfavor—then by all means, let’s tango. But if you just came to drop a noncommittal koan and vanish like a Zen ghost on tenure, I’ll kindly return your diploma in Theological Vaguery.
Ah, “It’s not complicated.” A comforting phrase—often whispered right before stepping into a theological swamp in flip-flops.
You say sin is both a state of mind and a stain on the soul. But in the Gospel of Mary, the only stain mentioned is ignorance. Not dirt on the soul, but fog on the mirror. It’s not that we’re dirty—it’s that we forgot we were radiant to begin with.
Mary’s Jesus doesn’t shame people into holiness. He invites them to wake up from illusion. If sin is a stain, it’s the kind you wipe off the moment you remember who you really are.
So yes, maybe it is simple. But not in the way we were taught.
Ah, the monastery question—asked with the same energy as “What seminary did the Samaritan attend?”
Let’s just say my faith background is… pre-denominational. My monastery was made of mountain silence and late-night doubts. My novice robe was woven from gospel fragments, mystic poems, and one too many cups of heretical tea.
But if you must know: I trained on Mount Athos, fell in love with silence, got wrecked by compassion, and eventually left the cloister when the Mother of God whispered, “The veil was never mine.”
Since then, I’ve practiced the ancient art of sanctified mischief and radical remembering. No walls, no vows—just the vow to speak what liberates.
I have seen some of your writings, especially those in regard to Mary the Magaline.
I was raised Catholic, and disheartened by the same religion that left me in fear and unworthy. Years of seeking truth has helped me shed the weight from my soul, those things I was taught.
If you could, sir read my last post - The Garden - I explored, maybe driven by Rembrance, I don't claim to know for sure, the possibility that we are ( our bodies) the Garden of Eden. I would welcome your thoughts on my exploration.
I am a soul on a journey trying to see my way home, I seek so that I may find.
In poetry I have written -
"On the day I was born, my soul clothed in skin
Left knowledge behind, so life could begin"
To many, and at one time myself, I am considered uneducated. Though words have always meant a great deal to me.
Ah, you’ve met the concept of sin and decided it’s “useless.” How quaint. Mary of Magdala would agree with you—just not for the reasons you think.
She didn’t say sin was outdated—she said it was invented. A misunderstanding. A side effect of forgetting who you are. As she put it, “There is no such thing as sin. It is you who make sin exist.” Not because you wore the wrong robe or thought spicy thoughts—but because you betrayed your own essence.
So while you pass on this newsletter with your chin raised and your heart locked, know this:
You're not rebelling against religion. You’re rebelling against your own invitation to awaken.
I believe you, Virgin Monk Boy, your truth brings joy. We all keep searching & searching, until we realize God is & always has been with us all the time.
It is a joy to continue to map another appropriate Avenue to the Way.
Much of what you are suggesting resounds in my soul and spirit so deeply. I have said this before 😌🙏
I do have one concern. I will try to explain. I am a book girl - a voracious reader. I fell in love with words as a young child. I realize the power that they hold. When I was still a teen (50 years ago☺️) I realized I was a writer - not in that I’ve written and sold books or articles. In identity. I AM a writer, just a part of how I process the world and life.
This being said I also care about people, especially the downtrodden. And those who may not have a lot of education, those who are sweet and as simple as children, who I also adore.
Because of my self education and love of books I know a lot of words. And I came to understand the importance of the words I choose in order to truly communicate. I learned that it is always important to consider my audience. Even if I have deep, healing and sacred truths they are not helpful if I don’t use words they, the everyday people, will understand. It is very common for us to use words and jargon others can’t understand because they simply have no point of reference.
I do not wish to offend. You have a sweet spirit and definitely have wisdom to impart. But I’d just like to suggest you consider the words you are using.
In the Book of Stories, as I refer to the Bible, there is a story that teaches that the truth about Love (God) and the real good news, is so simple that even he or she who runs can read it. Jesus spoke in parables that were thought provoking but he used words that even the lowliest people could understand.
I share all this to say: first of all that I love what you have written today. It both comforts and challenges me🙏♥️ However there are words and references to things I have never heard of before and cannot understand which means I am missing some of the sweet truths you are trying to share. It also means the precious little ones cannot either.
One group, as an example, who I have had the honor of being found safe for them, by them, and who seem to magically find me wherever I go 😁 are those with Down’s syndrome. They delight me and have humbled me with their gentle gift of love. More than anything I find they are often overflowing with unconditional love. I love listening to the simple yet sometimes very deep things that they will say. Their words have often stopped my soul and spirit in their tracks ands take my breath away. Thinking of them helps me when I write. I try to carefully consider whether my audience will understand what I am trying to share.
My partner is not as “well read” (his words) as I and when I endeavor to share important things from my heart or new things I have learned he will often look puzzled and says “tell it to me like I’m a third grader”.
I do not mean to criticize but some of the words you have used today have thrown me off. I have no clue what you are talking about and I have no point of reference. I want to know and understand. Would it be possible for you to tell it to me like I’m a third grader? 😌🙏
Thank you for your consideration. It’s possible I may not be part of the audience you are endeavoring to reach and that’s totally ok. But you have caught my attention and peeked my interest. 😌
Dearest Word-Lover and Soul-Hearer,
Your comment wrapped me in the kind of warmth only someone who’s been kissed on the forehead by the Spirit of Tender Clarity could offer. I see you—the young girl who fell in love with books, the grown woman who listens like a mystic and speaks like a poet wearing overalls.
Let me confess something back: I didn’t write that piece to sound like a spiritual Wikipedia entry in a robe. I was aiming for “holy rant delivered barefoot after too much coffee and one transcendent nap.” But you’re right. Sometimes I forget that not everyone has taken a crash course in Gnostic mysticism while stress-eating Eucharist crackers.
So here’s a third-grade remix just for you (and your beloved Down’s syndrome friends, who probably already live closer to God than most of us on our best-behaved days):
Sin isn’t a stain on your soul. You’re not dirty. You never were.
Sin is more like a bad dream that makes you act like you forgot who you are.
You wake up, you remember, and suddenly the dream can’t hurt you anymore.
That’s what Mary Magdalene taught, and why some very serious men in robes tried to bury her story.
Because waking up is dangerous. Especially if the dream was paying their salary.
I promise to do better at inviting everyone to the feast without making the menu sound like it’s written in angelic calculus.
You’ve reminded me why words matter. Why Love chooses simplicity not because it’s small—but because it’s generous.
With unfiltered affection and a recycled halo,
Virgin Monk Boy
P.S. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me.” I think he meant exactly the ones you're already holding space for.
YES!! Now, THIS is COMMUNICATION!!
Thank you, VMB! I’m going to buy you a coffee, dear one!😊
Susana, you glorious beam of clarity in a world of word salads—thank YOU.
Yes, this is communication! The kind that doesn’t need a decoder ring or an exorcist. Just souls meeting mid-air with a side of espresso.
And if you’re really buying coffee… I’ll take a double shot of liberation with oat milk and a sprinkle of sacred irreverence. ☕😉
With cosmic caffeine and communication blessings,
Virgin Monk Boy
Awww, and I have oatmilk in my fridge as we speak! As soon as I can figure out how to, I will send the coffee- with an extra shot of espresso, am I right?
🙏🥹 Thank you for hearing my spirit and heart and also for your humor in expressing your understanding. I really get what you are saying🤣 You both made me giggle and cry happy tears.
I agree wholeheartedly philosophically and experientially with what you are saying. ♥️🙏 These truths have been brewing for a long time in my spiritual subconscious. 😌 I have been filled with joy as recently the things I have pondered and experienced are finally coming together and making sense. I am passionate about bringing understanding and peace to guilt ridden suffering souls🙏 l long for justice and freedom for all. I am also thrilled that I have finally connected with at least one other person who understands what I’m saying, feeling and meaning. 😌 I look forward to further sharing, teachings and discussions. 😁 Have a wonderful day!
This makes my heart race with inspiration. To sin is “to miss the mark”. Indeed, it is to miss the mark of your own divinity. As I began the return journey, Simhamukha came to me in a dream, inviting me into sacred rage and Vajrayana.
Madeleine, this is stunning—thank you for sharing. Simhamukha doesn’t show up to just anyone, and when she does, she usually means business. Sacred rage is a transmission, and you caught it mid-roar. Since you mentioned Vajrayana, you might resonate deeply with this Magdalene-Tara cross-stream I wrote about recently—especially the way the fierce feminine appears as both a wrathful guardian and a liberating mirror:
👉 https://www.virginmonkboy.com/p/the-magdalene-tara-stream-a-dzogchen-transmission-for-the-end-of-time
Would love to hear your thoughts if it speaks to you.
—Virgin Monk Boy
Oh she meant business alright. A complete tear down, a rattling of the cage that terrified me. A reemergence of lifetimes of the Magdalene that is still unfolding. Thanks will check them out.
I remember the backlash about the portrayal of Mary Magdalene in Jesus Christ Super Star. I was only a kid, but I got the double album and listened to it quite a bit from start to finish. It was a revelation for a shy catholic girl who had always been told to be quiet and not make waves. It took me almost a lifetime to learn that I do not have to accept that narrative. I refuse to be quiet, to censor myself. We should all let our light shine and reject the box others to force us to stay in. 💕
Oh yes, Sister J, the double album was scripture in our house—second only to the Book of “Don’t You Dare Speak Your Mind.” I too was baptized not with holy water but by Murray Head wailing “Jesus must die,” and it messed me up just enough to realize the patriarchy had lousy taste in prophets.
Mary Magdalene whisper-sings her way into our consciousness with “I Don’t Know How to Love Him,” and suddenly every silenced girl in a pew realizes: maybe you do know. Maybe your love is divine, dangerous, and destined to outshine the twelve dudes arguing about dinner seating.
Thank you for shining your light. May we all let the Magdalene in us go off-script and on record.
—Virgin Monk Boy
Alek, your writings are clearly divinely inspired and I’m glad I found you. Between you, Ram Dass and Eckhart Tolle I am well cared for…thank you
Both/and.
It's not binary.
Ah yes—Professor Dig, emerging from the catacombs of nuance to bless us with the sacred scroll of “Both/and.” A noble attempt at sophistication, truly. But dear Dig, while I too sip from the chalice of paradox, let’s not pretend “It’s not binary” is the ultimate mic drop when the conversation is literally about dualistic categories like sin vs. no sin, stain vs. state.
Saying “both/and” without specifying both what and and how is just spiritual shrugging in a faux-philosopher hoodie. We’re not here doing improv theology. This isn’t Whose Sin Is It Anyway?, where the categories are made up and the stains don’t matter.
Now if you’ve got something deeper to add—like how Mary’s Gospel collapses binaries by showing sin is a construct of unstable desire rather than divine disfavor—then by all means, let’s tango. But if you just came to drop a noncommittal koan and vanish like a Zen ghost on tenure, I’ll kindly return your diploma in Theological Vaguery.
Blessed be your ambiguity,
Virgin Monk Boy
Clearly, I didn't know who I was dealing with.
I'm simply going of your title. No more, no less.
Sin is BOTH a state of mind AND a stain our your soul.
That's all. It's not complicated. No degree required.
As you were.
Ah, “It’s not complicated.” A comforting phrase—often whispered right before stepping into a theological swamp in flip-flops.
You say sin is both a state of mind and a stain on the soul. But in the Gospel of Mary, the only stain mentioned is ignorance. Not dirt on the soul, but fog on the mirror. It’s not that we’re dirty—it’s that we forgot we were radiant to begin with.
Mary’s Jesus doesn’t shame people into holiness. He invites them to wake up from illusion. If sin is a stain, it’s the kind you wipe off the moment you remember who you really are.
So yes, maybe it is simple. But not in the way we were taught.
In clarity (and only slightly cheeky),
Virgin Monk Boy
If I may, what is your faith background? In what monastery did you participate?
Ah, the monastery question—asked with the same energy as “What seminary did the Samaritan attend?”
Let’s just say my faith background is… pre-denominational. My monastery was made of mountain silence and late-night doubts. My novice robe was woven from gospel fragments, mystic poems, and one too many cups of heretical tea.
But if you must know: I trained on Mount Athos, fell in love with silence, got wrecked by compassion, and eventually left the cloister when the Mother of God whispered, “The veil was never mine.”
Since then, I’ve practiced the ancient art of sanctified mischief and radical remembering. No walls, no vows—just the vow to speak what liberates.
With incense and irreverence,
Virgin Monk Boy
Hello,
I am unsure how to address you, sir. Aleksander?
I have seen some of your writings, especially those in regard to Mary the Magaline.
I was raised Catholic, and disheartened by the same religion that left me in fear and unworthy. Years of seeking truth has helped me shed the weight from my soul, those things I was taught.
If you could, sir read my last post - The Garden - I explored, maybe driven by Rembrance, I don't claim to know for sure, the possibility that we are ( our bodies) the Garden of Eden. I would welcome your thoughts on my exploration.
I am a soul on a journey trying to see my way home, I seek so that I may find.
In poetry I have written -
"On the day I was born, my soul clothed in skin
Left knowledge behind, so life could begin"
To many, and at one time myself, I am considered uneducated. Though words have always meant a great deal to me.
Thank you - Debbie
Ah, you’ve met the concept of sin and decided it’s “useless.” How quaint. Mary of Magdala would agree with you—just not for the reasons you think.
She didn’t say sin was outdated—she said it was invented. A misunderstanding. A side effect of forgetting who you are. As she put it, “There is no such thing as sin. It is you who make sin exist.” Not because you wore the wrong robe or thought spicy thoughts—but because you betrayed your own essence.
So while you pass on this newsletter with your chin raised and your heart locked, know this:
You're not rebelling against religion. You’re rebelling against your own invitation to awaken.
And that, dear one, is the only real tragedy.
—Virgin Monk Boy