The Good News

“We should clothe ourselves with the perfect Human, acquire it for ourselves as he commanded us, and announce the Good news.”
​—The Gospel of Mary

Now that we’ve heard about what has been hidden from us, the last passage from the Gospel of Mary answers what we can each do to acquire “the perfect Human” for ourselves.

Personally, the word perfect makes me cringe.

I much prefer the word complete or true in its place. True as in whole. Authentic. Integral. So, we are to clothe ourselves with the true human. And this means that once we have stripped ourselves of the stories and ideas that feed the raging fires of the ego, or the power to judge (which ensnares us in a cycle of the ego’s seven powers), then the only thing we should put back on is this understanding or vision of being a true human being, the self and the soul united.

This, of course, does not mean we remain that way. Perfect, whole, unified, complete. It does not mean we are infallible, and incorruptible, and that we float from now on several feet above the ground. It doesn’t mean we have to always wear white, never have sex, and abstain from anything that would actually make us happy. All of these ideas of perfect have confused us about what it means to be spiritual, to be a spiritually grown-up and true human being.

As humans, we forget, as Mary revealed to us. The chains of forgetfulness bind us again to the ego. The work we’re being called to here, though, is to “clothe ourselves with the perfect Human.” So, we have to do the work that allows us to remember, again and again, and with greater ease and levity, this experience of the self as also a soul. This experience of not just being this pain, and grief, and terror of the ego, but also this soul of love that loves through us.

This love that whispers from within us, when we are exhausted and alone, “Give to me what you cannot carry.”

We are to “acquire it for ourselves as he commanded us,” which translates to me as seeing Christ as an example, a way-shower, a trail-blazer in what it means to be human.

This doesn’t speak of idolizing or worshipping or distancing Christ from us or from what it means to be human. This says he commanded us to try, as we are each able, to experience the truth that he realized, which is that within the human heart sits a treasure. That treasure will be referred to as a diamond, as a light that pierces all other light, as heaven, as gold by the alchemists, as the soul, as the aspect of us that’s inseparable from god.

If we can “acquire it,” since it’s already ours, and since it’s already here within us, then we will be able to see (thanks to the nous, the eye of the heart) that we are not separate from it. That we are no greater or less than a mustard seed, a tree, a flower, a wolf, a star, an angel, those streaks of red in a sunset that takes the breath away. We are aware, again, of what we had forgotten, that everything “exists in and with each other.” And this is humbling and empowering all at once.

Because when I speak, if I speak from this place, from this treasure that has been hidden from us, then I use a voice that is more than my own. I become a voice in service of love. I become that one unified voice that demanded Thecla’s freedom: “And the women all cried out in a loud voice, as if from one mouth.”

This is how, for me at least, I can “announce the Good news,” as a voice in service of love.

We have nothing to be ashamed of in being human, in having a body, in feeling all that this body knows, which is lost to the intellect and beyond reason.

We have nothing to be ashamed of or to ever have to hide when it comes to who we love. Who we love is not determined by our body or theirs, not their sex or their gender but the soul that expresses itself through it all.

Announcing is not converting; it’s not proselytizing. Cor ad cor loquitur. Heart speaks to heart directly. It’s our work to do what we can to remember the soul, to remember the love that’s at the heart of how and why we heal.

It’s our work to undo the systems of power that confuse us into forgetting our own power.

The good news to me is that true power rests within us.

That like Mary Magdalene, like Thecla and Perpetua demonstrated, no one outside of us can keep us from finding this power. Because it’s not a power over us or outside of us. It’s a power that rests within us, and we can rest in it, be led by it, and be carried by it.

It’s a power that takes us breath by breath, if we let it, to the places where the ego is the loudest and most afraid, so we can become aware of the contrast: the stark contrast between the world the ego sees and the world love sees.

The perfect, or true human, is anchored into this love, and also, is equally, still and for as long as we have a body, this raging ego that will resist the “death” this love demands. So, it’s all part of the process. It’s part of what it means to be spiritual, and to be “perfect,” and to be an absolute mess at times. To fall flat on our egos and scream, for example, while sobbing in the shower. Or to storm out of a situation you couldn’t possibly handle calmly in the moment.

The good news is that it’s just alpha, and then omega, ad infinitum. It’s just a constant return. A myriad of opportunities to come back to this voice of love inside us. And we can spend less and less time away from it, or feeling as though we’re separate from it, or aren’t worthy of it, if we choose to. Being human isn’t the failure. Being human is the soul’s chance to be here.

The guru, the saint, the magi, the “perfected” ideal of yourself that can radiate beams of light like Princess Fiona after Shrek’s true love kiss, and remain that way, is an illusion. This is often used as a way for us to feel inadequate. To constantly compare ourselves. To constantly suggest to ourselves that we’re not there yet. We haven’t arrived.

The good news is we never arrive. None of us. Not even the holiest person you can think of in this moment. We never get there. That’s the whole point of being human. The point is to constantly arrive. For some of us with each breath. We constantly return to love. This is the good news; that we can. That it’s set up this way.

That no matter who we are or how long we’ve been separated from feeling the presence of love, it’s actually right here.

Within.

With only more love,
​M.