The Great Big Unsayable Love
For those who are new to my work, I am a writer and a feminist theologian. Feminist to me means we are all radically equal as human beings. Theologian simply means a person who engages in the study of god. Or in my case, a person who engages in the study of all that has been left out of our ideas of god.
The beginning of my story, of what led me to this moment, all started when I walked out of church as a little girl covered in hives after reading the Bible for the first time. I knew this wasn't the whole story. I knew in a way where no one outside of me could tell me otherwise.
I wasn’t raised religious; I was raised feminist. So, reading that god is referred to as the father, and a father only, terrified me.
There was this great big unsayable love inside me. And I thought Church would mean I could begin to figure out how to share it. Because didn’t we all have this inner-ocean? Didn’t we all just want a place where we can hang our egos at the door and help each other be human?
Wasn’t Christ about a love this vast and inclusive?
The body never lies. I stormed out of my Sunday school class, terrified, and angrier than I had ever been. Where were women’s voices? The women leaders. I knew they must have existed. And I knew that for some reason within Christianity their presence had been erased.
I spent many years then studying anything other than Christianity. I studied the stories of female saints, mystics, and gurus from the world religions and throughout history. Their stories inspired me because all of these women also felt this great big unsayable love inside them. And with that love, challenged the cultural expectations enforced on women and girls within their lifetimes.
When I saw comedian Hannah Gadsby in her show Douglas, everything lit up in me when she said, “If women had been a part of the naming of the things, we would have a completely different language.” This is what I realized about religion. If women had been a part of the naming of god, we would have a completely different idea of the sacred, of what it means to be spiritual, and even, what it means to be human.
Before and after completing my Master of Theological Studies at Harvard Divinity School in comparative religion, I went on a pilgrimage to the south of France. A pilgrimage is simply an act of devotion. It’s a way to demonstrate how devoted you are to what you believe in.
In my case, I wasn’t aware when I first arrived in the south of France that Mary Magdalene’s legend continued on here after she witnessed the resurrection. Or not consciously. I was with a group visiting various sites of the Black Madonna in France. And our pilgrimage led me to the small seaside village of Saintes Maries de la Mer. This is when I learned that Mary Magdalene had come ashore here on a ship without sails according to legend. And that she had ministered in the south of France until she escaped further prosecution from the Roman Empire by living in the caves at Sainte Baume, the sacred mountain.
The body never lies. As I listened to this legend in my early twenties about to go to divinity school, I knew many things that I couldn’t uncoil with words. I knew because of the way my heart had gone berserk, like some feral monkey suddenly noticing its cage. I knew I would have to return, on my own. I knew that I had been called here to the south of France because the rest of my life was meant to be about the life that began here for Mary after Christ’s death.
With my fiery, feral monkey-heart set on understanding more about Mary Magdalene, I went back to study Christianity in depth at Union Theological Seminary at Columbia University. While there I happened to study with, or was destined to study with, an expert on the Gospel of Mary, and other early Christian scripture not originally included in the formation of the bible in the 4th century. Dr. Hal Taussig is the editor of A New, New Testament, which adds back into the Bible the early Christian scripture deemed too heretical, and radical, to originally include. Scripture like The Gospel of Mary, The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Philip, and this powerful 1st century scripture titled The Acts of Paul and Thecla.
Encountering this early Christian scripture changed my life. It changed my ideas of Christianity, of what it means to be human, of what it means to be saved, of what it means to reach heaven and resurrect. It changed my idea of who Mary Magdalene might have been.
Because Mary’s gospel is ultimately about vision. It’s about learning to see not through our own little egos and the myriad of powers that can derail us from what we are meant to do in this lifetime. It’s about finally seeing the power we all contain. The power to know the truth of who we are, and then take action on it.
Each year, I hold these Sunday meetings so that we can piece back together all that has been left out of what is considered holy. This year, we’re going to focus on The Gospel of Mary, The Acts of Paul and Thecla, The Gospel of Philip, The Gospel of Thomas, The Passion of Saint Perpetua, and The Thunder: Perfect Mind. The scripture that has been hidden from us.
So that we can see clearly with a vision every one of us is capable of, the vision Christ refers to in Mary’s gospel as the spiritual eye of the heart.
With only more love,
M.