The Realm of the Good is Inside You.
Hello, friends!
Last night was a beautiful gathering of women for our Feast of Mary Magdalene Holy Experiment. We read a portion of the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, which introduces a phrase that to me is life-altering. In his final speech, Jesus calls himself a Child of Humanity, a True Human Being, an ihidaya. This Aramaic word has a very different connotation than the normal phrases we use, such as “Son of God”. An ihidaya is someone who is Fully Human. Someone who has uncovered and unleashed the Divine, The Good, that lies deep inside every single one of us. By unearthing this inherent part of us, covered up by our fears, shame, guilt, ignorance, and conditioning, we become fully who we were always meant to be. By awakening our Divinity through healing, we become fully Human.
It puts a new spin on Fully Divine and Fully Human, doesn’t it?
Best of all, Jesus does not say he is the sole title owner of ihidaya. It is within each of us. He specifically instructs his disciples not to be fooled by calls to export our authority, our divinity, our power to someone or something else. We each are tasked to look within to find Truth, Wisdom, Compassion, and Power. Jesus is not a unique solitary figure demanding our worship and doctrinal belief to grant us afterlife “salvation”. Rather, Jesus is the scout returning to the new hikers, eager to show them the Way along their own healing journey. To believe in him is to trust that he knows the Way and will show the way, but it is yours to walk. This Way assumes you are already the Beloved. This Way teaches salvation is healing, and healing is a returning, a re-membering of our exiled parts, a harmony within and without. The kingdom of God (realm of the Good) is inside you.
This is strikingly different from what almost all of us have been taught.
We have been taught we are not worthy. That we need Jesus’ intercession or we are doomed. That God must somehow create a magical ritual of sacrifice to not throw us into hell. That Jesus is unique in this world and so far above us all we can do is worship him and hope the right behavior, right belief, or some mixture of the two have given us access to heaven after we die.
The Gospel of Mary Magdalene challenges this all. It takes the yawning gap between us and God (The Good) and smashes it, intertwining and interpenetrating the Sacred within our very being. To find The Good, we need only to go within. The ladder to God crashes down and turns into a circle of support. God does not have to be convinced to forgive us and shower us with grace. We are the ones who have to be convinced to accept what is already waiting for us as we unlearn the lie that we could ever be separated from God. Imagine that.