Saturday, April 20, 2019

"i've been changed. yes, really changed...."


"I don't know how
to love him;
what to do,
how to move him

I've been changed;
yes, really changed..."

It's been 46 years since I first heard Yvonne Ellian's hauntingly beautiful performance of "I Don't Know How to Love Him" from the film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's rock opera, Jesus Christ Superstar. I was barely more than a girl, how could I have understood what she was singing about? But I did. Or at least I caught a glimmer of the kind of love that could transform you.

I have known this kind of love. I have been blessed by it, confused by it, and yes, changed by it. There are times when it felt very personal. The kindness of this stranger, the compassion of that neighbor, the way "he" saw me, the words she spoke in my darkest hour. That kind of love.

In our humaness we want to cling to it -- to them. To make that person our beloved, our best friend, our savior. I did.

But experience has taught me that this kind of transformative love cannot be possessed. It cannot be held in our arms. For love to be transformative, it must be infinite, impartial, impersonal. It must be released into its native element -- the All-in-allness of universal being. To attempt its containment is to limit our own sense of its power.

I think of this each year when I consider Mary Magdalene's pivotal role in the Easter story. There is some question about how and when the Magdalene encountered Jesus -- was she the woman of questionable reputation who crashed the Pharisees dinner party and washed the Mater's feet with her tears, or was she a successful business woman from the coastal town of Magdala? We don't know. But here is what we do know. Out of her, Jesus cast seven demons. Whether those demons were fornication or ambition - he cast them out.

Either way, once touched by Jesus' love, there was no going back. She follows him as a 13th disciple. And when the time came for someone to be with him - in his hours of agony on the cross - it was she, and his mother, who joined the disciple John in that holy watch.

When all hope seemed lost - and the rest of the disciples had retreated to an upper chamber - it was Mary Magdalene and his Mother who went to the sepulcher with oil and sweet-smelling spices to anoint his body.

And when the angel appeared, quietly heralding her Master's resurrection, she was ready, waiting, expectant. Why? Because she had already experienced the resurrection of life in herself. She knew what the Christ was capable of. More than the resurrection of the flesh, it was the resurrection of her own innocence, that convinced her that the impossible -- was possible.

And, when she joyously rushed to tell her brethren disciples that their Master was alive, their distrust of her message received the risen Savior's stern rebuke for their hardness of heart in not believing her.

The Magdalene's unwavering love for, and trust in, the Christ-message of resurrecting Love, is an integral part of the Easter story. It sings with as full a voice as the Savior's own. It is as much her story, as his. It is one of the greatest love stories of all time.


offered with Love,




Kate




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