Endless Timeless Dance of Joyous Creation

Most of my life, I've been a seeker. A seeker of meaning, purpose and an understanding of this breathtaking Cosmos.

In 1986, I became a Christian, a giant leap in my developing faith life. I became smitten by the message of Jesus. So straightforward, so beautiful, so all encompassing. Knowing he dined with prostitutes, tax collectors and lepers...three of the least appealing groups of his time...made me even more drawn to his teaching to love one another. Period.

In her new book, The Secret Magdalene, Ki Longfellow has taken on a giant task...sorting through thousands of pages of history and conjecture, to create a picture of the life of one of Jesus' closest friends, Mary Magdalene.

Please let me share what I consider the heart of the book, on page 351, some of Magdalene's musings:

“Plato taught that the first principle is intellect whose only function can be to think and the only possible object of thought must be itself. But I must ask: why, then, did it act? Does it not seem more likely that the first principle is not intellect, but Consciousness, which being aware, would not only think, but feel and, in feeling, would desire to express itself? All reality is that expression. The stars and all they contain, the earth and all that goes on it, man and every moment he makes or thoughts he thinks. Nothing can be separate from Consciousness, and nothing can be ‘fallen.’ There can only be the myriad expression of Consciousness, which is neither good nor evil, but is infinite experience.

“God is not a being outside the Self, not has it gender, nor it is burdened with a desire to find fault or to test, or a need to command obedience. God is Consciousness---which is All There Is. And we are how it knows itself in all its infinite variety. God is an endless timeless dance of joyous creation. All this, so that God might know itself---and glory in the contemplation thereof.”

I don't recall reading anything better or more lovely. To underscore my agreement, I include a picture from a recent village welcome I received, part of that endless timeless dance of joyous creation Mary Magdalene describes!