Mary Magdalene Part 4 Babette Christianity

I am continuing this online course Mary Magdalene: Apostle for our Times by noted contemplative scholar Cynthia Bourgeault.  I am printing personal reflection questions about this week's lesson.

• Question #1
• Cynthia uses the 1987 film Babette’s Feast as an example of the Magdalenic path of squandering riches through a generous outpouring of love and abundance. Does this change how you think about Christianity? About Jesus?  

7/15 This is a diary entry of my experience of "Babette Christianity":   I am at the Starbucks for my morning coffee.  Standing near me is a young African American man looking slightly anxious.  I am sitting at a table near him at the entrance of the Store.  I chide myself for having a stereotypical reaction to the young man for his age and race.  I am thinking about the story of Babette's extravagant kenosis of giving away herself.  Then, he comes directly toward me.  He speaks, saying that he was 25 years old, and asking me if will I buy him a coffee.  I shake his hand and ask his name.  We go inside the store to stand in line.  He orders a lunchbox.  I thought, I can use my rewards for free food.  Then he grabs a yogurt to buy, and I gesture yes. We reached the register, and he orders a snicker doodle frappucino. The order completely empties my Starbucks balance, and I pay the difference with my credit card.  I say good luck to him and go back to my table.  I am writing this now thinking this episode is completely motivated by this notion of abundance and self-emptying which Cynthia Bourgeault calls "Babette Christianity". I must say that being extravagantly abundant, resisting my common sense of frugality, does fill me with a sense of aliveness and daring.   I wonder if this is the same idea of abundance Cynthia Bourgeault refers to as Mary Magdalene anoints Jesus with extravagant oil and wipes with her hair.  For this unique moment I feel I have emptied myself of moral judgments and conventions.  I share food with someone who is hungry.  I like the idea of being rebellious to the dogma of American individualism.  Adam Smith, the philosopher of capitalism, is turning in his grave because I'm not acting in my own self-interest. Maybe Cynthia Bourgeault is right that Jesus has something different to say about consumerism.  For this unique moment, I celebrate exploring kenosis and abundance. But the practical side of me quickly decides that I will not repeat this gesture any time soon. 

• Question #2

• As we’ve learned, many early Christian communities formed around Mary and her teachings. How does recovering Mary Magdalene as a key disciple of Jesus and as an archetype for female leadership shift your own views of the origins and heart of the Christian tradition?  
  

  I think Cynthia Bourgeault has very expansive and revolutionary insight about the message of Mary Magdalene.  The modern church needs common sense balance between male and female now more than ever.  The patriarchal institutional church removed the gospels from the bible showing teachings of Jesus with Mary Magdalene as disciple and perhaps even co-minister.  The feminine imagery in the church has been the virgin mother Mary.  Mary Magdalene very much bucks the patriarchal system.  She legitimizes female ministry and leadership.  Relevant for today, Mary Magdalene points to a spirituality of conscious love.  Showing that celibacy is not the higher spiritual requirement for enlightenment, Mary Magdalene models love relationships as enhancing spirituality.  The path of conscious love is called the "Fifth Way".  I recommend reading Cynthia Bourgeault's book, The Meaning of Mary Magdalene", to get a full description of the fifth way path. 

• Question 3 

• Cynthia ends this week's teaching by saying that love lies in the direction of expansion and aliveness. What does this kind of expansion and aliveness feel like in you? What steps would you like to take in your life now to grow your trust in the deeper longing within you and to continue on the path to becoming fully human? 

I have talked in an earlier blog part 2 about the difference in the path of becoming fully human versus a traditional path of redemption to a perfect heavenly world. Mary Magdalene points to this embodied path.  Becoming fully human means celebrating my bodiliness and sensing aliveness down to my cells.  I realize that my thinking consciousness arises from my cellular consciousness.  My sense of person-hood is embedded in circles of relationships: from the food and sun giving me energy; from my family, friends, and ancestors who loved me into being; and from billions of years of life force molded by evolution.  I continue centering prayer and chanting to grow into the path of becoming fully human. This work needs a community.