Dearest Earthlings,
When I first visited this house with our real estate agent, I had been feeling called to find a place for contemplation and prayer, a place to bring our untraditional church with an Arts Ministry to work ecologically to grow and pray for our own healthy food, creating a safe harbor during ecologic disaster, a place to work to save paradise. The address took my breath away. 15435 Strong Road and 153 is the Magdalene number and the number of the divine feminine according to gematria. Gematria is a system that assigns each letter in Greek, the language the New Testament was written in, to a number which has symbolic meaning. The word Magdalene means tower and tower of strength and the combination of numbers 15435 and "Strong Road" caught my attention. The icing on the cake is the color, a very unusual color for a house -- bright pink! Synchronicity, a word coined by Carl Jung, is a meaningful coincidence of two or more events where something other than the probability of chance is involved. When we have a synchronistic experience some hidden but important truth may be revealed and gift us with new direction and guidance.
The spirit of Mary Magdalene said to me once in a dream while staying near her cave in the south of France. "I've been waiting for you." She is waiting here for you and all of us here on Strong Road. She is calling us during fires, floods and pandemics here in her paradise, her garden. She is the earth who continues to sing a love song as ancient as the Song of Songs,
"Winds of the south and winds of the north, wake up and blow now: breathe through my garden, drive him mad with my fragrance, draw him into my garden; let his tongue stop its talking, let it taste my choice fruits. I enter your garden, my sister-bride, to gather myrrh and spice. I eat of your honeycomb, and drink honeyed wine with sweet milk. Eat, friends, and drink! Sate yourselves, oh lovers." ( The Inclusive Bible: The First Egalitarian Translation by Priests for Equality)
Church for Our Common Home began several years ago as the Church of Mary Magdalene, a home church following in the footsteps of the early church when women were spiritual teachers and leaders, women like Mary Magdalene. The teachings of Jesus transformed and empowered women two thousand years ago and has continued to do so throughout history. Stumbling on the teachings of Jesus, as an adult myself, the teachings of nonviolence, love of enemies, forgiveness and a God of love with me always, rocked my world and I have never been the same. As I studied the teachings of Jesus in seminary, I was lucky for I was also learning that Mary Magdalene was probably Jesus's wife, lover, mother of his children and co-minister. Jesus's love for women was as radical in the ancient world as it is today. Women are called today, after their service as mothers caring for the young to mature into wise elders, leaders and teachers like Mary Magdalene. There are legends that Mary Magdalene escaped after Jesus was tortured and murdered by the Roman Empire and as a refugee she brought his-- rather their teachings of radical love, to the south of France. For who taught Jesus about love? One person surely was one of his main teachers about love, Mary Magdalene.
Church for Our Common Home became our new name and direction when we made a deeper commitment to heal the ecologic planetary crisis which has its roots in the spiritual crisis when we do not understand or live as if all living creatures, including men, women, children, animals, plants, as well as large living organisms, like our planet, are sacred and interconnected. We are a holy whole. Dr. John Cobb Jr. a great teacher and supporter of Church for Our Common Home shares the initials JC with Jesus Christ. Our new name for this five acre farm and garden has become the John Cobb Eco Farm. Behind our pink house and retreat center, here on the JC Eco Farm is the Mary Magdalene Cafe, a patio in a beautiful rose garden where we break bread together after worship in the same way people did for the first couple of centuries of the early church. Not celibate men or virgin mothers, but grown men and women, some sexually active and in intimate love relationships who were and are inspired to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and Mary Magdalene in the garden.
Our new home in Oregon, is dedicated to Mother Earth, the divine feminine, loving community and the arts offers and offers an alternative to the abuse of the institutional celibate church taken over by the Roman Empire a few hundred years after Jesus and Mary Magdalene lived. Jesus was a Jew and most likely he was married. Mary Magdalene was betrayed when the Catholic church called her a prostitute when there is not one word about her being a prostitute in the Bible.
Thank you to Margaret Starbird, the modern living prophet and one of the first scholars to write a revisionist history that challenges the lies of the misogynistic, celibate, patriarchal church and brings back the lost bride, Mary Magdalene. Please listen to the interview I had with Margaret Starbird on our church web site. Podcasts — Church For Our Common Home
Margaret's courageous personal journey celebrates prayer, scripture study, gematria,, truth telling and a deep honoring of synchronicities and symbolism. It is an invitation for all of us to follow Spirit into an inner garden and love.
The Black Madonna has always been the logo of our ministry, seen here to the left with my addition of the photo of Mother Earth in her hand along with the earth made into her and babies halo. The Black Madonna is often been a symbol of Mary Magdalene. Perhaps this is a girl daughter not a son in her lap? She is the wounded feminine scares on her face. Many ancient goddesses were rendered dark to represent night and the feminine principle in juxtaposition to the sun, day and solar masculine principles and archetypes. Mary Magdalene, the lost Bride for two thousand years has been left out of our religious imagination and consciousness contributing to the sun and solar principle being dangerously out of balance. Please join us as we seek to live in balance and celebrate the spirits of Mary Magdalene and Jesus in holy union in the garden.
Please join us for a series for several weeks in worship beginning next Sunday in honor of Mary Magdalene. Her story is the heart of the story of Christianity. Love is stronger than death. The love between Jesus and Mary Magdalene in life and after death and in the imaginal realm is our guide during this unparalleled historic time as we witness the death of eco systems as well as personal and collective painful loss.
Preparing for Death, In God's Garden of Love "For this God is our God for ever and ever. S/he will be our guide even unto death." Psalm 48:14
Love always,
Bonnie Zoom ID 3025719458 (no password needed)
"The imaginal realm is real, and through it you will never be separated from anyone or anything you have ever loved, for love is the ground in which you live and move and have your being. This is the message that Mary Magdalene has perennially to bring. This is the message we most need to hear." The Meaning of Mary Magdalene, Cynthia Bourgeult
