Today is International Women’s Day.

All major strategists agree that in order to make a significant response to the danger posed by global injustice it is imperative to include women fully in the structures of power. When I worked as a volunteer I learned that major agencies involved with world development aim to focus aid on women and girls because that way, aid is shared fairly and reaches the poorest.

We rightly try to avoid generalisations and stereotypes so its difficult to speak of women and girls as a gender without offending some sensitivities but it does seem clear that although we are equal, we are different – we seem to have differing perspectives and priorities.

This lent on Thursday evenings here at Mill Hill a small group has been considering some women mystics. We ‘ve been using Evelyn Underhill’s book ‘Practical Mysticism’ as a guide through which to shed light on older mystical voices like Juliana of Norwich and more recent ones such as Simone Weil. I’ve been surprised to discover such a clear and strong continuity of thought between these women from such different ages and backgrounds and faith traditions. Put simply their vision is of a deity unified with everyday life, a vision of God in and through all things. We heard Julianas vision of all creation being placed in her palm and her recognition that God shared in it , loved it and kept it. We heard Evelyn Underhill speaking of the need to recognise that there is more than only a human perspective on reality; that the way a fish perceives the sea, and the way a primrose perceives the sunlight, are just as important from the perspective of the Almighty as our compartmentalised human understanding. We ‘ve read some poetry too that expresses equally clearly this holistic and egalitarian vision of spirituality.
The continuity of these voices may be seen as a positive endorsement of the reality of a vision which is beyond orthodoxy, which is non doctrinal, and is without creed. A mystical vision which lends itself immediately to the liberal religious consciousness. A holistic vision it sees the world as a single entity, an interconnected web of life which exists within and throughout the divine.

Last week I spoke about Ruth one of the characters in the window to your right which is partly obscured by the staircase. Its a window which was dedicated to the memory of a woman, Ann Kitson, and it depicts four women from scripture: Ruth, Martha, Dorcas and Mary Magdalen. Last week I quoted Richard Rohr’s assertion that there is a pattern of relational spirituality which is “hidden in plain sight” throughout the scriptures. And Ricahrd Rohr also said that “for some reason the obvious always needs to be pointed out to us.”

But some things are obscured actually, are partially hidden from view.

The Gospel of Mary Magdalen was discovered in its fragmentary form in the 1850s in Egypt, it was bought by a German collector and assumed to be a forgery, it was stored and then lost and forgotten about until two other small fragments of the Gospel of Mary, from separate Greek editions, were  unearthed in archaeological excavations at Oxyrhynchus in lower Egypt. “Finding three fragments of a text of this antiquity is extremely unusual, and it is thus evidenced that the Gospel of Mary was well distributed in early Christian times and existed in both an original Greek and a Coptic language translation.”

This text  may not be as old and contemporary with the other gospels but it was certainly in evidence in early Christian communities.

Listen to this fragment from where the surviving text begins (in mid chapter)

The Savior said, All nature, all formations, all creatures exist in and with one another, and they will be resolved again into their own roots.
23) For the nature of matter is resolved into the roots of its own nature alone.
24) He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

interesting isn’t it? That it pre-echoes much of the mystical writing we’ve been considering. Synchronicity or coincidence I wonder? and then later

31) That is why I said to you, Be of good courage, and if you are discouraged be encouraged in the presence of the different forms of nature.
32) He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
33) When the Blessed One had said this, He greeted them all,saying, Peace be with you. Receive my peace unto yourselves.
34) Beware that no one lead you astray saying Lo here or lo there! For the Son of Man is within you.
35) Follow after Him!
36) Those who seek Him will find Him.

I just find it fascinating that these words expressing such similar theology as the later mystics we ve been finding out about are attributed to Mary Magdalen, this archetype of femininity.

Compare how close the sentiment is to these words by the twentieth century Simone Weil:

“the real aim is not to see god in all things, it is that God, through us, should see the things that we see, God has got to be on the side of the subject and not of the object… We must not go to the help of our neighbour for Christ but through Christ. Let the ‘I’ disappear in such a way that Christ, thanks to the intermediary formed by our soul and body, himself goes to the help of our neighbour. We must be the servant who is sent by his master to give certain particular help, to a certain particular person in distress. The help comes from the master but it is addressed to the person in distress.

I love this development of the central  idea of mysticism; that God sees and acts through us, if we are able to be channels of God’s peace, and grace.

I hear resonances too in these words of Poet Adrienne Rich (from her poem Transcendental Etudes)
‘But there come times—perhaps this is one of them
when we have to take ourselves more seriously or die;
we when have to pull back from the incantations,
rhythms we’ve moved to thoughtlessly,
and disenthrall ourselves, bestow
ourselves to silence, or a severer listening, cleansed
of oratory, formulas, choruses, laments, static
crowding the wires…’

And I hear it also in Evelyn Underhill; who in 1915 said:

“It is your business to actualize within the world of time and space, perhaps by great endeavours, perhaps by small ones in… the perpetual give and take of the common life—that more real life, that holy creative energy…You shall work for mercy, order, beauty, significance; you shall mend where you find things broken, and make where you find the need.”

Amen