July 22: Saint Mary Magdalene

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant---
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind---
                -----Emily Dickinson

So, everyone knows some story about Mary Magdalene, whether from the Bible or The DaVinci Code.  Depending on your sources, Mary was either the wife of Jesus and mother of His child; the adulterous woman Jesus saved from being stoned ("Let the person who is without sin cast the first stone"); the woman who washed Jesus' feet with her tears and dried them with her hair; or the sister of Martha and Lazarus (you know, the guy Jesus raised from the dead).  It's amazing how many narratives surround Mary Magdalene.  Even leaders of the Church can't seem to get their facts straight.  Two facts that everyone seems to agree upon, however, is that (1) Mary Magdalene was at the foot of the cross with John and the Virgin Mary and (2) Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene first on Easter morning, before anyone else.  Aside from those two biographical details, everything else is up for grabs.  This saint is always portrayed by the hottest actresses in the movies:  Charlotte Graham, Monica Belluci, Barbara Hershey, and Juliette Binoche.

Truth is such a relative thing.  Tonight, my book club is meeting for a barbecue.  Our book for this month was The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield.  It is a really good read, full of murder and moors and ghosts and mental illness.  I'd recommend it to anyone who likes gothic novels like Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.  I also recommend it to fans of Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.  If you're a lover of books, you'll really like TTT.  Above all, this book is about the search for truth and the various "truths" people tell about themselves.

You see, I think most of us tell stories about ourselves.  Those stories are versions of the truth, the versions we choose to share, leaving out or changing the details that we don't want released to the general public.  It's not really lying.  It's doing what every writer does every day:  pick and choose, select and arrange, embellish and polish.  Even when I sit down to blog, I leave out facts, change names and genders, exaggerate for humor, obscure for privacy.  But all good writing gets at the truth.  That's what's satisfying about reading a novel or memoir or poem.  When you're done reading, you feel like you somehow have gotten a glimpse of something bone real, clear.

I know someone right now who is struggling with addiction.  (Plug in whatever addiction you want.  It doesn't matter.)  "Frank" has struggled with this addiction for quite a while.  In the last few years, Frank has been on pretty level ground.  No binges.  No lost weekends.  Frank's family members, who have been through the trenches with him, are now faced with the prospect of a full-throttled, out-of-control descent into addiction.  Frank's household is in lock down.  Nobody is sure which Frank is going to show up--the loving, sweet uncle/brother/friend or the deceitful, angry stranger/junkie.  Stepping into Frank's house right now is like entering a battle zone.  Everyone walks around like there are land mines in the carpeting.

Now, if I were writing fiction, I would fabricate some kind of intervention where Frank eventually dissolves into tears, realizing the hurt and pain he's causing the people who love him.  It would be one of those Lifetime movie moments that involve a lot of snot and hugging.  I wish I was writing fiction.

I'm not.

There's no easy, quick fix to this problem.  Honestly, Frank may never reach that moment of clarity or revelation.  He might just bounce from periods of extended sobriety to months of addictive indulgence and back again.  Or he may end up dead.  Or he may one day realize he's going to lose everything and everybody he values and loves in his life, and he'll never turn back to his addiction again.  The end of his story isn't written yet.

For Mary Magdalene, for Frank, for me, the truth is still out there (cue The X-Files theme).  The narrative is still being written.  I prefer the older versions of Mary Magdalene, pre-Dan Brown.  I like to think that Frank's story is going to resolve happily.  I like to think the same for me.

That's what faith gives me:  hope.

Hope for a happy ending.