On Mary Magdalene

[mari4212]

So in religion class this afternoon, we're talking about images of Mary Magdalene in art throughout the ages. Amoung other images, Mary is often pictured with long red hair, pearls, books, a cross, and a jar of ointment. And then it struck me.

According to those images, I am Mary Magdalene. My name, Margaret, comes from the Greek language, and means pearl. I have long red hair, I am never without a book, I normally wear a cross, and I give massages, sometimes with massage oil. If I lived four hundred years ago, I could have been used by all those Rennaisance artists who were painting Mary.

This is either interesting or disturbing, I haven't figured out which yet.

Comments

[ljmckay.livejournal.com]

Hey, that's pretty cool! I think, anyway...

[mari4212.livejournal.com]

It is cool. What's disturbing is that most people still think of her as a whore, which is the reason she was portrayed with all those things.

[ljmckay.livejournal.com]

Yes, well, let's focus on the positive...

Okay, now, I always get this confused. Was Mary Magdalene the one who washed Jesus' feet, or was that someone else?

[mari4212.livejournal.com]

No, that's an anonymous woman, commonly referred to as the woman with an alablastor jar, and she's sometimes conflated with Mary Magdalene.

Mary Magdalene was a woman with seven demons, and Jesus exorcised them. Afterwards, she was a follower of Jesus, and possibly supported his ministry. In all four gospels, she was there at the foot of the cross, and was at the empty tomb. In two of the gospels, she is the first/one of the first to see the risen Christ.

[ljmckay.livejournal.com]

Okay. I knew about the demons, the cross, and the garden. The woman with the alabaster jar was the prostitute, right? Or is that another misconception?

[mari4212.livejournal.com]

Actually, the text just refers to her as a sinner. However, through the ages most people have interpreted that to mean that she was a prostitute.

[ljmckay.livejournal.com]

Ah, okay. Thanks! (I should probably open my own Bible and look, but I'm too lazy...)

[mari4212.livejournal.com]

It's convenient to have a friend who knows this stuff backwards and forwards, isn't it?

I've been fascinated by religion for years, and have been annoying my teachers by correcting them in class since seventh grade. One of the best things about hitting college is that my teachers know more than I do again.

[ljmckay.livejournal.com]

It's convenient to have a friend who knows this stuff backwards and forwards, isn't it?

;) Very.

[ljmckay.livejournal.com]

Personally, I've been into the Apocalypse for a while. Left Behind got me into it originally, but I think the actual account in Revelation is amazing on its own.

[mari4212.livejournal.com]

It is interesting, although it's not my favorite part of the Bible.

I do like some of the imagery, especially the line: He (God) will wipe every tear from their eyes 21: 4

This could be because I heard it first in a song by Michael Card, on his cd inspired by Revelation.

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Oh wow. My mom has really long red hair and I've seen lots of gorgeous paintings of redheads but never knew that was how Mary Magdalene was frequently portrayed. (I'm not Catholic -- as we've established -- and have never had any real interest in Catholic art.)

Books, huh? Most of the stuff I can kinda see as signifiers of whoredom, but how do books fit into that?

Also: yay massages! I took a class this summer and loved it, but it's so awkward to fit a table into my house and astonishingly hard to find people to practice on, so I'm not even sure I'm gonna get enough practice hours by the deadline to get credit for the class.

[mari4212.livejournal.com]

The books are typically assumed to be the Bible, and are used in paintings showing a repentant Mary Magdalene.

Well, as for the massage table question, you could always put a couple of folded towels down on a floor. Easier to arrange quickly. And you can always draft family, or ask someone from the class, if there's someone there that you'd be comfortable doing this with, if they'd be willing to practice with you. You could each take a turn, and you'd get practice and a massage out of it.

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Ah, interesting.

I've been drafting family, but even so it's been hard to mesh schedules.

I do actually have a table (we don't learn enough body mechanics to do work on the floor until Massage 2) it's just awkward 'cause I have to move stuff around to make room to set it up. Eh, don't mind me, I'm just feeling bleh-y 'cause I was really psyched but it's been hard to work out plus I just started a new job and so I'm feeling too tired to do much of anything and thus am feeling bleh-y. *shuts up now*

[mari4212.livejournal.com]

Sympathetic noises, sympathetic noises. I've been giving backrubs since I was in second grade, but most of them have been casual rubs, rather than the full on massage, and I've never actually taken a class on it.

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Aww, thanks.

I've been giving casual backrubs for years, and a friend suggested I do it professionally, so after graduating college and getting rejected from grad schools [which was far from unexpected as Ph.D. programs are hella competitive] I took a summer class. I loved it, but I'm currently having to figure out how I can work it into my life and whether it's worth the effort. There's a weekend workshop on chair massage in December which I'm very excited about (getting people to let you massage them when they're naked under the sheets often takes some convincing) but i'm fairly definitively not signing up for the fall semester Massage 2 class.

[mari4212.livejournal.com]

Ah. Yeah, I've heard rumors about how tough the PhD track can be. Makes me glad that I've got a place held for me for my PT masters program, as long as I keep the grades up.

I thought about doing massage therapy, but then I heard about PT, and I've always loved helping people, so I thought that would be a better fit.