Revelations (3 page)

“Perhaps this time will be the right time for you and he…” The words fall between us almost stealthily, so soft and so insidious it takes me a moment or two to actually ascertain what she has said, although my heart has caught on more quickly than my brain. What? What does she mean? Surely, she isn’t saying…has something happened, has something been changed I’m unaware of, a revision I’ve not received? Oh please, my God, please, tell me I have a ghost of a chance, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart. Any chance at all, as for over two thousand years I have had none whatsoever.

“M-Mary…” Damn, I’m stuttering like a fool, spit it out man, ask the fucking question. “Mary, do you—”

Too late. As surely as I’ve turned my attention from the watery revelers, they’ve given up the sanctity of the pond to converge upon us. No, not now, not now, I find myself almost protesting aloud, as Jesus drapes a damp arm about his mother’s neck, coming up behind her in welcome, bending down toward her. She turns her cheek to receive his kiss, but her almond-shaped eyes remain enigmatically focused upon me. Damnation! What does she mean? But there’s no help for it now, I must grin and bear it. I know I won’t get another word out of her until she’s ready to release it.

“Is everything ready for tonight?” she asks her son. Surely she knows the answer to that question; she’s simply changing the subject to end our discussion.

When is Jesus ever not prepared? I make quite sure of that—it’s what I do, after all.

“Yes, Mother,” he replies fondly, indulgently, happily, raising his dark eyes to mine, and my protestations die, aborted upon my lips. Why am I so weak when it comes to him? Why can’t I say what I mean, how I feel? Am I never to have any rights in this matter?

But the moment has passed, and now the talk turns to tonight, so I simply bite my tongue, and bide my time…as usual.

Whore, slut, sinner, liar, lesbian, saint. Blessed, holy, virtuous—and many other things I ain’t. I’ve heard them all over the years. Been reviled, revered, admired, and despised. Laughed at, worshiped, respected, and abused. That’s a whole lot of emotions to stir up just for one woman, don’t you think? And not only that, but I’ve been confused with a whole bunch of other women over the course of time, so it becomes necessary for me to look real carefully to sort out just where the truth lies, between all the tangled skeins of the stories that have been threaded throughout the generations. And generally I come to discover it wasn’t me to begin with.

Whore, saint, prostitute, abused wife, harlot, temptress—a lot of those epitaphs I lay directly on Judas’ lap. Not that I’d ever touch his body, mind you, nor he mine. But I do blame him, make no mistake about that. Even if he doesn’t do it openly, I suspect he’s responsible because he hates me with a ferocity that hasn’t dimmed any over the course of the past couple millennia, but has grown stronger if anything. But that’s his trip, not mine. I’ve worn many hats during my lifetimes, and done whatever I needed to do to survive. All within the framework of the master plan, of course. Never forgetting the master plan. At the same time I’ve worked to achieve my own personal growth as much as it’s been humanly possible.

Again within the context of the times; some periods were easier than others. For example, there were more freedoms to exercise being a woman in ancient Rome than being one during Victorian England. Stands to reason, though. All part of the evolution of mankind. Anyone find it amusing that I said evolution? Creationists?

Darwinists? Anyone? Never mind. Never let it be said, though, I chose to be less than who I am, or that I didn’t always take myself seriously. Except, of course, for those occasions when humor was more appropriate. Even if not always understood.

I admit I’ve got a rather strange sense of humor. For example, I think when Judas called me a lesbian I had one of my biggest laughs ever. The fact is I laughed so hard I damn near choked. But it was well worth it. Naturally Jesus rushed to my aid. I had the pleasure of watching Judas’ face suddenly morph into this turbulent black raging storm cloud of pure hatred. The irony of it. Being accused by him of being gay, when heaven only knows
that
is the proverbial pot calling the kettle black. Whether the fool admits to it or not, we all know it. And laugh at him behind his back. Not for being gay, of course, but for just being him. I admit I do egg him on. I stoke the flames of his jealousy over Jesus by touching the Master every chance I get, by fawning and hovering around him—not that I wouldn’t do it anyway, ’cause of course I love him—who doesn’t? But not to this extent, and not in that way. My greatest joy in life is simply to annoy the fuck out of Judas Iscariot.

Well, my second greatest joy, anyway.

Which is all a rather longwinded introduction that leads to me—Mary Magdalene. In case you haven’t guessed by now. Although that’s not the name I’m known by in this particular time. Of course none of us use our real names, except amongst one another. It just wouldn’t be kosher. Or serve any useful purpose.

What is my current name? You’d know it, of course, so for the purposes of this tale, I’ll content myself with being known as M. Simple, short, and to the point.

Sorry to disappoint, but there you have it.

For those who are confused thus far, and I imagine there are a few, especially if you’ve read any of Judas’ writings—that man has more twists and turns to his mind than any of Satan’s minions—I’ll try to clear things up as much as possible.

And hopefully between me and the other apostles, Judas excepted, things will become clearer.

I’m sure there’s no need to go into the original story. That’s far too well known and has been for years. Jesus’ life story, and to a lesser degree the rest of us, has been covered ad infinitum for over two thousand years. His birth, his life, his death

—his teachings, his miracles, his followers, his precepts. Nothing much left to be said there, hmmmm? And how the world is holding its collective breath in anticipation of His Second Coming, the revelation, the rapture—etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

But what I think a lot of people fail to comprehend is God doesn’t always reveal everything. He sometimes plays his cards close to the vest, and for what I consider to be very good reasons—the complacency of mankind that anticipates all its problems will be solved when He sends His son to them again. But that was never His plan, to make a big hoopla production out of Jesus’ return—an end of the earth party, so long and thanks for the memories sort of thing. What useful purpose would that serve? And what lesson would be learned? No, He’s more subtle than that. He’s God, after all, the Creator—the one that knows. And He knows mankind pretty damn well.

No, it was never His intention to hoard His son, to simply put him upon the earth, allow him to live there for thirty some-odd years, and then yank him away for a long, long,
long
time before returning him once again, amid a great deal of glitter and fanfare, as a fait accompli, a pied piper to lead the faithful to their just reward. Again, what purpose does that serve? That simply denotes a disinterest in the future of mankind as a whole, a belief that only some people shall be with Him in the afterlife. Why has mankind decided God would ever pick and choose in that way? Did He not create everyone in his image? Does He not
love
everyone?

Equally? Did He not allow His only begotten son to
die
for everyone’s sins, to cleanse them, to prepare them for the glory of the Lord? To those who claim He is perfect and infallible, let me repeat—He made mankind in His image, did He not?

Therefore I believe—no, I know—He possesses more than a touch of humanity. As well as a damn good sense of humor. You are molded in His image, do not presume to mold Him to yours.

I think that to understand, though, why some people believe this to be so, you must first realize that although the Bible is the word of God, it was written by men.

Human men, well after the fact. Not only that, but it was written over the course of many years, and has gone through various interpretations and translations over those years. And that what means something in one time and place doesn’t always mean the same in another. Not to take away from the men who wrote the words, but as I said, they were only human. And they were not Him.

There are those who will argue that’s all well and good but He spoke
through
them, merely gave them the words to say. Again, I repeat—the Bible was written by men, most of whom weren’t even firsthand witnesses to the events. Recipients of stories handed down, told and retold before it reached them.

At one time there was a game, played mostly by young people, in the mid to late twentieth century, I think, but don’t hold me to that date. It went by different names—Gossip, Telephone—what have you. The basic premise and the intent was rather the same regardless of the name. One person whispers a secret to the person beside him, who whispers that secret to the next one, and so on and so forth until it ends up back where it began, with the original teller of the tale. The object is to see how much the “secret” has changed in the course of the telling, through miscommunication and/or misunderstanding, and have a good laugh over it. Which is generally quite a bit. And that’s just within a short period of time. Now add years to that, as well as miles, a great many more people, plus translation into and out of various languages, some of them long dead and rather arcane, and you’ll see why things become hazy and misunderstood. And never lose sight of the fact that they’re given, of course, with a male perspective. Not to put down those of the XY

persuasion, but they have this thing about being dominant, and they tend to write themselves the best parts in the story. Is it small wonder women are generally given short shrift? And a great deal of blame for the problems of the world? And don’t get me started on that rib story, either.

Now I’m wandering off the beaten track, and that wasn’t my intention. Let me back up and start all over again.

As I started to say, God’s more subtle than that. And He loves His children far more than they seem to give Him credit for. And like all good parents, He can’t completely sit back and leave them to their own devices. He wants them to learn, of course, to understand their mistakes, correct them and move on. That’s where we come in.

Jesus, Mary, the Apostles, and I.

He sends us forth into different times, different places, different situations—

unrecognizable except to one another. He gives us the script; we play our parts in our attempts to direct humanity to a better understanding of itself. Which makes for some rather interesting stories, let me tell you. Perhaps later, I’ll tell you some of mine, but not right now. And if you’re lucky, Judas won’t mention any of his.

’Cause let me tell ya, that man is boring and abhorrent in any place and time.

How do we do this, you might ask, through what miracle do we appear and reappear time after time after time? The miracle of God, of course, though some may call it reincarnation. A resurrection by any other name…. The gist of the matter is we’ve a message to deliver, and sometimes part of it gets through, but at other times we simply fall flat on our faces. Ours is not to make the judgment call, and God tells us not to be discouraged by any particular failure, but rather to be optimistic in our successes. Sometimes, though, that’s hard to do, because it inevitably ends the same way. With Jesus’ death. Which is rather difficult to take, even at the best of times. Even knowing what we do, that he’ll return to us one day.

And we’ll be right there with him. Yet living through it…well, it’s difficult, for all of us. It must be especially so for his mother. But Mary never complains. I think I admire her more than any woman I’ve ever known. God chose wisely when He selected her to be the mother of His only son.

Take these modern times we live in now—I have to say they appear to be pretty fucked up in lots of ways. Wars are far too prevalent. Too many people are going hungry, too many are homeless. Some people have far more wealth than they can ever hope to use, while so many don’t even have the basic necessities of life.

It’s so unbalanced. And I’m tired of hearing those who say, well, if a person makes all that money, he should be able to keep it for himself. I think that’s a damn selfish attitude, ’cause face it, some people will never have the chance to even live, much less worry about accumulating money. It’s just annoying to me. And yet at the same time I know the winds of change are in the air; there are people who aren’t content to sit back and allow the rights of others to be trampled upon. There are good people who want to make a difference. They’re trying. You can find them all over the world, and that’s a good thing.

As for Judas, he may consider me homophobic, but that purely isn’t true. I just hate him, and I would no matter what, were he heterosexual or bisexual or anything else. Sorry, that’s just the way it is. Some of the other apostles are gay, I don’t hate them for it. I consider them to be my brothers, I love them sincerely.

Okay, maybe some of them more than others. I won’t deny it. I’ve slept with a few of them before, and shall continue to do so in the future. Nothing wrong with that, no matter what Mr. Iscariot thinks. And it isn’t as if he hasn’t also. Do I care? No, not at all. Would I care if he were ever to attain the biggest goal he seeks—namely, the Master? Believe it or not, no, I wouldn’t, because if Jesus chose to be with him, then I’d respect that decision. Maybe not understand it, but respect it, yes.

Do I think Jesus will ever do that? Do I think he feels any of the things which Judas so obviously does for him? I couldn’t and I wouldn’t presume to say. That’s not my call to make. All I
do
know is Jesus and I’ll never share such an intimacy because neither of us desires it, and I’m content with that. Will I ever tell Judas that? Fuck no. That’d deprive me of the opportunity to annoy him.