(no subject)

[gospel-of-mary.insanejournal.com]

WHO: Mary Magdalene
WHEN: Thursday
WHERE: Jerusalem
WHAT: Old lands remade.

At the airport Mary had no idea where she was even going. The first thing that came to mind was to once again travel along the Colorado River, but she had taken Huitzilopochtli that way last time and the whole trek would only remind her of him. And right now Mary couldn't handle any reminder of the Aztec.

Instead when she reached the desk she handed over her money and passport and asked for a ticket to Jerusalem.

It seemed impossible, this idea that she'd never been back there. She'd lived such a long time looking for her Lord and had never even planned a return to the land they had once lived in together.

But once she arrived and walked the streets of the Old City in silence she realized why she'd never done this: there was nothing holy here, nothing familiar. Tourists lined up for hours to enter the shine that marked the place of His death and Mary felt no connection to any of it. This city was a stranger to her and Jesus wasn't here. In some ways she felt he was even less here than he had been in America. She had travelled six thousands miles just to learn that worn-out cliches were cliches for a reason: you can never go home again. For Mary, the Middle East wasn't her home any more than America was. Mary's home had been a time and a man.

Before today she could have fooled herself into the idea that any and all disconnections were because she was far from the land of her birth, but she couldn't believe that any more. All she once loved was dust.

She wept in front of tour groups crowding the city and maybe they thought it was because she was overwhelmed with experience, touched by the hand of God Himself. They didn't see a woman who had just lost two men in a space of a few days. They didn't see the repentant sinner, the lost and broken Magdalen.

There were far too many people here and so she just started walking, finding them more spread out as she moved until, after a couple of hours, she was walking alone at the edge of the desert. Eventually it was just her and the sound of the birds above. Sitting down among the scrub she looked to the cloudy sky, watching the birds of prey circle there.

She didn't cry. Perhaps she'd run out of tears for now, a rare event for Mary Magdalene. She always had tears ready, always depicted with shining eyes raised heavenward as she begged for forgiveness. She begged that forgiveness now, in the desert of her youth.

Please Lord, forgive me my sins for they are many.

On of the eagles cried and disappeared in a dive behind the mountains.

Mary counted out her sins like grains of rice.

I have lied.

I have cheated.

I have embraced violence.

I have denied you, My Lord and Maker, and all your teachings and your blessings.

I have lusted.

I have betrayed the Son. I have betrayed the vows I made to him.

I have loved a murderer. I have turned a blind eye to the blood of innocent people so that I could keep him.

I have betrayed everything that I was.

In the Judean Desert her Christ had resisted temptations for forty days and forty nights. Mary stood and drew up her headscarf, turning to face the open expanse of land and making her choice.

Forty days and forty nights, or as long as this land would let her stay.