Featured Article

What If It Were True?

By MaryBeth Scalice

What If He lives?
What if He never died?
What if I never die?
Is it possible? 
I – in the midst of me, never dying.
What if this isn’t the end
or the middle or any chapter of my life?
What if life couldn’t be counted by years,
or ages, beginnings or endings?

I am thinking about all of this.
I am feeling the presence 
of Mary of Magdala 
who cried out, Master!
She didn’t recognize Him at first,
until He spoke. Then she Saw Him,
She reached out, a torrent of passion.
He was not dead! 
But Jess said, 
not yet.  I have not yet ascended.

I have been thinking about not yet. 
I have been reaching with the hands
of the Lover to grasp Him, but He draws back…
Patience, trust. 
refrain from this touch 
not this way,
not yet.

I wonder if the Magdalene’s kisses, 
her embrace was temptation for Jess;
a little tug to identify once more with the body. 
How much He must have loved her!
How desperate her attempt to clutch, 
vowing never to let His body go again. 

When I consider all these things, 
when I ponder the words and actions
of the apostles upon Seeing Him,
I believe.  
But belief is not enough.  

The disciple, Thomas did not believe
until he had touched the wounds 
of the resurrected Jesus. 
I want more than Thomas wanted, 
more than the belief that follows doubt.  
I want to know.

Can I know anything here, in this world?
As far as I can tell, Jesus is not in this world.
But then He is here. Real, apparent
through personal effects, miracles, movements.
He came to Thomas who was unbelieving.
Would He not come unto my devoted belief?

I do not want to touch Your wounds, Jesse. 
I long to feel Your Life, Your pulse,
to rise with you in ascension, 
pulling me into the Father 
like breath into Lungs.
I want to know union, not flesh.

Many days I am sure. I am certain, I feel
the eyes of the Christ looking through my own.
Many days I am more than host to Word,
more than temple. I am the Self, Christ.
Then I fall prey to beliefs, and concepts,
wanting to bring His body close to mine;
wanting to bring my body close to God.

Not yet.
Not this way.
The true Body of Christ is Spirit, is Life. 
The true Body of God is One Creation,
through everyone, everything, everywhere, One. 
I grasp at ideas and images, memories of flesh.

But when I reach beyond the body, 
I grasp Reality.
I grasp resurrection. 
I rise in ascension,
and say to the world
not yet,
not this way,
refraining from holding Him, me, you,
hostage to a body,
allowing Christ Who is the Breath of God,
to rise into the Lungs of the Father,
where I was Breathed out,
eons ago, 
where I am breathed in just now.