Here’s the publisher’s blurb for the book:

The conspiracy theories - The Da Vinci Code and Holy Blood and the Holy Grail claim that Jesus married Mary Magdalene. The Church says he was a celibate all his life. So who is right?

In this knowledgeable and accessible book, Bible metaphysician, theologian and author, Maggy Whitehouse, puts forward a ground-breaking new theory – that just like any other Jew of the times, Jesus married at the age of 14. So what happened to Jesus’ wife, this most forgotten of women? The author examines the legends, social and economic laws on marriage of the time and the origins of the unsupported legends of Jesus’ celibacy and his marriage to Mary Magdalene.

Chapter One:  Background, legend, supposition and belief

The question

No one will ever know for certain whether or not Jesus of Nazareth was married. Even if an intrepid archaeologist were to discover an ancient jar containing a wedding contract between Yeshua son of Joseph of Nazareth and his wife, Tamar (or Sarah, or Rebekah or Leah or Rachel), it would only become a hotly-contested issue as to whether or not it was that Jesus of Nazareth.

The assumption that he was not married has been implicit in Christian belief for many centuries. The idea of Jesus as the only Son of God, born to a virgin mother, sits uncomfortably with the notion that he could have had sex, sons and daughters. After all, if he were divine, wouldn’t his children be considered to be so also?

However, there is no biblical evidence anywhere that he was unmarried. Certainly, there is no mention of a wife in the Bible or in any historical texts, but that proves nothing. Most of the women of those times are invisible in historical documentation. We only know that the disciple Simon Peter had a wife because Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law (Matthew 8:14); the Gospels do not mention the wives of any the disciples. That is no reason to suppose that there were none.

Indeed the reverse is the case. Jews and Muslims assume Jesus would have been married. The issue is unimportant to them but both groups deem it ridiculous to suppose either that Jesus was celibate or that marriage could ever be a bar to spirituality. The Prophet Muhammad was married and, what’s more, married to a wealthy and powerful woman. His teaching states that marriage is a religious duty, a moral safeguard and that an Imam (priest) should be married.

Most of the Hebrew Bible prophets were married. Jeremiah wasn’t allowed a wife by God, and there’s no sign of Mrs Elijah or Mrs John the Baptist, but Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, Ezekiel and Isaiah all had wives. Samuel certainly had sons, which implies a wife. Given the importance of the commandment to “be fruitful and multiply” to the Jewish people, the most likely scenario is that Jesus was both part of an extended family and had one of his own.

The New Testament itself calls Jesus Mary’s first born and refers to his having both brothers and sisters. James, who referred to by Paul in Galatians 1:19 as the Lord’s brother, becomes leader of the apostles after Jesus’ death and resurrection. When Jesus preaches in the synagogue in Nazareth and sets the town by the ears with his words, the angry Nazarenes cry, “Is not this the carpenter’s son? is not his mother called Mary? And his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us?” (Matt 13:55).

Even so, this has been discounted for centuries with the Greek words adelphos and adelphe translated as “cousin.” It can also mean countryman or fellow believer. It is quite true that there is no exact ancient Greek word for “cousin” and it is possible that, with the close bonds of families living together, relationships could get confused but there is a word for “kin” or “related by blood” and that word is sougenes.  It is used to describe Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist and translated as “cousin” of Mary.

That Jesus had brothers and sisters who were most probably married seems fairly certain, and generally accepted by scholars. The case for his own marriage is still stronger. All orthodox Jewish Rabbis from the first century to the present day have to be married to even be considered as eligible to teach others. Interestingly, although Jesus is frequently referred to as “Rabbi” in the Gospel of John and as “Rabboni” by Mary Magdalene, these were relatively new titles 2000 years ago. The word “Rab” or “Rav” meaning Master or teacher was originally a Babylonian title given to scholarly men who had received the laying-on of hands in the rabbinic schools. It was developed into “Rabbi” approximately half a century before Jesus lived and used for men who had had the title bestowed by a laying-on of hands by the Sanhedrin, the priestly class of Israel. A Rabbi was given a key and a scroll as a symbol of his authority to teach others and he was expected to have disciples who, in turn would draw new disciples. “Rabboni” or “My Great Master” was only used when the teacher had two generations of disciples. Neither a Rabbi nor a Rabboni could have been an unmarried man as marriage was a requirement of any man who wished to study Torah.

What we do have is a tantalising gap in the information available about Jesus between the ages of approximately 12 and 30. Interestingly, these are exactly the years when a Jewish man in those times could expect to be married. Over the last hundred years or so, many theories have sprung up as to what Jesus was doing in those hidden years – did he go to India and study there? Was he in Alexandria investigating the mystery schools? Where did he go and from whom did he learn the mystical knowledge that he later displayed?

Interpretation

No one will ever know the truth but, when it comes to Jesus’ knowledge of spiritual matters, he didn’t need to go anywhere; all the sayings ascribed to him are inherent in the Jewish traditions of his homeland. What he taught is not necessarily clearly stated in the Old Testament (although several of Jesus’ teachings are re-iterations of words from the law-giving books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy) but it is clear that the driving force behind Jesus’ belief is the monotheistic background of the Israelites.

In Jesus’ day the Hebrew Bible had only recently been compiled. The texts themselves had existed for hundreds of years but they are first known to have been pulled together as a complete entity in the first century BCE. Better known, to most people, was an oral tradition which had been passed down by word of mouth through generations. This was used by the Pharisees to interpret Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) in Jesus’ day. Scholars and teachers realised that writing down teachings crystallised them and made them inviolable rather than adaptable. They believed though that, although the structure of the teaching was always valid, the form of it needed interpretation according to the times.

This was particularly so after the fall of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, when the Jewish people lost their homeland and spread far and wide. The commentary on Torah, the Talmud, was then itself written down in an attempt to record the oral interpretations of the Laws. This became crystallised in turn, and debate on how to interpret it continues to this day. There is a Jewish joke that says “two Jews, three opinions”, and another that says that if a Jew were to be shipwrecked on a desert island he would have to build two synagogues: one he went to and one that he didn’t go to. This demonstrates the importance to the Jewish faith of the continuation of debate over what is right and what is not.

An example of this might be seen in a modern interpretation of the seventh commandment “ thou shalt not commit adultery.”  This is traditionally seen as referring to sexual infidelity, but “to adulterate” has a much wider meaning, as in two different things corrupting each other. In a particular case, it could equally be interpreted that a husband and wife who remained together when their relationship had fallen apart so seriously that they were affecting each other’s emotional and spiritual growth could be committing adultery by staying together.

Another modern example of interpretation of the written law might be the way that orthodox Jews nowadays adapt to the Sabbath law which says that no fire may be lit in the home (Exodus 35:3). Igniting a cooker or flicking a light switch counts as creating fire so, if Jewish people followed the Law exactly, they would have to sit in the dark all evening. However, it is now regarded as quite acceptable for electrical appliances such as ovens and lights to be put on timers – because then the spark is not struck by a Jewish human hand. This law was previously addressed by hiring non-Jews to do the work on the Sabbath day. The command not to light a fire is therefore followed but in a different way according to the times and social convention.

The oral tradition of Jesus’ time has come down to us through the Talmud (Hebrew for “Learning’) and the other Biblical commentaries but also through a mystical system that was originally called Merkabah and is now known as Kabbalah.

What is so useful about this ancient tradition is that for its structure it uses not writing but an object – the seven branched candlestick known as the Menorah which first appears in the book of Exodus.

Priests and scholars were able to assess the essential balance of their spiritual teaching by comparing it with the structure of the Menorah. Nowadays this is known as the Tree of Life and Jewish mystics can, and do, still use it to interpret the Great Laws of life.

It is worth mentioning here that the best known form of Kabbalah in the modern age, known as Lurianic Kabbalah is not essentially the same as the teaching in Jesus’ time. The tradition was re-developed by a charismatic Jewish teacher in Safed, Israel, in the sixteenth century and followed “the great heresy” that when God created the world, he created it imperfect and that this caused an external evil, which Christianity would call the devil.

In Jesus’ day this belief did not exist; they followed the original teachings of Genesis “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.” (Gen. 1:31). So, if we are to refer to the oral traditions of 2000 years ago we must move away from the Kabbalah of most modern Jews – and of the Kabbalah Centre – to the older tradition. This still exists. Nowadays, it is known as the Toledano Tradition after a time in the twelfth century when the Spanish City of Toledo was a centre for interfaith and study. It is not the perfect system for examining knowledge of the time of Jesus because it was influenced by the Neo-Platonic schools of Alexandria, but it is still a good tool worth using in exploring the teachings both of, and by, Jesus of Nazareth, not least because some of its precepts can be seen quite clearly in the Gospels (see Chapter Seven).

Different branches of Judaism have different interpretations of both Torah and Talmud. But the one thing that all the Jewish texts and teaching do agree on is the subject of marriage. It was considered essential for men and for women. The commentaries on Torah state clearly that an unmarried man was incomplete and, 2000 years ago, had Jesus of Nazareth not been married by the age of 18 he would have been considered a very odd fish indeed. Worse, he would not have been taken seriously as a teacher by any other Jew.

But was he still married at the time of his ministry? Probably not. There’s a simple reason for this. Two thousand years ago the life expectancy of men and women in the Middle East was very different from today. A woman who survived childbirth could live as long as a man did – approximately 40 years. But two thirds of woman died in their teens or 20s from complications in pregnancy or childbirth. Jesus as a widower would have been nothing unusual.

There are plenty of other theories of course. In the twenty first century we live in a world of easily-accessible controversy where arguments proliferate for Jesus as a celibate Essene to a light-being from another planet. The only thing that we can be sure of is that old certainties are continually being questioned. Although Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code was nowhere near the first book to suppose that Jesus was married and had children, it was the one which caught the attention of the wider public. The film of the book became the largest grossing movie of all time on its first weekend of release and it is now a part of popular culture. The idea of a bloodline of Jesus still existing somewhere will now never leave the realm of possibility.

The Divine Feminine

Far-out ideas and conspiracy theories have of course always been with us, often fuelled by a natural suspicion of overweening religious and political authorities and their pronouncements. For Christians, and for Catholics in particular, it is vitally important that Jesus was not married; if he had a wife, not only would St Paul’s and the Early Church Fathers’ teaching on celibacy as a preferred option for a religious life be open to question but Christian doctrine down the centuries would be threatened.

But it’s also true that today’s heresy is tomorrow’s orthodoxy. That stalwart of the Catholic faith, the thirteenth century St Thomas Aquinas, was once condemned by the bishop of Paris for heresy because he took account of new scientific knowledge coming from the East through the Crusades. Galileo was condemned to house arrest for knowing that the Earth revolved around the sun and Darwin was totally denounced for his theory of evolution (and, currently, is being denounced again by Christian Creationists).

For the last 20 years a theory that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene has gained steady ground, even though this is just as speculative as the view that he was celibate. The Gnostic gospels, discovered at Nag Hammadi in 1945, do demonstrate that Mary may well have been a much-loved follower of Jesus but they do not offer any convincing evidence that she was his wife. Indignation is expressed at Jesus’ affection for Mary in the Gospel of Philip and this would make no sense at all had they been married. The disciples might not have liked it but they would not have expressed open surprise that Jesus might kiss his wife, nor ask him why he loved her more than he loved them.

In one verse, in the Gospel of Philip we are told that Mary was Jesus’ “companion” which many people have taken to mean wife. The gospel is written in Coptic rather than Aramaic (as incorrectly stated in The Da Vinci Code) but uses Greek words including the Greek term koinonos in reference to Mary as well as the Coptic term hotre (also meaning companion). Koinonos, means associate, companion or someone with whom one spends time; the Greek for wife is always gunay.

But if Jesus of Nazareth did marry Mary Magdalene before the crucifixion, then she could only ever have been his second wife. A Jewish man who was willing to marry (and that would have been 90 per cent of them) would not have left it until his late 20s or early 30s to tie the knot. If he had married Mary in his youth, she would never have been known in the Gospels as ‘Magdalene.’ A woman, in those days, was always identified by her father’s or her husband’s name or town. She would have been ‘Mary, wife of Jesus’ or ‘Mary of Nazareth’ not Mary of Magdala. To be referred to as “Magdalene” she must have lived in Magdala recently or have been married to a Magdalan man. And, if Jesus left a bloodline, it’s most likely that they came from the first wife; the younger; the lost wife of the hidden years.

The possibility that Jesus could have been married is now gaining general acceptance amongst scholars. Nowadays we live in a secular world where interfaith options are normal. We have a wider knowledge of world religions, including those with female deities. We have female Buddhist monks and women vicars. The idea of celibacy as a religious norm is in retreat. We realise that just because women did not officiate at Synagogue services in Jesus’ day did not mean that they did not live holy lives of service. They just lived different holy lives. There was an acknowledged Divine Feminine aspect in their lives, known as Shekhinah.

This aspect lives on in the icon of the Virgin in the Catholic Church. Roman Catholicism is seen as being anti-women in its stern insistence that no woman may be a priest but, ironically, it is a faith that venerates the feminine more than almost any other. It is as much the religion of the Virgin Mary as it is of Christ. The Church itself is seen as being the Bride of Christ. The veneration of the Virgin fulfils a deep human need for the balancing of the Divine Masculine and Feminine. The Protestant Churches lost that link with the feminine during the Reformation, and although it does have some monastic communities for women and, nowadays, has female clergy, it does not have a feminine focus for the Divine. The lack of this in the Protestant tradition may be one reason why The Da Vinci Code and the idea that Jesus married Mary Magdalene have become so very popular.

Paul

So when did the tradition of seeing Jesus as unmarried begin? It is generally acknowledged that it was St. Paul who first implied that Jesus was celibate – and that he, himself, followed his master in being so.

The early followers of Jesus were working with an oral tradition. The Gospels were written years later than Paul’s letters. And the New Testament, as a result, mostly gives us the teaching of Paul and his followers, and his interpretation of who Jesus was. The original leader of the early Christians, Jesus’ brother James, gradually gets written out of the picture. By the end of the first century, after the fall of Jerusalem, the death of a good proportion of the Jewish people, the dispersal of most of the rest from Palestine, and the spread of the Pauline version of the faith amongst the Gentiles, the original Christian Jewish sect had turned into a different faith. The Church was now taking Paul’s word as final on many subjects, although he never even met Jesus in person.

We know surprisingly little that is definite about Paul, considering the extent of his writings. We do know that in the first years after the crucifixion he was an active campaigner against the apostles and their messianic Judaism. Then, on the road to Damascus, he was struck down by a powerful vision where Jesus asked him why he was persecuting him. The conversion was swift and from then on, Paul spoke with authority that came from this contact with Jesus’ spirit alone. This is actually little different in substance from the New Age channeling which is prevalent today. Teachings from ascended beings such as Seth, Lazaris and Abraham are redolent with good sense and a great number of people have benefited by them. But there is also much channeling which is unhelpful, to say the least, and/or dubious in its origins. The information from any psychic or spiritual source is, also, filtered through the personality of the person channeling it. There are enough people still claiming to be exclusively channeling the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene or Jesus himself to view them all with a generous pinch of salt.

For Paul, the fact that he had received inspiration directly from Jesus’ spirit was more important than Jesus’ teachings on Earth. He claimed to be a student of a Rabbi called Gamaliel, who was himself a student of the famous teacher Rabbi Hillel – and both of those men were conversant with the Merkabah/Kabbalistic oral tradition. It would have appeared logical to Paul to update the form of Jesus’ teachings for the benefit of the Gentiles. Though it is clear in Acts, from Paul’s encounters with the Apostles who had known Jesus, that they were uncomfortable with his interpretation of their teacher’s views from the higher worlds.

Even so, Paul is not very clear on the question of whether Jesus was married or not. One of the best known is 1 Cor 7:3 7 where he writes: “For I would that all men were even as I myself. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that. I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I.” This definitely implies that Paul is not married at the time of writing, but it’s just as likely that he was a widower as a lifetime celibate.

Later, in 1Cor 7:27 he says, “Art thou bound unto a wife? Seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife” so we can get a clear feeling that he didn’t think that marriage was a good idea for beginners or in the difficult times that they anticipated (there was a strong implication that the world was about to end); it’s not clear whether “loosed” means widowed or divorced but Paul was preaching to Gentiles where divorce was common, so it could be either.

There are even some who suggest that Paul was still married. In Philippians 4:3 he writes, “And I entreat thee also, true yokefellow, help those women which laboured with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and with other my fellow labourers, whose names are in the book of life.” The trouble here is that the word for “yokefellow” (which is not used anywhere else in the New Testament) is suzugos which can equally mean wife, partner or comrade. It is typically irritating of Paul that he couldn’t use a word less ambiguous such as sunergos or philos which can only mean friend or companion.

Just to confuse us even more, in 1 Cor. 9:3, Paul writes, “Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles, and the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?” Now that’s also unclear because of the nature of Koine (New Testament Greek). Given the language’s frequent and confusing loopholes in the linking of words – not to mention lack of punctuation – it could just as equally mean “a sister who is a wife” as not. Clement of Alexandria, one of the early Church Fathers, who had access to much earlier translations of the New Testament than we do, did take this passage to mean that Paul had a wife.

Epiphanius, a Church Father from the fourth century, and a fervent investigator of heresy in the Christian Church wrote (Panarion 30,16) that the Ebionites (a group of early Christian heretics) claimed that St Paul was a Greek who had visited Jerusalem and wanted to marry a daughter of the high priest. He was circumcised as a Jew but the girl was not impressed and refused to marry him. He became angry, and wrote against circumcision, the Sabbath and Jewish law out of spite.

Maybe this rejection explains Paul’s tendency to misogyny, but, again, it is only hearsay. He does say clearly in Corinthians 7:25  that he has no command from Jesus concerning celibacy but he goes on to give his own opinion – which is the one that has been adopted by the Catholic Church: “Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord: yet I give my judgment, as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful.”

Later interpretation

When examining ancient teachings, particularly commentaries on religious texts, it is vital to observe them through the old journalistic practice of noting the six following facts. Who wrote it? Where? When? Why? For whom? And finally, Who was listening? The social, economic, religious and sexual views of the times are all relevant and need to be peeled away from the actual evidence like rings of an onion.

Of the great “founding fathers” of Christianity, Tertullian (d circa 220 CD), the originator of the idea of the Christian Trinity, the first person to refer to the “Old Testament” and the “New Testament” and the first great Christian writer in Latin, was the only one who publicly stated that Mary would have had sex with her husband. Perhaps that’s the reason why he never got his sainthood.

The view of sex as being impure or distasteful gained ground in the early centuries of Christianity. It was the first monks – men who lived celibate lives in the desert outside Alexandria in Egypt – who were the important scribes. Their own views about sexual behaviour would make a married Jesus intolerable. Worse, so distasteful was the idea that Jesus’ mother might have gone on to have a relationship with her husband Joseph after the birth of her son, that she was declared to have remained a virgin her entire life. This is a doctrinal truth of Catholic, Eastern and Oriental Christian Churches and dates back to the third century.

The idea that Jesus and Paul were celibate was taken up by St. Jerome (331-419) who considered marriage an invention of the devil and encouraged married couples who had converted to Christianity to renounce their marriage vows and separate. St Augustine, (354-430), having had what’s politely called an active sexual life in his early years, later became a strong supporter of celibacy, teaching that sex was always tainted, even in a marriage, because it passed on the sin of Adam. He came to believe that the only way to redeem humanity was through abstinence, rather like the ex-smoker who is fanatical about banning cigarettes. Jerome and Augustine were certain that the Virgin remained just that, and the Council of Constantinople in the sixth century referred to Mary as “ever Virgin.”

Later on, Martin Luther and Calvin agreed. It does rather perpetrate the idea that the only good woman is a dead virgin. No wonder feminists get so very angry about it.

The first documented official Christian Church discussion about celibacy was at the Council of Elvira in 309 and it appears to have been sparked by concerns about clergy having mistresses rather than a problem with their wives. The councils of Neocaesarea in 314 and Laodicea 352 ruled that priests must marry virgins, and get rid of unfaithful wives.

The fifth Council of Carthage Five in 401 was the first to actually promote celibacy saying that it would be a good idea for priests to separate from their wives and live as celibates. However, no penalties were suggested if the priests didn’t take up this tempting offer and it was ignored by the vast majority. Only 19 years later, the Pope, Honorius, went on record to praise wives who supported their priest-husbands in their ministry. The next 400 years were marked by several attempts to impose celibacy, all with mixed results and the Church shot itself neatly in the foot with the election of the married Pope Adrian the Second in 867 CE.

It wasn’t until the twelfth century when the Church won power over the crowned heads of Europe that marriage itself came under its jurisdiction. Until then civil marriages were common and divorce was also a non-religious event. But, at the Second Lateran Council in 1139, Pope Innocent the Second declared that all clerical marriages were invalid and any children of such marriages illegitimate, and so the die was cast. If Jesus, whose life-story is, allegedly, the basis behind this doctrine, turned out to have a wife at home – and maybe children too – then the foundation of the Church’s teaching on celibacy would be rocked.

All this anti-sex theological feeling and, eventually, legislation certainly meant that the leadership activities of women in the early Church began to tail off very early on. For them, Christianity had started out brilliantly – allowing women far more freedom (whatever we may think of St Paul) than most other religions of that time. But by the time a priestly order had been established, women were pretty well sidelined. Deaconesses did exist but they were not priestesses. Where women did shine in the early years was as martyrs…so we are safely back with the dead virgins again.

Today

The discovery of the Nag Hammadi scrolls brought Jesus’ marriage back into the realm of the possible and books of theories slowly began to be published, the most famous before Da Vinci being Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln. This introduced the popular world to the idea that the Holy Grail was not a cup used at the Last Supper but the womb of Mary Magdalene and the bloodline of Jesus.

In The Last Temptation of Christ, the controversial novel by Nikos Kazantzakis which was made into the even more controversial film by Martin Scorsese, Mary Magdalene arrives on the scene again. Opposition to the film failed to notice that it never said that Jesus and Mary actually were married – only that this was an option offered to him as a temptation as he was dying on the cross. If he would give up his role as the Christ, the devil would save him and allow him to live an ordinary life, including marriage and children. Jesus lives – or more accurately – visualises the fantasy and then turns back from the world to take up his cross again, having realised that the temptation is destroying both him and all that he taught.

So how close can we get to the truth?

Ultimately, no one can determine whether the lost wife of Jesus of Nazareth ever existed. But we can discover what is the most likely scenario by cutting through the centuries of Christian interpretation and grinding down what evidence there is into simple piles of possibility. What you believe by the end of this book, is up to you.

The Marriage of Jesus by Maggy Whitehouse is published by O Books and available here from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.

The story of the Exodus is filled with Kabbalistic (mystical) symbolism but the crux of the story is the escape from slavery to freedom.

This is an allegory of the soul’s escape from the slavery of social and economic rules to a higher level of living.

The Israelites had moved to Egypt decades earlier in the time of Joseph when there was a famine in their homeland. At first they were well cared for and content but, after Joseph died, they became enslaved by the Egyptians. This is symbolic of the human ego ruling the self in everyday life. At first we are pleased to have a new job or a new relationship but, after a while, the old habits and the old ‘happiness set-point’ (the level of contentment we are used to) returns and we are back in the same situation as before.

It is worth mentioning that in mystical traditions, the word Israelite means “one who struggles with God” and is not necessarily associated with the Jewish nation.

Moses was born at a time when the Egyptian Pharaoh had ruled that all Hebrew boy babies were to be killed at birth because he feared that his slaves would revolt. That’s the same as the ego making us forget to exercise or diet or take that course that would give us further training.

Moses’ mother and sister hid him in a basket of rushes and floated him down the river where he was rescued by a princess of Egypt.

This represents the Soul having to be sent out from its natural home to be raised in an appropriate environment to fulfil the destiny for which it was born. In a way, the princess fulfils the role that a Godparent was originally meant to take. This is the first ‘mini-Exodus’ — there will be many in our lives and each one is meant to help us to step up, into our soul’s destiny where we can be of service to the World. Often they will feel like mental and emotional crucifixion as we are kicked away from the support we are used to, whether it’s our mother’s breast or our relationship or our work. Spiritual development is rarely comfortable…

And my Dad, who was my traveling companion, and I simply didn’t leave home without checking, cross-checking and counter-checking passport, money, contents etc. etc. etc.

Since then, I’ve kept the habit, driving Lion crazy in the process.

So why, why, why, when we got into the car to leave for our March visit to Washington DC to run workshops and launch my new book Prosperity Teachings of the Bible Made Easy did I completely forget? It was unprecedented.

It wasn’t until 20 minutes down the road that I said, ‘Have you got your passport?’

Lion said, ‘Yes, it’s in my jacket on the back seat.’

What jacket on the back seat? There wasn’t one. Yes, he’d left it behind.

Luckily, we had allowed an extra hour to get to Heathrow because of possible traffic tail-backs on the M25 so we (just) had time to turn round and head back.

Then, as we started off again, we got as far as Oxford Service station, and the traffic began to get thick. We usually stop at Oxford for a coffee and a pee but today it was not going to be a good idea. But, suddenly, out of the blue I was desperate to go to the lavatory.

Apologetically I said so and Lion (who is gorgeous) turned off.

Five minutes later, the motorway was closed because of an accident that had happened earlier just south of Oxford. If we hadn’t turned off we would have been in the multi-car logjam.

Would we have been a part of that accident if Lion had not forgotten his passport? Possibly.

Would we have missed our flight if I hadn’t needed that pee? Definitely. We know that because five other cars-full of people coming down the M40 did miss that flight.

As it was, we went via the back roads and made it to Heathrow with half an hour to spare. Our nerves were jangling but we also knew that we had been helped. And that God/the Universe had used our weaknesses to make sure we got on that all-important workshop trip to the USA.

So, don’t worry that you’re not perfect; that you may suddenly crave chocolate or have an urge to go out — or to stay in — when you ‘shouldn’t.’ Don’t fret that you’re not enlightened or brilliant or that you need a pee. We will never know how often our angels use our idiosyncrasies to keep us safe, healthy and on time. It is what it is — and it is very much okay.

You can read a chapter of Prosperity Teachings of the Bible Made Easy here.

The book is available on Amazon.com here.

It is also available for Kindle and in e-pub format.

Passover is about the Exodus from Egypt where the Hebrews were released from slavery and journeyed for 40 years to the Promised Land. If they’d been led by a woman I suspect they’d have swallowed their pride, asked for directions and got there sooner but, then, 40 is a mystical number representing completion of a cycle so maybe not.

The Easter story is about crucifixion, death and resurrection.

Slavery is crucifixion. We stay in a situation that hurts like hell because we are used to it, because its ‘what’s right’ or ‘what’s done’ or because we need the pain for our identity. Our Story. It’s usually something about ‘they done me wrong and I didn’t deserve it.’

It’s the dying on the cross that’s all important, just like it’s the courage to leave Egypt that’s important. If you’ll die to the problem (i.e. let go of it) then you’ll be right out there in the wilderness sure enough.

‘Midbar’ is the Hebrew word used in the Bible for wilderness. It also means ‘pasture’ or ‘uninhabited land.’ It’s uninhabited by our habits and the ego is all about habits. But it’s a pasture; it will feed us if we let it.

The Christian liturgy says that Jesus descended into hell before he was resurrected on the third day. And leaving old habits behind, whether they are lovers, sugar, alcohol, victimhood, poverty-consciousness or worse is pretty hellish. The ego puts up a huge fight (just like the Hebrews) yelling that it wants to go back to the comfortable pain.

But once the dying is accepted, the pain dissolves and that’s the beginning of the new life. We have a choice. We stay in the pain of crucifixion or we step out into the unknown of death. Scary! But once we’ve chosen to die, to move to the uninhabited pasture, then resurrection is a done deal.

Chapter Four: Life and Times in Biblical days.
© Maggy Whitehouse 2012.

It’s not easy to understand the Bible with a 21st century mind. For a start, we bring so many of our beliefs and projections to the contents. If we have learnt that God is cruel, we will see a cruel God; if we believe that God is good, we will justify or skip over any apparent opposition to that view. If we are Christian, we will read the Hebrew Testament through very different eyes from those of a Jew, an agnostic or an atheist. It is important to understand that we cannot remove ourselves and our beliefs from what is thought to be the world’s best-selling book (six billion sold according to Bookseller World and countless others throughout antiquity). And if, as most of us do, we have specific beliefs about money, wealthy people and authority, then we will be reading through those eyes also.

It is also important to realise that people in ancient times did not think the way we do. The people whose stories are being told did not comprehend our great cities with their rush-rush mentality. The population of Rome at its height was approximately one million people, about the same as 19th century London — then the largest city in the world. And Rome is not where the stories take place. They happen in mostly rural societies where the night sky was regarded with awe and fables were told to explain the purpose and the meaning of existence.

People in Biblical times did not experience the news in the way we do. Details of events from another part of the country — let alone another part of the world — could take weeks, months or years to arrive. There was no entertainment such as books to read. In fact, even in cosmopolitan Rome in Jesus’ time, ninety five per cent of the population could not read or write; if anyone needed to send a letter, they hired one of the five per cent, usually a professional scribe, and the recipients the other end would hire another scribe to read the letter to them.

Even those who could read text did not do so silently as we do; they read out loud so that others could share the information. That is how people were taught to read — the concept of reading quietly was unknown in Roman times or before. Roman villas even had private reading rooms where the literate could read out loud to themselves without disturbing the rest of the family. It was only in the time of St. Augustine (354-430) that we hear about the first silent reading developed, perhaps, from the requirements of monastic life

Without easy access to information, the only entertainments available once work had finished and supper was eaten were music or stories. And the music generally involved stories. So a travelling storyteller or holy man with new tales, teachings or ideas, most likely, would have been a very welcome guest in a village. Of course, some of them might have been controversial and sent away with their tails between their legs but even that would be an event to be debated for months in places where very little other news occurred.

This aspect of literacy is important in the discussion of Biblical wealth as Jewish religious teachings were preserved in sacred scrolls which were written by professional scribes, just as they still are today in the Torah scrolls in any synagogue. Sacred work could not just be written out by anyone; it required an expert who would take a great deal of time and effort to copy out the whole of the Sefer Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Testament) and every version had to be perfect. It could take a scribe 18 months or maybe even more to complete one scroll, during which time he could earn no other living. Therefore, wealthy benefactors were required to pay for religious writings whether that payment was in kind or in silver or gold.

This applied to a certain extent in the Christian world, also, in that benefactors gave money to monasteries, where monk-scribes would write out beautiful, illuminated copies of the Bible. However this practice decreased dramatically with the invention of the printing press in the mid fifteenth century.

Also, the Christian scribes were men who had made vows of poverty, chastity and obedience and lived in celibate communities. In the Jewish world, the scribe, like the Rabbi would have been married, with a home and family to maintain. This distinction is very important in assessing the differences between the views expressed in the Old and New Testaments; the idea of a celibate, community life was very foreign in pre-Christian days where God’s commandment to “populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it.” (Genesis 9:7) was taken very seriously. It still is by orthodox Jews. In ancient days, the exceptions were the inner circles of the Essenes who lived in Judea and a group called the Therapeutae who lived outside Alexandria in Egypt.

In early Biblical times, society depended mostly upon trade between individuals. Money, as we would understand it, was rare. It was first used at all approximately 500 years before the birth of Jesus. So, in much of the Hebrew Testament times, no coins were used and people bartered goods instead. The aristocracies and royal courts used jewels and precious metals as a form of currency but everyday people dealt with a more practical form of exchange such as swapping one produce for another.

As societies became more and more influenced by Greek, and later, Roman civilization, this like-for-like barter was replaced by weights of precious metals and then by coins. Generally in the Hebrew Testament, when an amount of silver or gold is given, such as 10 shekels of silver, this refers to the actual weight of silver, not 10 silver coins. Pre-weighed metal coins, which were given the same names as the weight units, became a more convenient means of exchange as soon as travel became more commonplace and easier with the expansion of the Roman Empire.

Therefore, a great deal of the riches mentioned to in the Old Testament referred to a more general prosperity than a financial one. Signs of God’s favor were seen in happiness and health as well as in business dealings. People as far back as Abraham and Sarah’s times were just as frequently wandering cattle-keepers as they were tillers of the ground so they would not necessarily have houses full of possessions in the way we do. In a nomadic, rural society, your wealth was pretty much everything you could carry or herd.

However, in Genesis 13:2, Abraham is described as being “very rich in livestock and in silver and in gold” so he is being portrayed as an aristocrat among men in a society where precious metals were deemed as valuable as they are today and were often worn in jewelry as an outer sign of wealth.

With the Roman conquest of Judea, money became much more commonplace and was, quite possibly, associated with the hated invaders. Those who collaborated and traded with the occupying force would also have been hated and despised, as has been the case in every century since. Therefore it is entirely possible that Jesus and his followers might have looked upon hard cash with a jaundiced eye.

However, this view does sit at odds with Jesus’ tolerance of, if not friendship with, tax collectors. These people (as is often still the case) were disliked by their fellow men, especially the Pharisees and the scribes. Tax collectors to them were “especially wicked sinners” (Matthew 9:10-11; Luke 15:1-3; Mark 2:15). Reputedly, the collectors were allowed to gather more than the government asked and keep the excess amount. Some of these tax collectors were Roman but others were Jews.

Jesus set a startling new precedent by mingling with the Jewish tax collectors. He ate with them (Mark 2:16), showed them mercy and compassion (Luke 19:9), and he even chose a tax collector (Matthew) as one of his disciples (Matthew 9:9). Jesus even compared their willingness to repent of their sins with the arrogance of the Pharisees and scribes (Luke 18:9-14; Matthew 9:11-13).

Jesus himself is customarily assumed to have been poor although, I would suggest, much of this is reading of the Gospels through the eyes of a later-developed Christian poverty consciousness (see chapter eight). Popular opinion certainly sees him as a poor, itinerant preacher, despite the fact that, in the Gospel of Matthew, it’s stated that the Magi brought him incredible wealth in the form of gold, frankincense and myrrh which were three of the most valuable commodities of the time.

He was also fond of eating and drinking with his friends. “The son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners!” (Luke 7:34) so, although it would appear that early Christianity embraced the ideas of poverty, chastity and martyrdom with fervor, Jesus himself appeared to like having fun and good food. His very first miracle was turning water into wine so that there would be enough to make everything merry at the Marriage at Cana (John 2:1-11).

Much of the poverty consciousness that developed may have been due to St. Paul’s teachings and his acceptance of all-comers to the new faith. Paul indicated strongly that he believed that Jesus would return very soon and that both belief in him as Lord and a life of great goodness were required in advance of the Day of Judgment. There would be no point in amassing riches as it was all going up in smoke very soon.

In 1 Thessalonians 5:2-11, Paul wrote: “For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.”

The stories of saints and holy people within Christianity have always emphasized that they walked away from both marriage and money; that martyrdom was seen as holy and self-denial sacred. This is still seen even today in allegations that Blessed Mother Theresa of Calcutta believed that suffering would bring people closer to Jesus. The Lancet and The British Medical Journal have both criticized Mother Theresa and her staff for their failure to give pain killers. Sanal Edamaruki writing for Rationalist International claimed that in her homes for the dying, one could “hear the screams of people having maggots tweezered from their open wounds without pain relief” adding that Mother Theresa’s philosophy was that it was ‘the most beautiful gift for a person that he can participate in the sufferings of Christ.”

So, again, we see differing views on worth or prosperity in interpretation of the Bible’s teachings. Jesus and those who followed him lived at a time of great revolution in social affairs — a change as great as the invention of flight in the late 19th century. However, we also see that Jesus did not automatically judge those who were wealthy — or even those who were thought to be misusing wealth by the general populace.

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The part of you that has to keep them is not, as a rule, remotely interested in the intention behind the resolution. It didn’t make the promise so it doesn’t see any reason whatsoever why it should remind you to keep it or support you in keeping it. It doesn’t want you thinner, fitter, smarter or more adventurous. Its entire purpose is to keep things the same as they were.

Why? Because you’re alive. The human ego’s job is just that: to keep you alive. It’s the part of our psyche that works with the tribe to keep everyone going and working together. So far, it’s been doing okay (you are alive aren’t you?). It’s really not interested in whether you’re actually happy or engaged in self improvement because both of those may threaten the tribe or make you an outcast.

The ego is all about ‘better the devil you know’ because the devil you know hasn’t killed you yet. It may have allowed you to be depressed or despairing, experiencing great highs and lows or just experiencing a gnawing low-grade unhappiness. It knows that those are the normal human condition — after all, that’s what it sees over and over again as ‘the truth in the workplace, the TV soaps and the media.
Pretty much everything in the media now tells us that everything has gone wrong and that there’s still a recession and there’s so much to moan about (and there are so many more smart appliances with which to spread the moans!).

The communal ego-consciousness is about expecting others to make it better, not about seeing that it is all a reflection of our own psyches. Even the 2012 Mayan calendar world transformation ethic is relying on it being an external incident that sparks the change.

We’ll do our bit by giving to charity (which gives us a temporary feel-good effect that the ego is happy with because it fits in with the tribe and it won’t last). We’ll intend to make 2012 better and we’ll start off consciously and with great hope. And sometimes we’ll make it. If the thing we want sorted is genuinely threatening our life, our relationship or our health, we may well summon up the courage (cour-age, of the heart) to persist and to achieve our goal.

And that’s the secret. The heart level of the human psyche, is also the soul-level. If we want, from the soul, to make a change, then we will have wonderful good intentions. But this level is the one that initiates rather than maintains. The ego is the one that maintains.

And of course, if we don’t make it, we have a wonderful weapon for beating ourselves up and getting ourselves right back to the starting point with even less courage to try again.

If you want to change life for the better this New Year, you have to work from heart and soul. And this can, truly, be the best indicator you can have to whether you really are working from the heart and soul. If you don’t find the discipline to achieve your goal, then you are not. You are still being run by the ego.

This is not wrong; it is not bad; it just is. But it’s very definitely worth knowing. So many people say they are ‘coming from the heart’ but the non-development of their lives shows that this is the ego deluding them. It likes doing that. The ego is very good at fooling you into thinking it’s your heart.

Working from the heart level means that you can, will and do apply self-discipline. Discipline or, in the Kabbalistic system Gevurah, is part of the soul’s formation. Spiritual growth is not comfortable and rarely convenient and you can’t do it without self-discipline.

But what you can do is engage with the ego. Then it will help you and that makes it much easier. Instead of joining that gym or going on the crash diet which will make you ‘perfect’ by Easter, try small, achievable everyday goals. Things that you can re-commit to every day rather than resent doing and then forget to do.

For example, perhaps you’d like to increase your knowledge of your subject or line of expertise. But you’d also like to be thinner and fitter. So how about you sit yourself down and talk to yourself kindly, so informing the ego instead of just imposing a rule on it. Firstly, thank it for keeping you alive up until now. Usually we shout at ourselves for being where we are but the ego’s done its job so it’s both daft and self-destructive to complain at it for doing what it was created to do.

Then, appreciate all that is good in your life … every little thing from being able to have a cup of tea and go to bed in your own bed at night to being able to see and hear (actually these are not ‘little’ things!). Then think of four things you’d like to make a resolution about such as sorting out your work, getting a new job, research, slimming, exercise, five-a-day etc. etc. Then decide that every day you are going to do one of those four things, including the appreciations. So, you are going to either think of ten appreciations a day or take 15 minutes exercise or cut back on your food for the day or read an improving book or watch an instructional DVD every day.

That will be more like play and it’s much easier for the ego to agree. What’s more, you have to make a conscious choice each day which one to do which always engages the soul level. On most days you may find yourself doing more than one of the intentions. And even if you forget all day, you can still do ten appreciations at the end of the day and you still haven’t broken your promise. That will help you feel good about yourself and that’s the key. Help your ego to help you and to move at a pace that doesn’t feel threatening and you really could find a whole new you by Easter. Or, perhaps even better, you could be deeply at peace with the you that you are now.

Wishing you a wonderful, peaceful and plentiful 2012.

‘What the festival of lights really stands for today is a reaffirmation of hope, a renewed commitment to friendship and goodwill, and a religiously sanctioned celebration of the simple – and some not so simple – joys of life.’ The Times of India.

The quotation above is about Diwali, the Indian festival of light. The festival celebrates the victory of good over evil, light over darkness and knowledge over ignorance. It’s almost exactly the same at the mystical root as the Solstice welcoming the new year and Hannukah, the miracle of the lighting of the menorah in Judaism.

Never is this more important than when we think about Christmas…!

The trouble with Christmas is that it’s a bit like the phrase: “When you’re up to your neck in alligators, it’s easy to forget that the initial objective was to drain the swamp.”

This time of the year people start complaining about the expense and commerciality of Christmas. This year, with the continuing belief that there is something ‘wrong’ going on in the world’s finances, you may be dreading the expense of Christmas. But to name something is to give it power, and what have we done? We gave the financial situation in the UK a cute, alliterative name – “the credit crunch.” Worldwide it’s “the recession.” So we have made it real.

Don’t doubt for a minute the power of humanity to make thing real – a truth is only a belief held by a certain number of people and passed on to others who, in turn, believe it. By believing it, we make it real.

Yes it may seem tough to change your mind in the face of such widespread external belief but it is possible. It is our choice.

Right now we have to decide whether to give ‘the situation’ more energy through moaning and complaining and believing what is said on the News or we can choose to look for prosperity, health and joy in the coming of Winter. By looking for the hope and the glory we can change the world from within.

It’s not them who controls our lives, whatever we may have thought, it’s us.

So perhaps the real secret of Christmas this year is to use the idea of a ‘recession’ for good. To simplify something that has got out of hand … this is the perfect time to say ‘No!’ to anything you don’t truly want to do at Christmas. Commit instead to something that would have meaning instead of a season of angst and worry.

Only we can reclaim the miracles and mystery that have existed at this time of the year for thousands of years – way longer than Christianity has been in place.

I’ve often wondered whether, without women, Christmas might be a much happier (albeit slimmer and drabber) affair. It is horribly likely that, without the duty and fervour of women, the majority of blokes would probably be happy to pick up whatever’s remotely turkey-like that’s still in the local supermarket freezer on Christmas Eve, some beer and a bag of party poppers.

Maybe they’re right…We seem to run ourselves ragged with all the preparations to the extent that we overspend, over extend ourselves, over-complicate things and try to live up to some incredibly unrealistic standard of hospitality and catering…not to mention the horrors of some members of the family visiting —or events that we long outgrew but are still expected to attend—and make our children attend ‘because it’s traditional.’

Don’t get me wrong, I ‘do’ the whole Christmas thing – there isn’t a single part of the ritual that I don’t love. But it took me years to learn to re-engage with the magic that does make it such a special time of year – whatever your faith.

‘But I can’t have a simple Christmas because of the children,’ you may say.

Perhaps the worst misuse of Christmas is the idea that ‘it’s for the children.’ In a way that’s true but only in the way that we too need to be children again in order to see the miracles and magic of Christmas in us. That saying of Jesus’s about having to become a child again to enter the Kingdom of Heaven is the answer. The ‘child’ is the part of us that expects miracles and magic. It’s also the ego – and for most of us, it’s been overwhelmed with ‘duty’ and ‘shoulds’ and other horrors for so long that it simply dreads the word ‘Christmas.’

It is the ego of the child that demands the same presents as everyone else. It’s the ego of we adults that thinks that we have to give those presents in order to be ‘good’ parents. But what about giving an experience of spirit instead?

So what is this Christmas miracle all about? It’s about the rebirth of the real you; the peeling off of the outer layers that hide the gold within; the sloughing off of all the past year that you’d like to leave behind and a commitment towards creating a better, happier life.

You don’t have to be a Christian to see the wonderful, deep inner meaning of the Winter Solstice. Nowadays, we tend to focus more on the New Year as a new start to life (and use that for a guilt trip too!) but, in fact, it’s on December 25th that we have the first, visible evidence that the sun is returning and that spring will come once again.

From the day we first started appreciating the cycles of nature, humanity has celebrated the Solstices. The Winter Solstice heralds the coming of the Light; the return of the Sun—or the birth of the Son—and I believe that there is a deep primal need in our animal soul to celebrate it whether our busy, social, disbelieving selves deem it relevant or not!

The Winter Solstice is a kind of choice between life or death. We may know that the sun returns because it happens every year. But the ancient celebrations are just as much about our willing our own inner source of light to rekindle at this time as they are about the external sun.

The dark days of winter are when the roots go down and consolidate for new growth. One of my sacred rituals this time of year is planting prepared hyacinths which must be kept in the dark and cool for at least a month so that they can develop roots. Then, after Christmas, they will grow and give beautiful colour and scent to herald the often long-awaited new life of spring.

Nearly all the major religions have special symbolism around this time. It’s often said that the birth of Jesus was placed on December 25th because it was the ancient celebration of Saturnalia and that Christianity ‘stole’ a great deal of the pagan symbolism.

Two main theories compete about this – one claims that in A.D. 274, the Roman Emperor Aurelian inaugurated December 25th as the pagan “Birth of the Unconquered Sun” celebration, at the calendar point when daylight began to lengthen. Supposedly, Christians then borrowed the date and devised Christmas to compete with paganism.

But William Tighe, a church history specialist at Pennsylvania’s Muhlenberg College, puts forward the exact opposite theory —that Aurelian created a pagan alternative to a date that was already of some significance to Roman Christians. Tighe says that the pagans-first theory only originated three centuries ago in the writings of Protestant historian Paul Ernst Jablonski and Catholic monk Jean Hardouin. Tighe acknowledged that the first hard evidence of Christmas occurring on Dec. 25 isn’t found until A.D. 336 and the date only became a fixed festival in Constantinople in 379.

Whichever it was, there have long been a series of religious festivals going into—and out of—the darkest days and it’s a wonderful reclamation of Christmas to do something personal and spiritual to mark the ending of one year and the resurgence of the light in you for the coming year. Who knows, it might make the rest of the celebrations fun? And, even if you still think Christmas is going to be hell, perhaps one of this year’s resolutions could be to promise yourself that next Christmas you will actually do what you would like to do…

Christmas/Solstice rituals:

Plan a little time on your own – or with friends if they want to join you. Find something that represents the ‘old you’ of 2011 whether it’s something you’ve grown out of or something that represents a difficult time that you have gone through and then create a little ceremony of release (including burning the symbol if that is possible). Dress up in something you love to wear, light a couple of candles, and take a few deep, connected breaths. As you let go of the object, say something like ‘I release this representation of pain to the Light and move forward to my Higher Good.’
Then take a moment to ask your Higher Self, Guardian Angel or the Source of All to watch over you, protect and guide you to a happier life in the next year.

Fill an atomiser with water containing a few drops of refreshing aromatherapy oils such as lemon or grapefruit plus some Flower Remedies – such as Rescue Remedy, Walnut (protection from outside energies/help with change), Willow (dissolves resentment), Wild Oat (for uncertainty about your path in life) or Holly (anger and hatred) and spray around the whole of your home saying ‘In the name of the Source this room/house and all that is in it, is blessed, cleansed and filled with light.’

Make a prosperity wheel or dream board. This is a montage of all the things, experiences and happy times that you would like to draw to you. Instructions on my website (www.maggywhitehouse.com). This works by reprogramming the subconscious to look for what you want instead of what you don’t want.

Write a letter to a friend the other side of the world (or to someone closer if necessary – but someone with whom you only correspond infrequently – someone without email probably!). Date this letter 20th December 2012 and in it tell them of all the wonderful things that have happened to you throughout 2012. And invent everything you could possibly want from a perfect home, partner or job to living in the Maldives.

Don’t worry about seeming grasping or greedy – that fear is probably what has held you back for so long. There is a reason why Luis Vuitton bags are made and houses and cars are built –so that people can enjoy them. And if you are wealthy, you can do SO much more for others. To think that you can’t be rich because of the starving poor is an argument full of holes. If you are wealthy you can donate; teach and offer time to ensure that they too learn how to be prosperous like you.

And if you’re now saying ‘but my friend would hate me if I sent him/her a letter like that’ then I’d suggest that you find a friend who wouldn’t. And that’s probably the best task you could set yourself this year – to be with people who allow you to be prosperous. If there’s no one, then plan to send it to me, via Facebook, because I’ll be SO happy for you!

The letter will work best if it’s full of enthusiasm and acknowledgement of the good in your life. It’s great if you can start off with something that you actually know IS going to happen. That gives you confidence.

Will it happen? Well, it’s got a better chance of happening if you do write the letter than if you don’t. If you put it away somewhere safe and forget all about it, the chances are pretty high that at least 60% of it will either be with you or on its way by the date you put on it. My letter last year came 65% true…no complaints about that!

Wishing you the perfect Christmas time…

We followed the monks’ services from Matins at 6.20am to Compline at 9pm and, whatever our religious views might have been, we all found a great sense of peace from the gentle rhythm of the sounds and the movements in the rituals that the monks have been carrying out for more than 40 years (Worth is a modern Abbey).

At every single part of the Divine Office, as it’s known, the eldest of the monks, Father Charles, was present in the monks’ stalls before each service and made his way out after the other monks. Father Charles is in his 80s and very frail. The first time we watched him moving so very slowly with his stick and hobbling out of the church on his own, several of us wondered why the other monks didn’t help him. No one, not even the youngest of the monks, offered him an arm or even waited for him.

But then, as we continued through the daily routine, Father Charles’s slow and creaky movements began to merge into the whole of the liturgy. At some of the services, especially the early morning ones, we were the only congregation in the huge church. There was no obligation to do so, but we all stood, respectfully, in our stalls and waited until Father Charles had left — a full five minutes after all the other monks.

Then, Lisa, one of our group missed one of the services and she told us that she had seen all the monks waiting just outside the church for their companion.

It wasn’t a case of not helping him; it was a case of respecting exactly who he is and allowing him to take his own perfect time without patronizing or hurrying him.

It reminded me of a shaman I met at the first ever New Age festival I attended. He gave me a reading and said, “Tell me, if you saw a blind man in the street fall over, what would you do?”

“Help him up,” I replied.

“Did he ask you?” said the shaman.

That made me think.

So often, we want to help other people because we think they are in trouble. But they’re not; and even if they are, perhaps they really, really, don’t want to be helped.

Perhaps they’re just where they are and that’s all there is to it. And perhaps they need us to respect that more than to offer our patronage; perhaps they are just not ready yet to move on; perhaps we interfere if we try to help without finding out first if they actually want our assistance.

As someone who has an in-bred tendency to jump into things without thinking, it was a wonderful reminded to ‘be still and wait’ just as it says in T. S. Eliot’s East Coker from The Four Quartets:

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

And if we, ourselves, should need help, then surely we must remember that, just like there are retreat participants and monks at Worth Abbey, there are people standing silently, respectfully in the darkness around you, aware and waiting to be asked.