A Beautiful Testimonial!

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

A graduate of the Order of the Magdalene reached out to me this morning after receiving a recent email from me. Her words speak volumes about the depth and breadth of this work and why I keep on doing what I do:

Dear Lauri: I was so moved by your latest email! The last time I remember feeling this stirring within my soul is when I “stumbled” upon your website in the early days of COVID.

Completing the Magdalene course still remains the most impactful thing I have done for my spiritual growth. I am so grateful for the work you have created.

I am not sure if you remember me telling you when I came across your website how unusual it was for me to have such a strong reaction..such a strong knowing that I was meant to complete the Magdalene course.

I feel the same way reading your latest email. I don’t even know what the means. I just know I had to reach out.

“Doing the work of Love as was exampled by Jesus and Mary Magdalene.” When you said “this is who I am and what I do”, I found myself saying, “Yes! That is exact it!!” Maybe that’s the power of your email, helping us all to reconnect with who we are and why we are here. And, the very important realization that we are not alone in this task. There are many of us!

There are soooooo many of us! To learn more about the Order of the Magdalene formation program or our membership community, click on the menu tabs above.

With love,

Lauri Ann Lumby

Revelation, Rapture, and Apocalypse

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

With the recent (ongoing) war in Palestine and Israel, there has been an uptick in talk of the apocalypse, the rapture, and the end of days. This uptick is based on the belief of a fringe group of evangelical Christians that the return of Jews to the Holy Land and their eventual conversion to Christianity are both necessary for paving the way for “The Second Coming of Christ.”

Christian Zionism is an insult to our Jewish brothers and sisters and to the faith they rightly hold. It is also an affront to the Palestinian people who have been displaced and increasingly sequestered since the partition of 1948. Christian Zionism is a gross misrepresentation of what it means to be an adherent to the Love that Jesus embodied and taught. Finally, and the point of this writing, Christian Zionism’s beliefs are based on a grave misunderstanding of the writings of John of Patmos, specifically his creation of The Book of Revelation.

Throughout the centuries, The Book of Revelation has defied interpretation and has been used by many (if not most) to put forward their own fear-based agenda. The Book of Revelation falls within a specific and unique biblical genre, that of apocryphal writings. Apocryphal writings have one intention only: TO REVEAL. To reveal what is hidden. Unique to apocryphal writings are the language of code – a code that is known only to the community for and to whom they were written.

In the case of John of Patmos, he was writing to and for his own community of Christians who were suffering persecution under the Roman Emperor Nero. John was writing to remind them of the teachings they had already received. He was writing to encourage and support them in their ongoing endeavor to remember and live as Love – the Love that John learned from Jesus and that John was called to bring forth into the world. John wrote in a code that his community would understand. Like Jesus, John was writing in a symbolic language (parable), that would be fully understood by those who had received the fullness of Love, but which might confuse others.

The Book of Revelation was never meant to be a predication of future end times. It was not meant to herald “The Coming of Christ” as it has most often been perceived (Jesus coming out of the sky on a cloud to save all of humanity). It was not meant to predict plagues and horrors that would mark the end of days.

Instead, The Book of Revelation is an instruction manual for the inner journey of transformation. By following its instruction, we are each, in our own unique journey, led to the remembrance of Love, and supported in embodying that Love as Jesus did and as Jesus instructed his followers.

In embracing the guidance of this text, we will indeed experience “The Second Coming of Christ,” but not in the form of Jesus on a cloud.  Instead, we will come to know The Christ within us and in this experience our own salvation. This is not a salvation experienced in some heaven light years away. Instead, it is the peaceable kingdom Isaiah foresaw, the promised land that Moses pursued, and the kingdom of God about which Jesus spoke. This is a salvation that is present within ourselves and when known, leads us to the Love, peace, contentment, understanding, compassion, and joy that is our true nature. In this Love, we know that all of humanity is One and that this oneness is independent of religion, race, nation, or belief.

Come and explore this mysterious and often confusing book of the Bible from a different perspective while reclaiming the role of the Divine Feminine as the true heroine of this epic mythological tale. 

Victory of the Holy Bride shatters over 2000 years of patriarchal dogma that cast the Book of Revelation in the role of doomsday prophecy and presents to you the tools for discovering a profoundly simple truth that is the key to inner peace and the formula through which we endure the “times of tribulation” while building a whole new world – one rooted in peace, understanding, wisdom, harmony and love. 

Learn more here.

Secular Monastic Living

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

with the Order of the Magdalene

My whole life I have been restless – longing and searching for more.  Typically, that “more” meant something other than what I was currently experiencing.  My mom recently reminded me that I was always looking for that next opportunity, next goal, next degree, next job, next relationship.  I was rarely, if ever, satisfied with what was right in front of me, I was always looking for that “something new” that must be right around the corner.  This searching did not arise out of boredom with the status quo – in fact, as one who thrives on order and routine, status quo has always provided me with a sense of comfort.  But still, my heart was restless.  Where was that satisfaction that my Soul longed for and relentlessly searched after? 

The good news is that my searching has not been in vain.  Everything I have explored, searched after, studied, discerned, discarded or applied has been food for the searching.  Every place I landed (albeit temporarily) showed me a part of my Soul and provided me with tools which have proven, not only helpful but life-giving in the great search.  What I had begun to suspect a few years back and which I have now come to understand fully, it was not anything outside of me for which I was searching. 

This whole entire time I was only searching for one thing and that one thing is MYSELF.

Lauri Ann Lumby.  Thriving in order and routine.  An Introvert who likes people and who cherishes intimate friendships.  Creative yet also logical and reasoning.  Outwardly appearing aloof while harboring deep, deep, deep feelings. Highly, highly, highly intuitive (some might even suggest psychic). Hungry for knowledge – specifically of a spiritual nature.  Enjoys a quiet, gentle, ease-filled flow to life.  Repelled by conflict or competition.  Enforcing hard-core boundaries for the sake of self-care.  Recoils from entanglements and anything smelling of co-dependency or manipulation.  A vessel of kindness and support, insight and wisdom.  Yearning for a world where we can all just get along and where people can remember that we are all one. 

This is me.  I have also learned (something I’ve actually known all along) that knowing myself isn’t enough.  What this search has also led me to understand is what MYSELF needs to thrive.  It is not and has never been what our culture keeps trying to sell us – work hard, get a job, make lots of money, buy lots of things, invest your money, save your money, buy cool things with your money, be famous.  You can imagine the inner conflict I’ve been feeling all these years with the world and my Soul constantly fighting for my attention.

No more.  Now I get it and I am living it.  I have set down my conditioned desire for wealth, power, fame and success (as it is defined in our capitalistic culture).  Instead, I am embracing what my Soul needs – a monastic kind of life. But what does that mean in 2023 for an almost 59 year old single mother of two adult children?  The answer to this question has come from living INTO the question – asking my Soul what it needs from moment to moment and doing my best to deliver. 

What does a secular monastic calling look like from day to day? In truth, each day is a little different from another, but here is what my current normal looks like:

  • 6 am wake up.
  • Meditation
  • Breakfast and coffee
  • Check emails and Facebook for messages.
  • Tend to any Order of the Magdalene business that needs tending to.
  • Go to yoga class
  • Shower and get ready for the day
  • Lunch
  • Meditation or reading
  • Chop wood and carry water – YES – I have a “real job” where I go 15-20 hours a week to help me pay for the necessities of life:  food, shelter, etc.
  • Dinner at work
  • Home by 8pm
  • A little light reading or TV watching.
  • 9:00 bedtime.

In 2019 I finally embraced my monastic spirit and made a commitment to it in my daily life.  2020 and the pandemic shutdown and my subsequent eye-surgery that required an 8 week recovery helped me to even more fully anchor this practice. In this I’m finding my place in the world. There is still conflict.  I still experience anxiety, stress, and occasional situational depression.  I spend a fair amount of my time alone – which actually fits my temperament.  My life is not complicit with what a capitalistic culture requires of us.  I don’t have any of the things our culture says we must have.  I don’t own a home.  I don’t have any savings or investments.  I own the simple furnishings and artwork (much of it I have done myself) that are in my home.  Much of what I own came to me second-hand, including the clothes on my back.  It is a simple life.  It is counter cultural.  And it is founded on and established in one thing: 

My relationship with MYSELF and my relationship with that which some call “God.” 

Everything else springs forth out of and revolves around this simple goal – to be One within Myself and therefore One with God and One with everything that is. 

It is here that I am finding contentment and peace and growing in compassion and love.

If the monastic life speaks to your Soul’s yearning, subscribe to my email, follow me on social media, or subscribe to this blog (see below).  If you are looking for connection with others walking a similar path, consider becoming a member of our growing community. All are welcome.

Magdalene Formation Program

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

The Order of the Magdalene Formation Program provides you with resources, knowledge, and tools to support you in your own journey of self-discovery and empowerment. Through this eighteen-month training program, you will:

  • Become rooted in scholarly and intuitive knowledge of the Magdalene, her role in the ministry of Jesus, and her example in the ongoing mission of Love.
  • Discern your own unique giftedness and how you are called to use these gifts for the sake of your own fulfillment and in service to the world.
  • Learn practical skills for uncovering and healing all that separates you from Love and from living as your most authentic self.
  • Rediscover ancient knowledge and practices for self-healing.
  • Cultivate and deepen your contemplative life while growing in contentment and compassion.

Created and facilitated by Lauri Ann Lumby

64 weeks of content

7 individual courses

6 private mentoring sessions

This training is unlike any other Magdalene training as it is deeply rooted in canonical and non-canonical scripture, scholarship, contemplative practice, and developmental psychology.

The Order of the Magdalene Formation Program with Lauri Ann Lumby provides the resources, support, and tools through which you will become fully sovereign in your unique giftedness and empowered to live that out for the sake of your own fulfillment and in service to the betterment of the world.

Included Coursework (if you have taken any of these courses, contact Lauri to have your course fee applied):

Resurrecting the Magdalene– 6 weeks

The purpose of this course is to reveal and share in the deeper and hidden truths about the Magdalene and her time with Jesus; including her roles as student, initiate, co-equal partner, wife, facilitator and witness to the resurrection, and the one sent to continue Jesus’ mission of being love in the world.  Participants are empowered through the course to reclaim their own Divine Feminine and are activated to be a vessel of Divine Love in the world.

Uniquely Gifted– 13 weeks

Discover your own unique gifts—the gifts you have been given to experience meaning and purpose in your life and through which you will find fulfillment for yourself and in service to the betterment of the world.

Into the Wilderness* – 10 weeks

Learn the seven core fears that prevent you from being your most magnificent and fulfilled self, along with proven tools for moving through and overcoming those fears.

The Gospel of Mary Magdalene** – 12 weeks

This course provides an in-depth study of the Gospel of Mary Magdalene – a critically important text in the exploration of women’s roles in matters of spirituality and religion, but more importantly as recipients and communicators of the Divine. Course concludes with your own self-facilitated dedication ceremony.

Song of Love**– 9 weeks

Learn and apply the Aramaic Prayer of Jesus as a powerful tool for moving through the fears and inner obstacles for living your truth and fulfilling your life purpose.

Know Thyself – 12 weeks

Exploring the Enneagram as a tool for self-empowerment and as a resource for balancing your fear-based perceptions and behaviors, ultimately harnessing your Soul’s purpose as a reformer,   helper, achiever, muse, sage, strategist, enthusiast, champion or peacemaker.

Learn more HERE

Back Where I Belong

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

As I write this at 9:46am on Saturday, October 28th, I just finished listening to my favorite online astrologer, Lori Lothian, deliver her “Saturn direct” reading for November. As it turns out, I was born with Saturn in Pisces – exactly where Saturn finds himself now. Repeating these cycles every 29 years or so, I am in the midst of my second Saturn return. I share this because it is relevant to where I find myself at this exact moment in my spiritual/vocational journey.

In 1993 when I experienced my first Saturn return, I had the “brick to the head” experience that launched me into seven years of ministry training and the discovery, activation, and deepening of my calling. All this was done with and in the Catholic Church.

In 2003 I left formal church ministry and took my work into the secular world. Since 2003 that work has evolved, unfolded, and taken on many external forms. My heart and my soul were rooted in the Jesus I had come to know and the Mary Magdalene that was his closest companion and the one who most fully understood his teachings and who was then sent forth to continue the mission of Love after Jesus’ death. Now I found myself, however, having to “sell” my work to a secular audience who might most accurately be called “spiritual but not religious.” The ways I attempted to market this work to a diverse audience were many, taking on many different names and forms.  But only on the outside. While the packaging may have changed, the materials inside were the same:

Rooted in scripture. Grounded in contemplative practice. Defined by scholarship.

In the last several years, I have found all that I had attempted falling away. Piece by piece by broken piece, everything I had worked for in the past 30 years has died.

Or so it seemed.

I surrendered to the dying. I grieved the loss. I have spent more time in the VOID than anyone should have to spend. Empty. Nothing left to pursue. Nothing new to create. No visible paths. Nothing but the blackest of blackness where nothing remains but from which all of creation emerges.

Then last week something shifted. For the first time in 30 years I saw the whole truth of something that had been blocking my access to my full power. I saw it. I unhooked myself from it. I bore witness to the kickback (there’s always a kickback when we deprive something of the power we’d been giving it). I sat in the fullness of the liberation.

Then the floodgates opened and carried me right back to where I began (sort of). What came forth out of that return is a complete overhaul/return to the origin of my work along with a recognition – not of what I formerly wanted – but rather, what already is.

The Order of the Magdalene is already fully formed. The community has already been gathering. The formation was already whole in its original form. Why not own it and quit:

  • Asking permission.
  • Trying to meet everybody’s needs.
  • Trying to appeal to everyone.
  • Using other people’s language.
  • Competing with shiny objects.
  • Trying to be shiny.
  • Comparing myself with others.
  • Questioning and doubting.

This is who I am and what I do. Period.  Doing the work of Love as was exampled by Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Honoring the tradition from which I came. Recognizing the wisdom of scripture (canonical and non-canonical). Celebrating my own monastic calling. Embracing the gifts of contemplation. Remaining rooted in scholarship.

In short – keeping it real.

If you’re one who likes to keep it real – please check out The Order of the Magdalene 2023 Reboot.  Back to where I belong.

And thank you for all those who have been with me throughout this crazy journey. I am grateful for you!

With love,

Lauri

When There’s Nothing Left To Do

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

But wait, watch, and pray.

We stand at a precipice. The predictions have been made. The foretelling offered. We prophets have shared what we see and spoken what we’ve heard.

The world as we have known it is coming to an end.

We’ve known this. We’ve warned of it. We’ve offered ways in which we might avoid the violent destruction and collapse of all that we have known. Yet the world has turned a deaf ear and a blind eye.

The world as we have known it is coming to an end.

The hierarchical, patriarchal systems that have defined our way of life for the past many thousands of years are imploding upon themselves. Established on the foundation of fear, power, oppression, manipulation and control, they have proven themselves to be unsustainable. In their attempts to maintain their power, they are taking the world with them. Innocent lives are being lost. Civilizations destroyed. Environments decimated – all for the sake of the selfish and greedy few.

Those who claim the loudest to be the strongest are the greatest offenders. Their fall will be the most painful….but not until “they” have claimed millions of innocent lives.

The world as we have known it is coming to and end.

And there’s not a damn thing we can do about it. We’ve given our warnings. We’ve offered solutions and ways to repair our dying world. And no one has listened.

Instead, the proof of our words are coming to roost. Patriarchal institutions collapsing around us: government, education, healthcare, corporations, banking, stock markets, housing, – everything built on fear, power, oppression, and control – falling down around us.

To the prophets and healers among us:  We’ve done our jobs. We’ve spoken what we’ve heard and shared what we have seen – and for the most part we’ve been ignored. Invisible. Now, there is nothing more for us to do. We cannot stop the runaway train of collapse. Now, there is nothing left to do but wait, watch, and pray (however you understand that term).  

AND take care of ourselves by getting out of the way. The world as we have known it is coming to an end, but we are not called to go down with it. Instead, we will watch, observe, and SURVIVE so that we might be a part of building that something new that has been waiting in the wings for the dying world to be done with its dying.

We are also called to REMEMBER. To remember what got humanity here in the first place so this never, ever, has to happen again.

Copyright Lauri Ann Lumby http://www.lauriannlumby.com

Can We Love Humanity Enough?

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

The most radical form of love is knowing when to let go. This is the way that we are loved by our creator. Love made us. Then Love let us go so that we could live our own life, pursue our own dreams, make our own mistakes, distance ourselves from Love, only to hopefully and eventually find our way back. But indeed, out of love, our Creator let us go. Not intruding. Not interfering. Not interjecting its own intention or desire for our lives. Instead, our Creator just is. Present. Watching. Listening. Holding us in Love. All while letting us live our lives in our own way.  

Love means letting go.

This is the meaning of the story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15: 11-32). The wise father, knowing his son, let him go. The father left his son to his own devices, knowing that his son’s wanderlust would not be quenched by forcing him to stay at home. He let him go to discover the world, apart from the love and protection of his father, where he could learn, and grow, have adventures, and make mistakes. It was through the father’s love that he let his son go. The father did not intrude. He didn’t go out and try to save his son or attempt to protect him from himself. Instead, the father let him be. In letting him be, the father never stopped loving his son. He never stopped waiting, watching, allowing, and hoping the best for his son. But he did let him go. And when the son returned, the father didn’t punish or shame him or taunt him for his mistakes. Instead, the father welcomed his son home with open arms and celebrated his return.

This is the radical kind of love that we are invited to embrace. Indeed, it may be in living this kind of radical love that we can finally be free from all the ways we wish, hope, dream, that humanity will one day work itself out, get its shit together, and learn to live as love. We cannot change those who don’t want to change, and we cannot heal those who don’t want to be healed. All we can do is be present.  Wait. Watch. Listen. And Allow. Humanity is working out its own salvation, in its own way, in its own time. And it is none of our business, except to be the Love that we are and welcome humanity home to that Love when they too are ready to embrace it.

Is Self Awareness the Road to Hell???

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

This past week I learned of a sermon recently preached by a pastor of a local super-mega church. (I won’t name the church, but if you live in the Fox Valley of Wisconsin you might know of whom I speak.)  This pastor told his audience of thousands that “self-awareness, self-help, and personal development are the road to hell.”

WHAT!?  Not only is this bad theology, it’s scripturally inaccurate!  As it’s not my job to prove to fundamentalists that their beliefs are wrong, and since they won’t be able to hear my arguments anyway, I will speak instead to those who seek a more awakened view of scripture, including Jesus’ teachings.

Knowledge of self and the application of that knowledge is absolutely crucial for accomplishing what Jesus prays for us to do:

“The glory that you have given me
I have given to them,
so that they may be one,
as we are one,
I in them and you in me,
that they may become completely one,
and thus the world may know
that you have sent me
and that you have loved them
even as you have loved me.”

John 17: 22-23

In these words, delivered as part of the Last Supper Discourses, Jesus prays that his disciples (us) might come to know the union/oneness that he came to know in (that which he called) God. He spoke of this oneness as the kingdom of God. In this state of union, which Jesus found within himself through contemplation and prayer (MT 6:6), he found the peace, contentment and joy that define the kingdom that is right here in our midst (Lk 17: 21). It was also in this state where Jesus found guidance and direction and grew in the knowledge of his true nature as One with God as Love (1Jn 4: 7-12).

I could go on and on and on with scripture references that support growing in self-awareness and knowledge, and doing what we can to improve ourselves, but I won’t.  Suffice it to say that scripture (both Hebrew and Christian – canonical and non-canonical) is abundant with invitations to become the best possible versions of ourselves and that to do that we first uncover all those places within ourselves that have forgotten our true nature as Love, and do the deep inner work of healing those areas of woundedness. Yes, there is a Source that assists us with that healing, AND we have to want to be healed.  As Jesus himself said, “Ask and it will be given to you. (Mt 7:7-8)”  

Now, to the fundamentalist preacher’s point, the only person to whom self-knowledge is the road to hell is the one who doesn’t want to know the truth about themselves. For the rest of us, the path of self-knowledge is the path of liberation and salvation. Yes, it’s a challenging path, as it is in the journey of self-awareness that we discover all that is not part of us and must do the often difficult work of letting those things go (like the church we grew up in) while allowing ourselves room to grieve those perceived losses.  It is also on the path of self-awareness that we uncover our gifts and how we are called to use these gifts for the sake of our own fulfillment and in service to the betterment of our world.  As Jesus once said:

 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. (MT 5: 14-16)”

The Non-Acceptance of Grief

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

The only acceptance in grief is accepting the fact that we will always carry the pain of loss and accepting the fact that this pain will resurface periodically through unexpected circumstance. There will never be a day that we won’t remember the loss, the pain that it caused and continues to cause us. The idea that one day we will simply get over it is a dangerous lie that leaves us feeling guilty or that there might be something wrong with us for still being set off by the memory of that loss.

Case in point: After all the years that I’ve had to heal from the abuse I experienced at the hands of the Catholic Church, and the pain that eventually caused me to leave, you would think I’d be over it. This weekend I was reminded that I am not (over it). Instead, while watching the final episode of the final season of the British series Sex Education, all the pain came rushing back.

I had been given a vision, a mission, and a purpose. I had made a plan and had been encouraged and supported along that plan. I was on the path to give my professional life to the Church and to fulfill my mission to become “pastor” in the way that was available to women in the Catholic Church – pursuing the education to become a parish director. Then that all came crashing down.  You all know the story, and to be honest, I’m sick of hearing myself talk about it.

The short version (as if I could ever tell a short version!) is that I left the Church to forge my own path as “pastor” to a secular audience mostly made up of the Catholic diaspora. That mission failed too.

This is where I found myself while watching a character in a similar state of unwelcome hearing a calling and deciding to forge his own path within that calling. If I wasn’t on an anti-panic attack medication that suppresses crying, I would have been bawling my eyes out. Instead, all I could do was sit in a state of shock as my body tried to process the mixture of emotions brought up while watching a story similar to my own playing out in real time over Netflix. Ugh.

Grief is a harsh mistress. Standing in front of us with riding crop and pummel, always at the ready to whip us back to reality. Life is hard. We’re given visions with a sense of purpose, and that purpose is often torn from our grasp. We make plans and the Universe laughs. We fall in love and find ourselves betrayed. We believe and have faith. We pray. We discern. And still we remain the victims of fate.

Life has its own plan no matter how clearly we might discern.  Even when we fail, our discernment may have been correct. Failure and loss are part of life, and there’s nothing we can do to change or avoid this fact. The best we can do is accept. Accept that life is hard, that shit happens, that there will be disappointment and devastating loss. Accept that the pain of loss and disappointment will always be with us and will periodically rear its head, inviting us into another layer of being with that pain. We weep. We wail. We rage. We curl into ourselves. We become momentarily paralyzed. We love and comfort ourselves. And then we move on until the next reminder comes and then we do it all over again. And in between, we embrace those moments of wonder, joy, and beauty that also make up the human condition. It is also for these that we are here.