Mary Magdalene.
A prayer to dismantle the institutional poisonous pedagogy prevalent within the Evangelical and Roman Catholic Church.
Hey there beautiful reader. Below I have a short essay and poem that is interweaving healing our cultures predominant relationship with child-rearing practices, the mystical love of Mary Magdalene, and the wisdom of the Swish-Polish psychologist, psychoanalyst and philosopher of Jewish Origin on parental abuse. If you have been hurt as a child, it may be activating for you. I wanted to let you know before you proceed reading.
What is poisonous pedagogy? Recently I have been reading through For Your Own Good by Alice Miller, at the beginning of the book she begins with this quote:
Punishment followed on a grand scale. For ten days, an unconsciousable length of time, my father blessed the palms of his child’s outstretched, four-year-old hands with a sharp switch. Seven strokes a day on each hand; that makes one hundred forty strokes and then some. This put an end to the child’s innocence. Whatever it was the happened in Paradise involving Adam, Eve, Lilith, the serpent, and the apple, the well-deserved biblical thunderbolt of prehistoric times, the roar of the Almighty and his pointed finger signifying expulsion—I know nothing about all of that. It was my father who drove me out of Paradise. -Christoph Meckel
Poisonous pedagogy is a lineage of child-rearing practices that have been passed down from generation to generation that are comprised of punishing, shaming, abusing, manipulating, exploiting and even physically maiming children to control their behavior.
In Colorado Springs, Colorado, from 1977-2010, Dr. Dobson was the main leader of poisonous pedagogy for Evangelical Christian parents, teaching them how to use obedience-training tactics on their children, to teach them to “honor their Mother and Father.”
My mentor once told me that our first God and Goddess are our Father and Mother. Does that feel true to you? It did to me. How our parents treated us as children, impacts our beliefs about ourselves and the universe for all our lives, unless we consciously unwind the abuse.
Do you think children with loving Mothers and Fathers, who respected their emotions, desires, wants, unique expression, would grow up believing in a punitive God who sends everyone to hell other than a few? Absolutely not. Childhood trauma and the Evangelical Church reinforce one another.
And poisonous pedagogy goes beyond Evangelicalism or Institutional Christianity, it permeates most of our culture’s relationship to children.
This poem is a prayer for the mystical heart of Christianity to re-emerge, and for the punitive, controlling, patriarchal, androcratic system to be transformed back into right relationship, true love and equality.
Magdalene Rose.
Magdalene Rose.
Rose.
Rose.
Magdalene.
Magdalene.
Mary Magdalene.
Mary Magdalene.
Mary Magdalene Rose.
Mary Magdalene Rose.
Magdalene Rose.
I am the word before the word.
I untangle the knots.
I dismantle games of power.
I untie your heart from patterns of force hidden in facades as love. There is no savior here. No one to punish or shame you.
There never was and never will be, anything wrong with you.
You are not bad.
You never were.
You never should have “known better.”
Reach out your hand to touch life again.
This time, it’s okay to fumble, fail, fall, be clumsy, make mistakes.
Forget the sadistic punitive Father whip; or the devouring Mother of twisted tongues.
Let sorrow reach her hand, like water as a river upon your lips.
Grieve the loss of love
in poisonous pedagogy.
And then;
Child of light.
You are Divine.
You are love.
Mary Magdalene Rose.
Rose.
Rose.
Mary Magdalene Rose.
Magdalene Rose.
