Every Wound Was Mended

An ode to Divine Love on Mary Magdalene's feast day

Detail from The Three Marys, by near-death experiencer David Ditchfield.

I’ve lived my life outside of religion, and inside love. Well, that’s the aim. The story of Jesus has enthralled me since childhood scripture class at my little secular primary school. I see him as a healer and way shower, whose teachings about compassion, forgiveness, loving your neighbour, looking within, and making room at the table for everyone, have been pillars I’ve tried to build my life upon.

More recently (perhaps since watching the 2018 film by Australian director Garth Davis), I’ve also been moved by the story of Mary Magdalene, his first follower (though a teacher herself) to witness the resurrection, it is said.

Resurrection? For me it’s about the sovereignty of life. And perhaps there’s a message here that we can hold onto as tyrants subject innocents to atrocities across our earth. Oppressive powers will crush the peacemakers, but the pervasive Love that paints itself upon the earth as a wildflower, an ocean, a mountain, an owl, a human, or a hand to hold, will prevail.

This poem was born on the Easter weekend of 2025. I remembered it today, as I contemplated Mary Magdalene’s feast day this morning (July 22) and thought I’d share it here. I also wrote a poem today, and when I re-read my Easter poem, I noticed that it contains a similar theme, about the kind of Love that’s woven across eternity.

Soul love.

Divine Union

A man and a woman were
beloveds.
She watched, her soul bleeding across time,
staining eternity,
as they hung his shredded body in the jagged heat of noon.
She stayed until the last breath kissed him goodbye,
when she could not,
and his precious head sagged beneath the weight of the Love that crowned him.
She wept wept wept.
Days later, carrying her oils and herbs to bless his skin of amber and gold,
she rushed to the hollow where
he slept slept slept
And yet –
Where darkness had held him
blazed
a bonfire of sunlight,
the boulder set aside,
as if blown by the gentlest breeze,
And there stood a stranger whose eyes were beams of devotion and peace.
The gardener? thought the Magdalene,
What lovely flowers he’ll grow.
Closer now, their eyes latched and every wound was mended
space and time upended –
In Gethsemane, the olive trees knew and joined ancient arms to dance.
Their song went like this: there is only life.