“Mary Magdalene,” stained glass from St. Kilian’s Church in Sülzbach, Germany (Photo by Peter Schmelzle)
I’m just going to go ahead and admit that I’ve never given Mary Magdalene a second thought. If I met her as a kid, I don’t remember it. If we were introduced sometime in college, I’ve forgotten. The truth is that, for me, Mary Magdalene always got lost amid the throng of other Marys in the Bible.
Recently that all changed and I confess that I’m glad I took the time to get to know her more personally. I found Mary Magdalene to be someone perfectly content to live in the background, serving in the shadows of the spotlights cast by her friends. (Truthfully, this is the first thing we connected over as I feel most comfortable serving behind-the-scenes, as well.) As Mary shared her story with me, I perceived a deep level of loyalty to those she called friend – a trait I value highly in my own friends. By the end of our week together, we wept with one another over the loss of loved ones that were so dear to our hearts that it felt like just breathing was an effort. We connected over the intense need we felt to do something for those we’d lost in the wake of their deaths.
Truthfully, I feel I have found a real gem of a friend in Mary Magdalene, a real kindred spirit and soul sister.
I’ve known Eve all my life. She’s pretty famous. She’s the subject in many beautiful works of art. She’s been written and talked about for centuries. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to meet someone that hasn’t heard of her.
Even though I’ve known her all my life, Eve and I never truly connected until last summer. We spent an intense week together really getting to know one another. We connected at first as followers of God. There were many “you, too?!” moments as we shared our walks with the Lord (that too often more accurately resemble stumbles). We connected as parents of grown children. We connected as wives. It was refreshing to learn that I shared so much in common with this sister-in-Christ.
I want to introduce you to my friend, Eve. I want you to connect with her on a personal level. I want you to experience how truly relatable my new friend is to you, too.
Spend a week connecting with Eve through my five day Bible Study here.
This FREE Summer Bible Study is about building bridges – both to the past and in the present. Construction begins June 6.
The Summer Bible Study provides a bridge for you to connect with women both from the past and in the present.
ONE-ON-ONE: Spending time together is essential in fostering friendship. Spend one-on-one time each week with a new woman from the pages of the Bible. See her faith come alive, teaching by example, as you connect with her over shared experiences. This is the backbone of the Summer Bible Study – connecting with the women in the Word. I had no idea each week how (or if!) I’d connect with the different women in the Word, but by Day 3 I felt as if I’d met a new friend. By Day 5, we were friends for life. Every. Single. Week. My faith was strengthened each week as these women spoke Truth to me, many times ministering to me in my own current circumstances. I learned from “hearing” their testimonies. I grew from their examples of faith and trust and courage. And you will, too. {NOTE: If you want to connect with women of faith this summer, but cannot commit to a group study, this Bible study is ideal. You will find your one-on-one time with each woman in the Bible incredibly faith-building as you form friendships with these past women of faith.}
GROUP BENEFITS: In addition to your one-on-one time each week, you can experience the Summer Bible Study with a group of friends once a week. Truth be told, I didn’t think there could be any new insights that my present-day friends (in my small group of 4) could share that I hadn’t already picked up on during my one-on-one time the preceding week. I was so wrong! The reason for this is that my friends and I connected with the “woman of the week” in different ways, depending on our own life experiences. This helped me to see my new friend from a different perspective, one I’d not considered before, and brought her even farther out of the pages of Biblical history. It also helped me to understand and appreciate my present-day friends better as they shared the experiences that have molded them into the women of faith they are today.
Whether you experience the Summer Bible Study alone or with others, you can expect to grow, to be challenged, and to have your perspective changed.
Before we moved overseas, we lived in the Southern US, which on the surface is a very friendly culture. We greet strangers and acquaintances with a “Hi, how are you?” You greet friends with a warm hug and a big smile and it’s great! But even at church we don’t just go around hugging everyone, right? We hug those that we love. Then we moved to Russia.There, it was different. People were not overly friendly, never greeted a stranger in the street, and I was usually grateful to be ignored.But in the conservative church, we kissed.On the lips. Men kissed men and women kissed women. Good times. Although at the time it was my least favorite part of church, looking back, I recognize that it was a very important part of fellowship. They took it seriously as a commandment and cheerfully (or not), kissed one another. A dry peck, and a quick hug if you were friends or a loving embrace if you were dear friends. They always made sure to greet every single person.In our youth group, there wasn’t as much kissing, but the girls hugged each other, and the guys shook each other’s hands, every single one. In a harsh culture, there was a comforting familiarity in that way of greeting each one. No one was left out of the greeting.
Now we live in a different country, in an even more traditional culture and, guess what. They kiss here, too. But it’s different.Here it’s the whole culture–not just the church–that is prone to kissing. Again, women-to-women, and it’s a kiss-kiss on the cheeks (left to right). It’s sweet, and all the while they are telling you how good it is to see you again and asking how you are, and how your family is and how your parents are. Even guys sometimes do a cheek-to-cheek thing that is not kissing, or a forehead bump, while clasping each other’s right hands. Every person in the room is greeted with a kiss or a handshake.
When we have people over, there is a ceremony of greeting and kissing that is not to be blown off casually. For instance, when guests come to our house for coffee, our whole family comes to the door, and we say, “It’s good that you came.”And their reply is, “It is good that we found you (at home).” If it is a man, I will shake his hand while we say this, and if it is a woman, we will be busy kissing each other’s cheeks, asking about the kids, if I’ve talked to my mom recently, if I’m tired (I’m supposed to be, because that means that I worked hard today, but I’m supposed to deny it). If we are really close, or it’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other, we will kiss each other’s cheeks more than twice and give each other a tight squeeze.(Hahaha!Some of you are cringing.It’s okay.Albanian women are awesome at making you feel greeted well.) While the women are kissing, the men are shaking hands and asking each other the same questions about their families (literally, “households”), work and whatever it is that men ask each other. After the greeting, the guests are either offered slippers, because Albanians do not wear their shoes in the house, or they are told to leave their shoes on because guests are special (or the floor is really cold and there are no guest slippers). Then they are led into the living room to sit, and the wife or daughter of the house brings a bowl of candy and serves each guest a sweet. This was traditionally llokume (Turkish Delight), but nowadays it is very often a chocolate. Then, coffee or juice is served to the guests. There are special customs regarding foods served and each region has their own, but the importance of it is the honor that they show their guests.
Because it’s such a traditional culture and everyone follows the same rules of greeting, they are used to it, but for those of us who have come from other places, it’s another opportunity to rethink the way we do things, especially those of us from the sometimes-too-casual West. Maybe in our Western churches holy kissing would be hard to reinstate as a scriptural mandate, but it would certainly make it easier for me, because when we go back to the US, it takes me two months to remember that no one there does the kiss-kiss thing. So embarrassing! Barring such a change, here are some things to think about. Do I honor the people who come to my home, to my church, to my social groups? Do I make them feel welcome, loved and accepted? How can I show love and honor to the people that I meet when I am out, especially those who are my brothers and sisters in Christ? Is there a way that I can reach out to those who might be on the lonely fringes, who need to a “holy kiss/handshake/hug”?
Meet Lorinda Fleming:
I was born and raised in small town America, living in three different states. I met my husband in Bible college and we were married after our sophomore year. Right after finishing college, we moved overseas and have lived in three countries in Eastern Europe for the past 22 years, working in local churches. We have three teens who are some of my greatest joys in life. I love Jesus and enjoy iced tea, good books, mountains, quiet days in the country, and spending time with my family. I don’t have a blog, but I love to read other people’s blogs, especially if they are written by friends, and it’s an honor for me to be a guest on Ericka’s blog.
Guest post by Andrea Young. You can connect with Andrea on Instagram.
hos·pi·tal·i·ty
häspəˈtalədē
noun
The friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers. (google.com)
Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. (Hebrews 13:2, ESV)
A more direct translation of Hebrews 13:2 is, “Of hospitality be not forgetful, through this indeed unawares some have entertained angels.” That word – hospitality – is translated from the Greek philoxenia. According to Dr. Mike Burer, “It’s a compound word which combines the noun for friend (philos) and a noun which could mean either hospitality or stranger/alien (xenia). Put them together and you get the idea: either treating a stranger like a friend, or providing hospitality to a friend.”
Based on the rest of the verse, this is the idea the author of Hebrews was instructing his audience of late 1st century Christians: Treat strangers like friends. In the context of the late 1st century, this probably meant inviting traveling strangers into your home to eat and sleep. I would be unlikely to invite complete strangers into my home to stay. It’s a condition of the times. So how can a modern Christian live out this exhortation?
When I see my friends, I greet them warmly. I want them to know I am happy to see them! I ask them about their lives, and I listen with interest. And I often do invite them into my home – frequently to eat, and occasionally to sleep. I cheerfully take on the house-cleaning and food preparation that signals to my guests: I am glad you are here! I want you to feel happy and comfortable. I want you to stay as long as you’d like. I am sensitive to your needs and will do what I can to accommodate you.
I do not often extend this to strangers with which I have occasion to interact. My introverted nature is on high alert in the presence of strangers, and it takes an extreme amount of energy to break through that self-imposed barrier to treat strangers as friends, especially when the interpersonal stakes and potential for rejection are high. Too often, I think to myself, “Someone more extroverted and well-spoken will greet that new person at church”, or, “That person probably doesn’t want to talk to me anyway,” or frequently, “Rather than get stuck in a conversation consisting of mind-numbing small talk with someone I don’t know, I’ll just sit here and look at my phone like I’ve got something terribly important to do….”
When Ericka asked me to write my thoughts on hospitality, I was planning on writing my thoughts on how to be a good hostess, and although related to hospitality, being a good hostess does not necessarily make one hospitable. For those friends I do invite into my home, I manage quite well as a hostess. I find it enjoyable – the planning, the preparation, the eating and drinking and the merry-making. It fills up my heart to make other people happy with food and conversation. But am I extending this to those who I do not (yet) call my friends? To strangers and newcomers? Or do I hide behind my sinful nature, afraid of rejection or unpleasant entanglement?
As with all other virtues, I will never perform this perfectly. I will practice hospitality. I would like to be a more hospitable person to strangers. How wonderful it is when you are the stranger, and someone makes you feel warmly welcomed! It is such a spirit-lifting experience to make a connection with a stranger who smiles at you, talks to you, asks you about yourself and seems interested in listening to you. It can transform your day, and in some cases it can transform your life. What barriers do I need to knock down in order to approach others that way? You never know who they might be, or what impact you might have.
*We had constant rain and Thunderstorms all week, so we kept drawing until we got an activity we could do that day. Saturdays activity was actually drawn on Tuesday and we all wanted to do it so badly that it kept getting top billing each day – if it didn’t rain. We are finally expected to dry out by Saturday afternoon, so our fingers are crossed that we’ll finally get to hit a bucket of balls.We had so much fun geocaching, we kept it up long after the initial 7 I had planned. Free app for your phone called “Geocaching,” complete with a very good gps (even with the clouds!) that walked us right up to the caches. Highly recommend!
Dollar Theater was a re-draw (due to weather). With 25 minutes until the movie started, friends were not able to join us. It was a so-so experience. Dollar Theaters are…well…loud. And no one seems to have heard that you’re suppose to be quiet during the movie. And the popcorn chewing! Ugh!One of my girl’s most enjoyable activities. She loved having her sweet friend over for the afternoon. (My son chose to sleep, as he was recuperating from a 26-mile backpacking trip a few days prior.)We took our Minute-to-Win-It Games on the road to a friend’s house for after-dinner fun on Friday night. Two teams. Family v. Family. Good fun!
Note: I did not take pics of my kids in their skivvies on Thursday, but I will share with you the pajama bottoms my son had on all day. He got these for Christmas and they fool me every time he wears them! (Amazon affiliate link)
I’d love to hear about your Spring Break Staycation! Please share in the comments what you did to make some memories with your kids without breaking the bank.
