Partying Like Mary Magdalene

I am in the middle of Glennon Melton's Carry on Warrior: Thoughts on Life Unarmed. The book is a series of personal essays by a "mommy blogger" with the kind of past that respectable suburban mommies sometimes have but do not talk about in public.

The strength of the work is that it is a public examination of the author's soul. Yes, she tells her "conversion story." But she also talks frankly about the struggles she has with parenting, marriage, and friendship. She is converting every day, just the way I should. Melton is a recovering alcoholic, drug user, and bulimic, so you almost could imagine subtitling this work, "The Christian Life: One Day at a Time."

Since we are late in the octave of Mary Magdalene, I will point out Melton's reading of last Sunday's Gospel. I doubt Melton is familiar with the Jesuit technique of lectio divina, but she knows to how to use it. She sees herself in Martha and specifically in Martha's anxiety about hospitality (or as Melton renders it, "hostressing": "And Martha is still in the kitchen grabbing her hubby's shoulders and yelling, 'WHAT DO GODS AND DISCIPLES EAT?'"

Melton reads this story by asking some questions, "Is it possible that hospitality is not about perfect food or fancy furniture? Could the better part of hospitality be listening? If you can't do both, could the better part be focusing on your guest instead of trying to impress or even feed him? Could the better place be the family room, at the foot of your guest, instead of tucked away in the kitchen? Maybe."

She responds to the Gospel by inviting her best friends to a party where she chooses the better part, like Mary Magdalene. She insists everyone comes in their pajamas, bringing whatever they want to eat, whatever they want to drink, whatever they want to drink out of, and something on which to sit. And Melton then sits on the floor at their feet and listens.