🎙️ Still Point 12:10 – Intro for “The Eight Steps of the Mystical Path of Christ”
Welcome to Still Point 12:10 —
a pause in the middle of the week to breathe, reset, and rise.
I’m so glad you’re here.
This is your moment to exhale the noise of the world
and return to the stillness that has always been waiting for you.
So often, when people think of Jesus’ teaching, they imagine rules to follow or simply being good. But the truth is, Jesus offers us something much deeper — a path of transformation.
Today, we begin a journey —
a sacred unfolding known as The Eight Steps of the Mystical Path of Christ. This isn’t a path of perfection,
but a path of transformation.
It’s not about leaving the world behind,
but discovering the Holy woven through every ordinary day.
Each step invites us deeper —
from awakening to surrender,
from purification to illumination,
from union to service,
from embodiment to return.
These are not steps we rush through,
but rhythms we live into —
the slow, sacred spiral of becoming Love itself.
This is the inner journey Jesus invites us to walk. Not just a way of being nice, but a way of awakening, of seeing differently, of living with resilience, and of resting in union with God.
So wherever you are —
driving, walking, washing dishes, or sitting quietly in the soft light of morning —
let this be your still point.
Let this be your breath between worlds.
Here, we remember what it means
to walk the mystical path of Christ —
to awaken, to trust, to shine, and to serve
as Love made visible.
Take a deep breath.
Let’s begin.
There is a quiet place within you where the wind of the Spirit moves like breath across water. The early followers of Jesus knew this hush. They listened for it on hillsides and in kitchens, on shoreline mornings and in the press of the crowd. Mary Magdalene learned to recognize it in the garden at dawn, where loss became recognition and grief became love that cannot be unmade. This is the mystical path of Christ—not an escape from the world, but a way of walking in it so wholly that the ordinary shines.
What follows is the path as pilgrims have found it in the life of Jesus and through the first contemplative witness of Mary Magdalene. Eight movements, circular rather than linear—like tracing a quiet spiral into the heart of God and back again into the world we are given to love.
- Awakening
Awakening is not thunder. It is the soft knock at the door when you were sure no one knew your address. It begins the way morning begins—slow, then suddenly everywhere. In the Jordan’s water, Jesus rises with the water still on his skin and hears the Voice name what already was true: beloved.
Mary’s awakening happens by name as well—“Mary”—and the world rearranges itself around a single word. We awaken when something tender in us recognizes that love has spoken first.
On this path, you don’t manufacture holiness; you awaken to presence already here. You breathe, you consent, you open your eyes.
- Surrender
Surrender is the second movement, but it shadows every step.
In the wilderness, Jesus releases every glittering shortcut: turning stones into bread, grasping power, insisting on spectacle. He chooses trust over control. Surrender is not defeat; it is the unclenching of the heart so that grace can flow. Mary also surrenders in the garden—she lets go of clinging to the old form of Christ so that she might receive the Risen One as he is. We surrender when we let love have the final say over our anxious strategies, when we whisper, “Be with me as it is,” and mean it.
3) Purification
This is the clearing-out, not of shame, but of the fog that crowds the window. Jesus overturns tables, not people; he drives out what blocks honest encounter. Purification is the broom and basin of the soul: the habits that keep us numb, the narratives that keep us small, the resentments that knot our breathing. It is forgiveness like warm water. It is the simple courage to speak truth kindly, to confess what is stuck, to stop feeding what harms us. Here the Spirit is not a critic but a midwife, steadying us as we release what we cannot carry onward.
4) Illumination
Once the window clears, light finds its own way through. Illumination is not information; it is recognition. “Come and see,” Jesus says, and vision widens—bread becomes body, strangers become kin, the lost coin gleams. On the mount, garments shine; at a well, living water wells up; on a road, hearts burn within. Illumination is the grace of seeing that every bush can blaze with God if we will only turn aside. Mary’s illumination is Easter morning itself—the world still bruised, yet radiant. We practice attention, and the plain day brightens.
5) Union
Union is the simple, shocking intimacy of abiding: “I am in you, and you are in me.” It is not an achievement; it is a homecoming. The mystics say union tastes like silence that isn’t empty, like breath that prays itself—God within, around, and through. In union, the divide between sacred and ordinary softens: kneading dough becomes doxology; washing a face becomes blessing; walking the dog becomes a liturgy of fresh air and grace. Mary speaks “I have seen the Lord,” and that seeing lives inside her. Union is not a fuse that burns out; it’s the quiet hearth that keeps everything warm.
6) Service
Union blossoms outward as service, not to earn love but because love cannot help but share itself. Jesus kneels with a towel, and the shape of God looks like humility. Service is the sacrament of the basin and the bread—feeding, tending, mending, showing up. It is the courage to risk proximity to other people’s pain without trying to fix them out of our discomfort. Mary becomes apostle to the apostles—good news carried on tired feet because joy insists on being told. Here our gifts become rivers, not reservoirs.
7) Embodiment
Embodiment is love with skin on—faith that can be touched. The Word is made flesh, and so is our prayer: how we breathe when anxious, how we speak when offended, how we rest when weary.
Embodiment asks: can your theology be seen in your shoulders? In your calendar? In your checkbook and your laughter? Jesus blesses bread and breaks it; he eats with outcasts and friends; he weeps; he sleeps in storms and wakes to calm them. In embodiment, we stop outsourcing holiness to ideas and let it inhabit our gestures, our tone of voice, our steady presence at the kitchen table.
8) Return
Every pilgrimage returns home, and the truest test of transformation is the way we carry groceries across the threshold, the way we answer texts, the patience we offer a stranger at the four-way stop. Return is not regression; it is re-entry with a softer center. The disciples come back to Galilee, to work and waves and firelit breakfasts. Mary returns with a message; her ordinary life becomes a doorway. We return to the same streets with new eyes—the sacrament of the mundane revealed. The path loops: awakening opens again, surrender loosens anew, purification clears once more. The spiral widens; our lives grow roomier with grace.
And so the mystical path of Christ is not a ladder we climb but a rhythm we learn. It is Celtic in its trust that the Holy hums in the river and the robin and the rain on the roof. It is Christ-shaped in its pattern of descent into the heart, rising in love, and returning with bread for others. Mary Magdalene walks with us as friend and witness, reminding us that love speaks our name and sends us out.
If you want to begin, begin small. Put your feet on the floor in the morning and remember you are beloved. Let go of one tiny thing you don’t need to carry today. Make space for light—open a window, notice one ordinary mercy, say thank you out loud. Abide for a few breaths. Offer a quiet kindness that costs you something but not everything. Let your body become a sanctuary where peace can be felt. Then come home to yourself again tonight, and rest. Tomorrow, the spiral opens once more.
