WRITE FIRE

(and what worth has to do with power)

When intersectional feminist, and poet Audre Lorde, was diagnosed with terminal cancer in the 1980’s, she wrote in her journal, which was later published in a collection of essays titled, A Burst of Light;

“I want to live the rest of my life, however long or short, with as much sweetness as I can decently manage, loving all the people I love, and doing as much as I can of the work I still have to do. I am going to write fire until it comes out of my ears, my eyes, my nose holes – everywhere. Until it’s every breath I breathe. I’m going to go out like a fucking meteor!”

I thought of this quote, or I became this quote, when I read one of the many emails in the most recent release of the Epstein Files. The name of the person who wrote this particular email was redacted. (Protected.) The predator commented to Epstein about his “littlest one.” Fire. Pure fire streamed out of my ears, my eyes, my nose holes.

And something else happened. The world ended. For me. And what I mean is I refuse to go on with the world as it is. I refuse to accept a world that doesn’t end when horrors like this are revealed. I refuse to just continue on about my day, about my life. I choose to allow this to change me. I choose to allow this to douse all the work I’ve already been doing with lighter fluid. I am going to write fire, from here on out.

And the lighter fluid is belief in myself. But I’ll circle back to this to explain.

During a recent interview with Diane Sawyer for a documentary about The Gospel of Mary, she asked me candidly, “What is it with men calling women whores?”

I looked at her with thousands of years in my eyes, and slowly shook my head. And then, once our eyes had met, I commented, “As if that could diminish our power.” She smiled immediately, with that same legacy in her eyes as mine. That legacy of knowing, just knowing, that the reason women are so feared, so subjected to violence, and forms of control, the reason there are so many attempts to dismiss and devalue us, to call us something that signifies we’re less than human, is because we are so otherworldly powerful and so incapable of being controlled.

Our value in the world is inherent. Our worth is internal. Women’s worth in the world has never been tethered to what we can produce or provide for the patriarchy. Our worth in the world is eternal. And if we claim our worth, we will know our power.

Before I went to seminary, I worked with teenage girls who had been trafficked and sexually assaulted. Pure, incorruptible light would pour out of my heart for these girls. Some of you newer to my work might not know this, but I went to seminary because of them. Because day after day, I had to break up fights between the girls where the word, in all its many variations, that they would hurl at each other was whore.

And because the sisters of Charities that ran the shelter for the girls referred to them as prostitutes. To say that I saw red, actual red, every time I was told that one of these children got pregnant because of prostitution, is an understatement. You know those strange “aura” photos you can get at new age-y places? That’s what it looked like from within me, like my entire aura bloomed red.

Because I knew, but no one else seemed to hear me, as I explain in The Girl Who Baptized Herself, “There is no such thing as a fourteen year old prostitute.”

I went to seminary because I ardently believe that our ideas of the divine directly affect the status of women and girls the world over. So, I wanted to go upstream. I wanted to go straight into the very systems and structures that are reinforcing these ideas that the feminine and female are somehow less holy, less worthy. I wanted to get to the heart of why, and how teenage girls, children can be referred to as prostitutes.

If you diminish a person’s worth in the world you also diminish the crimes done to them. This is a strategic tool of the patriarchy. This is a truth that feels plain after listening to the consistent ways the survivors in the Epstein files are referred to as prostitutes, when they are comprised of teenage girls. Children.

(For anyone wanting a brilliant breakdown of the files, and a detailed account of the heroic efforts of Brad Edwards, the attorney fighting for justice for survivors– I highly recommend Amanda Doyle’s two part series on the podcast We Can Do Hard Things.)

For me, there is a direct connection between the fact that Mary Magdalene was not believed even by the male disciples within her story, and the fact that the survivors have not been believed since they first started reporting Epstein’s crimes decades ago.

We have been systematically taught to not trust women, to not trust the feminine, to doubt and question, and not take seriously the voices of the female experience throughout history and especially when it comes to religion.

After Mary Magdalene reveals the teachings that Christ gave to her, intentionally, to then pass on to the disciples, Peter practically scoffs in disbelief as he asks at the end of The Gospel of Mary, “Has the Savior spoken secretly to a woman and not openly so that we would all hear? Surely he did not want to show that she is more worthy than we are?”

There it is. That word, worth. Peter doesn’t believe Mary because she is a woman. Because in the first century a woman was not considered fully human. A woman couldn’t vote, or hold public office, and had no rights herself. A woman was property. A woman was a commodity.

As far as I interpret it, this is precisely why Christ gave these unique teachings to Mary, a woman. To help heal the male disciples from the harmful illusion that they are somehow more worthy than Mary. What Christ wants to make clear to Peter, which as we know, Peter is unable to grasp, is that the female is as worthy as the male. The feminine is as worthy as the masculine. There is no hierarchy in the spiritual world.

At the start of The Acts of Paul and Thecla, which is scripture that dates back to 70 C.E., and that like The Gospel of Mary, was labeled by the church from the fourth century onward as apocryphal or “of doubtful authenticity,” Thecla sits still for three days and three nights, and refuses to continue on with her life as is.

Thecla refuses to participate in a system of power external to her that considers her worth tethered only to her capacity to provide sex and produce children. Thecla wants to become a minister, like Paul. The scripture reads, “She also desired for herself to be deemed worthy, to stand face-to-face with Paul and hear the word of Christ.”

There it is again, that word. Worth.

These two female spiritual leaders represented such a threat to the patriarchal form of Christianity that began in the fourth century when Constantine made it the empire’s religion that the scripture that contained their stories was ordered to be destroyed.

And do know why these scriptures were so threatening?

In one word, worth.

Mary Magdalene and Thecla modeled to us that our worth in the world is inherent. Worth is internal. Worth is eternal. Our worth in the world has nothing to do with what we do or produce as human beings. The soul that we are, this alone merits the worth of our existence. The soul of love that we are.

Worth is claimed. Do you hear me? And this is why it’s so elusive.

Our worth is simply claimed. From within. It is not as we may have imagined or have been taught to think, something that can be earned, or proven, or bestowed upon us. Worth is claimed. Internally. We each have to come face-to-face with the truth of who we are. That ember. That tiny, resplendent diamond. That buried treasure.

We each have to face the excruciatingly beautiful, incorruptible light we are at our core. We have to see it for ourselves. We can’t wait for someone else to recognize us. We can’t expend endless amounts of energy trying to impress, and prove just how worthy we are of what we desire for ourselves and for the world.

We can’t wait for some miraculous imagined moment when we will finally be believed. We have always needed to be the ones to remember that we have always been worthy of being believed.

We have to be the ones to believe in ourselves.

This is what I mean when I say from here on out I write fire.

I have participated, colluded with the empire, with the unjust systems of power exacted upon us today, by constantly doubting myself. By diminishing the light that soars through me. By questioning the worth of what I might have to say.

For the sake of the littlest one, I refuse to ever do that again. That world has ended. I refuse to continue to ever doubt or question my worth.

Because if we claim our worth, we will know our power.

I don’t know yet what action I’m going to take. What peaceful protest I will be a part of to make certain there’s a day when the redacted name of that predator is revealed, and brought to justice. (I have a go-bag already packed in my closet just in case.)

What I do know we can do right now, this moment, for ourselves and each other is call back all our power, our money, our time, our attention from predators masked as spiritual leaders like Deepak Chopra.

We have never needed a man to teach us about the divine feminine. We have never needed to pay a gatekeeper for direct access to the divine. Because we know, we have always known, there are no gates.

We know, we trust, we believe that all we need to do is turn inward, as Mary directs us in her gospel, and meet with the vision only the heart can illuminate.

I believe Mary. Which is to say, I believe survivors. Which is to say, I believe in myself.

At long last, I have returned my faith to its just place, my own body. My own sacred knowing. My intrinsic, inviolable worth in the world.

One by one, and together, we will know our power.

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The Girl Who Baptized Herself Online Event

March 11th, 2026 | 7:00pm EST - 8:30pm EST

Join Harvard-trained feminist theologian Meggan Watterson for an evening of discovering the secret teachings Christ gave to Mary, the spiritual authority Thecla claimed, and how these first-century saints point us back inward to an ultimate power to transform our lives today.

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The Spiritual Eye of the Heart

THE ART OF LIVING
Boone, North Carolina
June 5th-7th 2026

Join bestselling author and feminist theologian Meggan Watterson for a powerful weekend of connecting to what The Gospel of Mary refers to as “the treasure,” or “the spiritual eye of the heart.” This “spiritual eye” exists within us and allows us to know what’s true and real for us. It’s an inner guide and source of vision whenever we feel lost.

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How Women Pray When The World is on Fire

KRIPALU CENTER
Stockbridge, Massachusetts
June 12 - 14, 2026

Through lecture, discussion, and practice of the Soul-Voice meditation together, we uncover a more complete understanding about Thecla as a figure of profound spiritual authority in the earliest form of Christianity. We discover why Thecla’s gospel was excluded from the current form of the New Testament, and explore what her teachings reveal about the power of knowing our worth.