By John Mitrosky

The "Fourth Gospel" known as "The Gospel According to John", has past through many hands to get to the present form we know it today. It is also called the "Fourth Gospel", because no serious scholars believe that the apostle John wrote it, or that it can even be attributed to a community that was founded by John.

Inside the first half of the Fourth Gospel some scholars speculate is an earlier "Gospel of Signs" , in which women figure prominently. The second half of the gospel contains an anonymous, "male", mysterious, "Beloved Disciple" of Jesus, who is with Jesus at the Last Supper and also present with Jesus after his arrest, when together, in the middle of the night, Jesus and this disciple go see Caiaphas' father-in-law, "Annas". This could only be plausible if the "other disciple" knew Herod, and by extension, the high priest's family too, just like the Fourth Gospel says SHE did (John 18:15-16).

What if, in the earliest version of the gospel, the "Beloved Disciple", or "the disciple whom Jesus loved", or the "other disciple" was in fact named, and her name was Mary Magdalene?  What if the later editors of the Fourth Gospel created an anonymous male disciple as the "Beloved Disciple" to conceal the fact that the real founder of their community was a woman?

I was probably about thirteen when my parents decided to find me a new piano teacher who might inspire me to go to the next level of competence. I had been taking lessons for about four or five years at the point and both my former teachers had told my parents that I had a talent that should be nurtured. So every Wednesday afternoon immediately after school my Mom would drive me over twenty miles each way so that I could have the benefit of this teacher who had shaped the music careers of more than a few professional pianists.

From the very beginning he was not certain about my commitment, probably for good reason. I loved all sports; I loved riding my bike in the hills that surrounded our home; and I was discovering girls. Practicing the piano was no higher than forth or fifth on a long list of things I wanted to do with my non-school time. After nearly a year of wrestling with the teacher over my commitment, with my parents over my priorities and my own guilt, I knew that things were not going well. One day while I was playing my assigned music with my teacher sitting next to me on the piano bench, he began banging his hands on the keys and yelling "If you don't practice, practice, practice you will never know what it means to be a musician!"

Over the last five decades as I have searched for a meaningful spiritual path that might bring purpose, fulfillment and peace to my life, I have often reflected on that experience with mirth and awe. It must have been a funny scene fit for a Woody Allen movie. But the truth is I know that my piano teacher was right. He touched upon a truth that goes beyond piano lessons. We will never discover what it means to become something meaningful unless we practice and practice-until it goes from our thinking to our being. This is especially true if you want to become something that takes unique skills whether it is a surgeon, a teacher, an electrician and yes, a musician.

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