Advent Day 8: Julian of Norwich
All will be well
Jesus did not say, 'You will never have a rough passage, you will never be over-strained, you will never feel uncomfortable,' but he did say, 'You will never be overcome.’
Advent Day 8: Julian of Norwich (1342-1416)
Let’s journey back to a time when a great plague afflicted the world, refugees fled war, economic insecurity reigned, and institutions of church and state were breaking down. No, I’m not talking about 2020 America but 14th century England. Which, just for perspective, is like dialing 2020 up to a thousand. This is the world of Julian of Norwich.
Though Julian wrote extensively about her mystical experiences, she kept quiet on most details of her life. What is certain is that she was born around 1342 and came of age in the village of Norwich. When she was six, the Black Death descended on her hometown. People died so quickly survivors were forced to bury victims in mass graves. Over the next few decades, successive waves of the plague killed half the population.
Let that settle for a moment.
Picture your family and friends, your workplace or church. Scroll through the photos on your phone. Now imagine half those people gone, wiped out by a bacterial infection with a nearly 100% fatality rate. This was Julian’s reality.
Julian writes that, at thirty, she lost the will to live. Though she doesn’t say why, scholars have concluded that she was probably married with children and her family had died. So, in May 1373 when Julian became critically ill, she welcomed her imminent death.
Fever and pain gripped Julian’s body. She slipped in and out of consciousness. When, after a few days, her breathing grew shallow, her mother summoned a priest to administer last rites. The priest stood at the foot of Julian’s bed, held up a cross, and instructed her to gaze on it as she faded from life.
What happened next today we might call a near-death experience.
Julian’s pain suddenly vanished, replaced by a comforting warmth that suffused her entire being. The light in the room dimmed. Only the cross remained mysteriously illuminated. Suddenly, the face of Jesus came alive, launching a series of visions Julian called showings.
Blood flowed from under Jesus’s crown of thorns, down his face and neck. It was so copious, Julian wrote, that if it had really been happening it would have covered her entire room and splashed up the walls. She witnessed his torture—being spat upon, mocked and punched. She saw the Virgin Mary, and hills and valleys. She felt her mind plunged to the bottom of a sea. She saw Jesus holding a hazelnut that represented the whole of the cosmos.
Visions came and went and, with them, revelation.
Julian came to understandings that were unheard of in her time, and which, even now, are only beginning to penetrate our 21st century religious consciousness: that our failings have no permanent hold and will never keep anyone from a God who loves eternally and infinitely; that Christ’s embodiment is as much female as male (she refers to Christ as she and mother); that Jesus’s death, rather than a sacrificial substitute for the sins of humanity, as she’d been taught, was the revelation of God’s supreme union with creation. God isn’t a distant observer but a living Presence, intimately sharing every aspect of our lives, including our greatest suffering.
Undergirding all of this for Julian was the mystical truth spoken by Jesus:
I have given them the glory You gave Me, so that they may be one as We are one, I in them and You in Me—that they may be perfectly united, so that the world may know that You sent Me and have loved them just as You have loved Me. John 17:22-23
In her visions, Julian awakened to a God that is the ground of all being, who is with us and in us. And through the Holy Spirit by which we participate in the divine flow of the Trinity, we are joined to God—in Julian’s language, we are oned.
But why would God one with us? The answer is simple and profound: love.
This is what I heard. “Would you like to know our Lord's meaning in all this? Know it well: love was his meaning. Who revealed this to you? Love. What did he reveal to you? Love. Why did he reveal it to you? For love. Stay with this and you will know more of the same. You will never know anything but love, without end.”
God made us out of love, for love. Everyone and everything exists because it has been loved into existence. God is Love itself.
When the visions stopped, Julian’s illness miraculously vanished. Utterly transformed, she made Love her vocation. She became an anchoress at the local church, taking up residence in a cell with two windows, one looking into the sanctuary so she could participate in services, the other facing the street. Her reputation as a mystic and visionary spread, and many from Norwich and beyond sought her out for spiritual direction, including the great English mystic Margery Kempe.
Julian’s account of her visions, The Showings, is the oldest surviving English work by a woman, and the only one by an English anchoress. Though Julian kept her writings mostly secret during her lifetime, they were preserved by one of her female attendants. For the next five hundred years they remained obscure. Only since the 20th century have they gained popularity as the world has finally become ready to receive Julian’s inspired wisdom.
Julian’s visions left her with a deep hope, joy and peace that distilled themselves in love. She came to believe that God did not exist to save the world, or us, from decay or destruction, but to walk with us every moment of our earthly lives and beyond. This allowed Julian, in the end, to say with utter confidence and conviction—and with the mystic’s vision of deep time—All will be well, all will be well, and every manner of thing will be well.
Practice
After Julian’s near-death experience she cultivated a life of spiritual receiving—an awakened sense of being connected to the web of creation and a beneficiary of grace and love in every moment.
The idea of Receiving grace in every moment is difficult for us modern folks who pride ourselves on Doing. But our spiritual lives deepen when we begin to appreciate that the greater portion of our Doing is only possible through the grace of Receiving.
To use an everyday example all of us can relate to, we Do by shopping for groceries with a typical, focused consumer mindset—I’m here at the store to buy ketchup with the money I’ve earned to put on the burger I will make later because a burger is what I want for dinner. We Receive when we are mindful of the fact that our transaction is a participation, a late stage in a process that involves planting, growing, harvesting, packaging, shipping, and stocking shelves, all of which require untold numbers of people we will never know, not to mention the gifts of water, air, sun and soil. Building this mindfulness into our daily actions leads to greater gratitude and a sense of connection.
As you move through today, pick an errand or an action or interaction in which you can practice a Receiving mindset. Try and replace I need to go here/do this/be that thinking with I’m gifted/facilitated/privileged with the ability to go here/do this/be that awareness. You can actually start as soon as you next stand up, or perform some other action, mindful of the miracle of muscles, bone and brain working together to gift you the ability to rise from your chair. The key to this is presence. You probably know by now that cultivating presence can be tough. But the more you practice this kind of mindfulness, the more naturally it will come.
Holiday Happenings at Life In The City
Dec. 11, 11:15 am: LITC’s original musical, Make Room In Your Heart.
Dec. 21, 7:30 pm: Blue Christmas, an intimate service for the longest night of the year.
Dec. 23, 7:30 pm: Our annual Christmas Eve-Eve service.
Dec. 25, 11:15 am: Celebrate Christmas morning with your church family.
Jan 1, 11:15 am: A quiet, contemplative service to welcome 2023.
Feedback
This is a first draft of a book that will go to publishers in 2023. If you spot typos or have suggestions, leave them in the comments below or email Greg Durham at greg@lifeinthecityaustin.org.
Catch Up On Recent Posts
Read the Introduction to The Heart Moves Toward Light: Advent With The Mystics, Saints and Prophets.
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