The Year of Living Julianly: Part IV - The Forever Thing

There are some well known themes in The Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich. There is the theme of love, of course. Julian ends her writing with "Love was his meaning." She'll hear no argument from me. There is the theme of the hazelnut, where Jesus shows her all of creation as the size of a hazelnut, contained and cared for. There is the theme of man's fall, as exemplified by the parable she tells of the servant falling into a ditch while on his lord's business. And there is the best known one of all - the oft quoted "all will be well" theme.

The theme I will explore here is almost hidden in her writings, hidden, that is, in plain sight. It is the theme of eternity.

I have no plan to do a word count, but words denoting "forever" abound in Julian's writing. Words and phrases like "endlessly" "from without beginning" "eternally" and "without end" appear in every one of her 86 chapters and usually more than once. Here is an example:

God, the blessed Trinity (who is everlasting Existence), just as He is endless from without beginning, just so was it in his endless purpose to create mankind. Chapter 58

Paraphrasing clumsily: "God, being eternal, in his eternity, used his eternal will to create us."

Julian finalized her writings over a twenty year period between the ages of 30 and 50, so this was no girlish excess, no impetuous over-use of adverbs. Every word and phrase was pondered and prayed over, "smithed" as it were..

She is known today as a mystic, but I take exception to that designation. It is easy to brush aside a mystic's writings as abstract, ethereal, and irrelevant to the modern, everyday reader. No, Julian was earth bound and practical. She did not predict the future. She had nothing to say about achieving any sort of enlightened state or spiritual ecstasy. She was about as far from John of Patmos as it is possible to be; there are no mutant creatures, heavenly or otherwise, no flashes of light, no trumpets in her writing. Julian was shown things by Jesus that led her to refine her concept of God. She asked questions, got answers (mostly), and was happy about it.  

Julian was, in fact, a theologian. Her theology was based first on her religious upbringing and then finally on what Jesus himself showed her. Unlike other theologians of her day (Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, Meister Eckhart) Julian had no Latin, surely never studied the Patristics, probably never read Scripture herself but listened to what was read and preached to her and what she saw in the many mystery plays common in the late middle ages. Her theology was a sort of grass roots thing based on her particular experience of God, both in and out of church.

So why her continual emphasis on eternity? What theology is implied in this? We hear about eternity so much that we take it for granted. Julian did not. We say "world without end" while we're gathering our belongings, settling our children, finding the page. Eternity is a given for us, but Julian doggedly pursued the concept until it made sense to her. If God is eternal, no beginning and no end, then everything that God wills is eternal. We ourselves, every thought and word of ours, were present in God from without beginning. Every action of every person creature has been contained in God from forever. The tuna fish sandwich that I will be eating for lunch was known to God, the fish itself, the bread, the grain, the baker, the scallion and celery grower, the horseradish manufacturer, the grocer, the ceramicist who designed the plate, are all part of God's eternal essence.

What does this mean for us as people living today? How can I have an enemy if that person was also contained with me in God from without beginning? How can I ever be afraid of anything knowing that God's hands have been on me from all eternity? How can I even think of amassing wealth or pretty sweaters? How can I resent the laundry that I have to fold?

But let's consider some bigger questions. Man's fall, so charmingly depicted in Genesis, was no surprise to God. The Exodus did not happen when things got to be too much for God to stand it any longer. Mosaic Law was never going to be the final word. The Incarnation and Redemption were not last-ditch responses to a needful world. We tell our salvation story linearly through the lens of our human understanding. We naturally see it that way. I've spent my whole life being on David's side vs Goliath, vs Saul, even vs Absalom. What a joke on me! God holds everything and every one. Always has. Always will.

And speaking of final words, how can there be any final world when the future is contained in God from without beginning? All words are final, and yet no words are final.

All these things, my tuna sandwich, the Exodus, the Law, Jesus' life, David's triumphs are not entirely in the past, just as they were never entirely in the future. T.S. Eliot said that "all time is eternally present." He said that this happens "at the still point of the turning world." Where is that?

For me, and I think for Julian, that point is God.

Because of our intimate connection with God through creation, we have a natural grasp of this eternity. Eternity is ours by default. When the words of Absolution are said over us in church after we confess, the celebrant asks God to "keep you in eternal life". The key word is "keep." Do I live as if I am kept in eternal life? Do I see myself as part of eternity? Do I see my neighbor that way?

In the face of her revelations, Julian struggled with these and other ideas. She asked Jesus for more and more clarification. Finally, she saw in this eternity the answer to many of her questions. When her confidence in a teaching or a tradition grew rocky, she saw that in eternity everything would turn out as it was meant to .... from without beginning.

Here are her final words:

In this love He has done all his works, and in this love He has made all things beneficial to us and in this love our life is everlasting.
In our creation we had a beginning, but the love in which He created us was in Him from without beginning and in this love we have our beginning.
And all this we shall see in God without end, which may Jesus grant us. Amen.  Chapter 86

I Made Audacity My Roof

                                                       
There is a poem by Robert Pinsky that I have read and re-read and pondered for many years. It is called "Samurai Song," and, if you'll bear with me, I'll transcribe it here.

When I had no roof I made
Audacity my roof. When I had
No supper my eyes dined.

When I had no eyes I listened.
When I had no ears I thought.
When I had no thought I waited.

When I had no father I made
Care my father. When I had no
Mother I embraced order.

When I had no friend I made
Quiet my friend. When I had no
Enemy I opposed my body.

When I had no temple I made
My voice my temple. I have
No priest, my tongue is my
choir.

When I have no means fortune
Is my means. When I have
Nothing, death will be my
fortune.

Need is my tactic, detachment
Is my strategy. When I had
No lover I courted my sleep.

We all know the lack of something or other in our lives. But there are some things we lack that we don't perceive. Moreover, there are ways of compensating or adjusting that we can't easily discern. What struck me about this poem was the apparent ease the speaker has for tending to himself. Oh, to have that ease!

Pinsky is Buddhist and detachment is certainly his strategy. I am not a Buddhist but detachment is something I have worked on for most of my adult life. I see it as a deep grace that it ever occurred to me. Need is his tactic. And God's power is made great in my weakness. (2nd Corinthians 12)

Last week, I had the thought to write my own version of this poem. Not, of course, that I wouldever match the former poet laureate of the United States or that I would even come close to writing a real poem. No, my idea was to think about what I have lacked and how I have tended to that lack. I wanted to articulate how God's grace has worked just a bit in my life. Pinsky's poem is about discipline and control, about effort and searching. My words, on the other hand, are about chance. I find, however, that both he and I end up very near our original locations. Here is what I wrote.

When I had no understanding
I bent to understand the ground.
When I prayed no prayer
I walked.

When I found no comfort
The cold comforted me.
When I felt no spirit
I breathed.

When no one pardoned me
I sought pardon from the sky.
When I roiled in sin
An angel took away my blame.

When words failed me
Jesus saved me.
When I looked for love
I found a monastery.

My purpose in posting this very personal story is to encourage you to do something similar. I began with two lists: "I had no" and "I". After making the lists, I simply drew from them, leaving aside most of the words and finding some new ones. I wasn't particularly interested in a "product" but in voicing how grace is certain and blessings are unexpected. 

It's possible that I could write another one some day. It's also possible that I won't, that this was enough. My basic theology is that God, having created the world, is always with us, that there is no actual emptiness anywhere. Writing this was an act of faith for me, and maybe an act of belief as well. 

Here is more about Robert Pinsky. 

The Year of Living Julianly - Part III; "Art thou well apayd?"

This week finds me about half way through my year of studying Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love. Taking about four days per chapter, at this point I am on Chapter 43 of 86. My year of living Julianly will end in mid-September. 

Although I am now reading the chapters that Julian devotes to her understanding of prayer, this being the fourth week of Lent, I decided to write about some earlier chapters, specifically Chapter 20 to Chapter 22 in which Julian confronts Christ's passion. 

Medieval Christians were exhorted to dwell on his passion, his suffering and death. Sin, our sin, as the cause of this unjust suffering, was a focal point. The reason for such heavy emphasis was an eschatology that saw mainly, or perhaps exclusively, heaven and hell. We would die, be judged according to our lives, our sins and our sorrow for those sins, and then sent to heaven, if our good deeds and contrition outweighed our sins, or to hell if they did not. Thinking about Christ's suffering would, in theory, spark contrition and result in heavenly rest. Ignoring the Passion would harden our hearts, invite sin in and land us in eternal torment.

This very legalistic, Department of Corrections, transactional eschatology has largely, and thankfully, disappeared from modern faith communities. I remember this emphasis very vividly from my own upbringing in the Roman Catholic church. Back then, we were sort of living as medieval Christians, but with better dental care. Sin and sorrow for it was a big part of our faith, our prayer, our thought, our theology. 

Women, especially, in medieval times were encouraged to contemplate Christ's passion. Women needed to be reminded of sin and how Christ pain and death were specifically caused by their human errors. This was the recommended prayer practice for females. The "Eve" thing, one presumes.

Julian experienced a grave illness at age thirty. She was at the point of death when her curate brought her a crucifix to gaze on so that this would be her final earthly sight. It was at this moment, and then continuing on for a day and a half, that Julian received her revelations. Christ's passion was naturally where her revelations began. She describes in vivid detail what she saw, the physical evidence of his torment, the blood, the exhaustion, the labored breath. 

But something surprising happened:

"And I, gazing upon all this by His grace, saw that the love in Him which He has for our soul was so strong that deliberately He chose the Passion with great desire, and humbly He suffered it with great joy, with great satisfaction. " *

Then Julian beholds the very sin that caused Christ's suffering, which he endured by his great love for us, being turned into glory through that love. Christ took  ..."to himself all things, whether on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross." Collossians 1:20  Through his suffering, Jesus transformed our sin into glory. Julian saw it.

Jesus then asks her "Where now is there any point to thy pain or thy distress?"

from Chapter 22

"Art thou well satisfied (apayd in the Middle English) that I suffered for thee"?"
"Yea, good Lord, thanks be to thee. Yea good Lord, blessed mayst Thou be!"
"If thou art satisfied, I am satisfied. It is a joy, a bliss, an endless delight that ever I suffered the Passion for thee; and if I could suffer more, I would suffer more."

This extraordinary dialogue struck me very hard when I first read it. My first reaction was to think that Julian was making it up, or that she was immersed in wishful thinking. A Christian of her time, however, would not imagine that Jesus would call his passion "a joy, a bliss, an endless delight". She could not invent a Christ who asked her to rejoice with him in his redemptive act. It was no easier for me to entertain the idea.

Human beings avoid suffering. It is built into our survival instincts. Jesus was human (true God and true man). In Gesthemane. Jesus asked to be let off from his ugly destiny on the cross. He faced his suffering bravely but he didn't seem to enjoy it, not if you believe centuries of sacred art. But, according to Julian, he was quite glad of it in hindsight. 

This is a love that we can't comprehend, and that's because we will never be able to comprehend God's love. We do love. Parents usually love their children. Children love their pets. Teachers love their students, we hope. Martin Luther King Jr, just as an example, loved the people of this country. But none of that comes close to the love of God for us his creation. 

A few years ago, I wanted to understand the reason for Christ's suffering. I wanted it to make sense to me. During Lent, we have Stations of the Cross every Friday, and I attend quite faithfully. I decided that during the Stations I might understand Christ's suffering, and I prayed to do so. 

After one Friday service, the whole thing had a new meaning for me. I wasn't able, or willing, to articulate it to myself, but the surprising thing was that I was happy, and I sensed that Jesus was happy, too. I expected to feel sad or, at least, somber. I expected that Jesus' suffering would be more vivid for me, more sobering. I thought I would be able to draw a line from our sin, my sin, to the pain he endured. But instead, I drew a line from a loving God to my own actual true self. I guess I was "well apayd."  



*All Julian quotes from  The Complete Julian of Norwich, Father John-Julian OJN, Paraclete Press, Brewster, MA.
Father John-Julian is the founder of the Order of Julian of Norwich of which I am an Associate.

The Prodigal Son

At our prayer group session this past Saturday, we did an adapted version of lectio divina on Jesus' famous parable of forgiveness, The Prodigal Son. It began with a lot of discussion and settled into contemplation after that. Discussion was so rich and grace-filled that I want to share some of our words with you. And our questions.

This is a famous story and we wondered about that. You can refer to the return of the prodigal in just about any context (a long absent relative comes for a visit, a co-worker gone on disability comes back etc.) and everyone will know what you're talking about. "Killing the fatted calf" is universal code for unrestrained merry-making. Elton John it in "Benny and the Jets." Nobody had to Google it.

Our group was sparked by the addition of one of our regular participant's 10 year old son. He was fully engaged in the discussion which was marvelous. The issue of the famine that hit the distant land and the son's hunger worried him. He couldn't fathom an actual famine or the total poverty that was conveyed in the story. We saw that we, too, might have a bit of trouble comprehending such abject need. How deeply must we feel need in order to throw ourselves on God's mercy? Must we hit rock-bottom? And if we do, is that God's blessing?

Out of this need, the son "came to himself." We wondered about that wording. Yes, there are other, and, in my opinion, weaker translations, but we fastened on the idea of the son's identity and that his realization of it is what sent him home. Whatever he'd done, his sin, was no match for the ultimate truth of who he was...his father's son.

And what was his sin? He asked for what would have been ultimately his own fortune. Yes it was inconvenient and foolish. He squandered his inheritance, he defiled his being, but what was it that actually hurt his father? Surely, it was his leaving. The breach between parent and child was the wound.

We wondered about the people who heard this story from Jesus. What did they think? What did they find to identify with? How did they anticipate the story's ending? Surely there were some in the audience who were certain the boy would come to a bad end in the distant land. That's what happened to people who strayed, who shook off their identity. There were probably some who thought that when he finally made his way home, he would really be "in for it" from his father. Certain punishment. A long spell working in the fields with the slaves. Possibly he would never resume his place in the family. This would seem fair to them, and, if we're honest, to most of us today. We love justice! Did any of Jesus' hearers imagine the forgiveness? the rejoicing? the complete abandonment of retribution?

One of our group noticed that the son had received his punishment in the manner of his experience in the distant land. His poverty, his near starvation, his humiliation and alienation "tried him in the fire," so to speak. His elder brother, who thought he'd got off so easily would have no idea what his younger brother had endured. Are we just as ignorant of the suffering of our friends and neighbors? What do we know about anyone?

The prodigal rehearsed a speech to be made to his father. We understand this behavior. We want to frame things in the right way. It has to be exactly right to make our plea heard.  But the boy's father forgives him long before he even gets to recite the speech. His father barely hears him. Excitement reigns. Kill the fatted calf, bring the musicians, give this boy some nice clothes. Put a ring on his finger. Pull out all the stops.

In the rite for the Sacrament of Reconciliation in the Book of Common Prayer, we find the words "Now there is rejoicing in heaven; for you were lost, and are found; you were dead, and are now alive." (p. 451) This is why the father tells his eldest son they must celebrate. The family is restored. The death that is sin has been turned into the life that is our true being, our true self.

That sin? Poof! It's gone. Forgotten. What sin? Here wear this ring.

The Year of Living Julianly: Part II

*

Of course I'm not literally living Julianly. To do that I would have to have an anchorhold (anchorage) built for myself attached to my church with just one window giving in to the sanctuary and one giving out to the street. The first window would allow me to receive the Eucharist; the other window would allow me to advise the many faithful Christians who would seek my advice. That is how Julian lived for 20 years, from age 50 to her death at about age 70. It was not an uncommon life choice in the 14th Century. It is pretty much unheard of today, although there are a few solitary monks and nuns.

I am about a quarter of the way through with Julian's Revelations of Divine Love as well as being about a quarter of the way through my year, which began in mid-September. The chapter I am reading now (Chapter 27 of 86) is the famous one, the one with the quote that everyone always uses: "all shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well." T.S. Eliot quotes it several times in "Little Gidding," without attribution. My last rector quoted it often, with attribution.

Jesus says this to Julian as a way of comforting her. People too often quote it dismissively or with an unfounded idea of Julian's optimism or, even worse, her "sweetness." Julian was not an optimist, nor was she sweet. This woman lived through three bouts of bubonic plague in her town. She doubtless lost many loved ones. She lived at a time of great political and religious unrest. She nearly died herself from an unnamed illness. A life like that toughens you. She had no reason to think there was anything but suffering in this life and certain punishment in the next. "Sin is behovely" (necessary) Jesus tells her, but "all will be well."    What?

Julian was down-to-earth and methodical. She wanted her theology to make sense, for the pieces to fit logically. If we were perfectly made without sin, why must sin exist? Why pain or suffering or evil? Surely God chose to allow these things to be, but why? Wouldn't God be happier if we were sinless?

Julian saw sin and pain and suffering everywhere. But what she also saw was Jesus. It was this sight of our Lord that gave her hope because what she saw was love. This was not a partial love or a conditional love or a love that had to pass through a lens or required any testing. This was a love that was not like anything we know on earth....or only know through a glass darkly.

For Julian, however, the glass was not dark at all. Jesus told her that all would be well - not that she would end up in heaven, which was what a 14th Century Christian would want to hear, but that ALL would be well. Every last thing in creation would be sorted and everything would be just fine, thank you very much. Needless to say, that was not the teaching of the Church in the late Middle Age.

I often wonder why Julian was never censured in her lifetime. How did she escape the scrutiny that other theological outliers endured? Julian was loud and clear about her devotion to the teachings of the Church. She had no issue with any of it. She certainly did not lobby for Scripture in the vernacular or in the hands of lay folk. She took no controversial stand on anything. She made no argument, but simply stated what she knew.

And what Julian knew and preached and wrote was that God loves us, that there is really nothing in the world but God's love. This was the revelation that she had. that she tinkered with over the 20 years between her visions at age 30 and her final writing of them at age 50. It was this revelation that covered everything, every worry, every doubt, even every last behovely sin.

*This picture was on the wall of Julian House Monastery, the erstwhile home of the Order of Julian of Norwich.

Favorite Books of 2015

I read a lot of wonderful books in 2015. Looking back over my list, I could easily name 20 or 25 "best books." I am, nevertheless, limiting myself to six, or nine, depending on how you count. These are the best of the best.

1. The Hungering Dark by Frederick Buechner
2015 was my year of Frederick Buechner! I read one of Buechner's books last year and read more this year. The rest are on my Amazon wish list. Everything this man writes is full of love and truth. His faith is always at risk, but never faltering. He understands his and our humanity. God, for him, is just an arm's length away.

I chose The Hungering Dark to mention here, but I could have easily chosen Wishful Thinking, The Alphabet of Grace. or The Magnificent Defeat, all of which I read this year; any of which would make this list in a heartbeat. Each chapter of The Hungering Dark begins with a passage from Scripture. Then follows an in-depth reflection; a prayer is given at the end. This one little book could be a year's worth of spiritual practice.

2. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
Never in my life have I read a book about the natural world that so filled me with an actual need to see and know every single created thing. This is a book about what naturally happens in a specific place over a specific time. Dillard is a gifted writer; that is certain, and she has a Pulitzer Prize to prove it. More than a mere describer of life, though, she is a rabble rouser to every reader with one insistent cry: Pay Attention!

3. Every Riven Thing by Christian Wiman
Asking anyone to read poetry has always been, for me, asking way too much. Poetry is something for a class, or when you're dying or when you want to put something catchy and different at the beginning of a post. No more! I determined to read only poetry for a period of time in 2015 and found myself gladly indulging in mere words as opposed to  volumes. I even bought a book of poetry for everyone on my Christmas list.

As to Wiman's collection , I am happy to state that it was the best thing I read all year. You can easily find out (Google) everything about his amazing life and work and Christian faith, all of which feed his writing. His poetry has nothing of ego in it. It has no sentiment, no pretense, no agenda. It is as naked as any written words can be and as fearless. When he writes "May I hold your hand," he has no idea of the answer he will get, and neither do I. Everything is dangling on a string - memory, faith, love, a tree.

4. The Shepherd's Life by James Rebanks
James Rebanks is a shepherd, from a family of shepherds. His life is lived in the Lake District of northern England and his concerns are breeding, haying, weather, dogs and country fairs. In this, he is like most of his neighbors; in this, he is unlike any of mine.

I'm not sure if many people care this much about their work or their responsibilities as Rebanks. I am quite sure, however, that few of us care as much about the world and the living things on it as he does. This is not a religious book. It has no religious underpinnings and I imagine Rebanks would be surprised to find his book on this list, but, if you have ever wondered what the whole shepherd/flock business really means in Scripture, you will get a few answers from The Shepherd's Life.

5. The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher by Hilary Mantel
When I saw that Mantel had published this collection of short stories instead of delivering her hungrily-awaited third Tudor novel, I was not best pleased. Who does she think she is? I didn't read much fiction last year, and I only read this collection because it was on the shelf at my library. No waiting. I took it up without much optimism.

Hilary Mantel is hard to classify. Is she a psychological writer? A historical writer? A feminist? Does she write fantasy? Romance? Where does she fit? In this collection, Mantel gives us a bit of all possibilities, but her strength is in her ability to turn a story on a dime and not make the reader feel she is being manipulated. She can show human struggle with just the right amount of sympathy and just the right amount of distance. These stories are brilliant, surprising and challenging. You're forgiven, Ms Mantel.

6. Christian Households by Thomas Breidenthal The Right Reverend Thomas Breidenthal is the Episcopal bishop of Ohio. His book is brilliant and I hope he writes more when he has the time. Had it not been for a recommendation from my good friend  @TrischaGoodwin, I would never have looked at this book. It sounded to me like instructions to get your children to obey orders and say grace at every meal. It is not!

Breidenthal takes the dictum to "love your neighbor" to include those with whom you live. For me, anyway, this was quite revolutionary. That "nearness" as he calls it contains the Holy Spirit was another concept, not new exactly but newly explained/preached. Understanding our Christian vocation in this way opens us up to brand new ways of being together, of sharing a home. Decades ahead of his time, Breidenthal includes all relationships in his definition of "households."

The O Antiphons O Emmanuel

December 23

O Emmanuel, our king and our lawgiver, the hope of the nations and their Savior: Come and save us, O Lord our God.
Isaiah 7:14

In this last antiphon, there is no narrative. There is no rationale. There is nothing but the asking, the need. Can we be that basic in our prayer? Can we ask for salvation without conditions? Can we say: Come, God and be with us, whatever that means, whatever that entails?