Abide – Julian of Norwich

Welcome everyone, and welcome to Abide.

This word, abide, has some other meanings that might help us to just refresh our idea of

what we're doing here. We could also call this remaining, or staying, or being at home, with

God. And so, this is our desire together, is to carve out these thirty minutes to slow down

and to move into our private spaces, and to cultivate listening to the still small voice of

God.

And I invite you, today, to maybe pause the podcast for a second and go out and find a

small, natural thing in your house, in your apartment, in your garden. That could be a nut,

like an acorn, or a hazelnut. Maybe a shell, a leaf, a feather, a rock. And if you can't find

anything, like living, that's okay. Maybe just like an eraser or whatever you can find. So, go

find that, and then come back and find your seat or wherever you're planning to have our

time of prayer. And we're just going to hold that item in the palm of our hand throughout

this prayer time.

Today, I'm so looking forward to being with you, and the Lord, and this precious St. Julian of

Norwich. And I love Julian. She is probably the Saint that I am most familiar with, or enjoy

her writings, her experience of God, her language. She often uses metaphors to describe

God and ourselves, whether that be a hazelnut, or our clothes, or a needle's point,

medicine, raindrops, our senses, the garden, the seabed, candle flames, motherhood, a

city center. So, I really just relate with how she describes God, and helps me embody more

of what God is like.

And so, we're all in for such a wonderful treat to sit with God, and Julian, and these words.

And again, we're just going to dip our toe into some of her work. And so, if any of this is

exciting to you, I hope you go on and study and seek more of her work.

And so, we're going to just begin holding our little nut, or leaf, or shell, or whatever you

found. We're just going to practice getting our feet planted on the ground. So, if you're

walking, feet are planted. If you're driving, your feet are somewhat planted. If you're sitting,

you also get your sit bones to be grounded into the chair.

And it's important in our time of remaining, or staying, that we do anchor in. We root

ourselves to be still.

And I often think of these prayer times as a time where you can take that anchor and drop it

into the sea of your life, where the top of the sea is very full of motion and crashing waves.

And then the anchor goes down into more of a middle ground of yourself, which is probably

slightly more at ease. And then it can go down deeper, still, into the very still waters of your

being, into that secret place, and it can rest there.

And so, with these deep breaths that we're going to take together, I just want you to

imagine yourself becoming more anchored or rooted in this present moment. And each

breath we take, maybe you allow yourself to go in and through the choppy waters of your

circumstances or the conditions of today, into that middle ground of yourself where there

is details, and assignments, and responsibilities, and emotions, and feelings. And then,

you can go even deeper, still, where it can become quiet.

So, let's take these breaths in and out together, allowing that anchor to move down, down,

down.

Breathing in.

And out.

Breathing in.

And out.

And last one, breathing in.

And out.

And this practice of our breath and moving that anchor down, it helps us cultivate this

greater perspective of ourselves. That we are more than just a person that things happen

to. Or we're more than a person that is living in these current circumstances. And the

Saints really invite us to anchor down, and to believe and to see something more that's

going on. Beyond how we might feel, or beyond what maybe is going on today. And God

welcomes us into this secret space.

To still us. To quiet us.

So, just become aware of God with you, in your environment right now. As you look around

the room. As you maybe look around inside of your being, in your heart, and what's been

going on in the last few hours, days, and weeks. And just be amazed that you can anchor

down, be rooted, and be still, while all of this is still happening.

Today, we get to open up Julian's words. And I often think of these Saints as companions

for the journey. And that word, companion, comes from two Latin words: come, meaning

with, and pani, meaning bread. With bread. That companions nourish our hearts like bread

nourishes our bodies.

And maybe you've noticed that these companions, or these Saints, they live very differently

than we do. They're quite extreme in how they give up so many things to seek after God

alone. Don't allow their extreme desire, and dependence, and way with God, to discourage

you that you, too, aren't called to be a Saint. Our lives all just take different forms of saintly-

hood, if we allow God to cultivate this in us.

Thomas Merton writes, “For me, to be a Saint means to be myself.”

And so, in this time of prayer, God is able to speak to us all, individually, about who we are,

who we're meant to be, and how we can enter more fully into that.

And so, we're going to allow these companions, and their pursuit after God, to encourage

us in our own pursuits after God.

Today, I'm going to introduce Julian to you through two different authors, Penny Roker, who

wrote ‘Homely Love,’ and Anne Lewin, who wrote ‘Love is the Meaning.’

And allow me to share a bit from Anne Lewin's book, ‘Love is the Meaning,’ for you to get a

sense of what Julian's life was like.

She writes, “We don't know much of Julian's life, actually. We know she was born in 1342,

and it is suggested that she was educated by nuns at Cairo, just outside Norwich. She said,

herself, that she was unlettered, though, that may only have meant that she didn't

understand Latin very well. We know that she lived much of her life as an anchoress, in a

cell, attached to St. Julian's Church in Norwich. But we don't know her real name. It was

the custom of the anchoress to take their name from the church where they served.

Anchoresses were women who lived a solitary life in the middle of a town or village. Like

the desert fathers and mothers before them, they withdrew from normal social life in order

to grow in love of God. But they were not entirely divorced from the world around them.

Their prayers for the place where they lived, and the advice they gave to those who came

seeking counsel, were invaluable. Julian would have lived by a simple rule based on the

Benedictine pattern of prayer, work, and rest. Julian's cell would have had two windows,

one, into the church so that she could hear Mass and receive Communion, the other onto

the main road, from the city center to the port. And through this window, she would have

spoken to those who came to her for advice. When Julian was thirty, she became seriously

ill. She received the last rites of the church and progressively weakened. And on the third

night, a priest was sent for, and he held a crucifix in front of her so that she could gaze on it,

to the end. Suddenly, she said, ‘In that moment my pain left me, and I was as sound as

ever I was before or since.’ She still thought she was going to die, and in fact, her mother,

who was with her, thought that she had died, and reached out to close her eyes. But

instead of dying, Julian actually had her first prayer answered, and in a series of

extraordinary visions, experienced the passion of Christ. It was a very vivid experience.

‘Suddenly I saw red blood running down from under the crown, hot and flowing, freely and

copiously, a living stream, just as it was at the time when the crown of thorns was thrust

upon His head.’ Julian recorded her visions almost immediately, in what is known as ‘The

Short Text of the Revelation of Divine Love.’ And then, she spent twenty years or so, mulling

over her experience, and produced what is called ‘The Long Text,’ in 1393. Julian is the first

writer, known to be a woman, writing in the vernacular. She became convinced that the

value of her experience lay not in the fact that she had the visions, but that the experience

had helped her to love God more. And it was to help others to love God more, that she

eventually shared all that she had learned.”

Let us just sit and allow this story of Julian and some of her experiences to settle into this

space.

A few things I would like to draw out of Julian's experience is that in the time period she

lived, it was full of unrest. We had the Hundred Years' War. We had the Black Plague, which

took out fifty percent of the population. There was religious unrest, political unrest, and

physical unrest. So, these were dark times. Also, Julian lived as an anchoress, which might

be a new word for you, but she lived in a space that was connected to the church, but also

was open to the people in the street, so that she could stay connected to what was going

on, with the hours of prayer, with communion, to also care for her space, whether that be

needlepoint, laundry, gardening, and then also to be available to the people in the city, to

come and speak to her for advice, in those times.

And you heard me say earlier, that she had a near-death experience, and in that

experience, she was given these visions of Christ and His passion. And they're pretty

graphic, if you want to get into reading these visions. But what she saw in these visions,

most of all, was the love of God. So, that is her theme, is the love of God. And it's

fascinating because she's living in such dark times, and her visions have to do with the

passion narrative. And what comes out of that is this deep love that God has for each and

every one of us.

And so, I'd like to just spend a moment with three different pieces of her writing, pieces of

‘The Revelations of Divine Love,’ and see what can be relatable for our own lives.

And the first one is about the hazelnut. So, you still have that nut, or feather, or stone, or

shell, in your hand. And this will allow this reading to become possibly more, more

powerful to you.

Julian writes, “He showed me more, a little thing, the size of a hazelnut, in the palm of my

hand, and it was as round as a ball. I looked upon it with my eye of my understanding and

thought, ‘What may this be?’ And it was answered in this way, ‘It is all that is made.’ I

marveled how it might last, for I thought to myself, ‘It might suddenly disintegrate. It was so

little.’ And I came to an understanding, it lasts and always shall, because God loves it. And

so, all things have their being because of the love of God. In this little thing, I saw three

truths. The first is that God made it, the second is that God loves it, and the third is that

God keeps it.”

So, as you sit here and sense that stone, or feather, or leaf, in your hand, you can look at

that, and just notice the beauty of it, the smallness of it, quite possibly the vulnerability of

it. And Julian is wanting us to just discover how precious we are, like this little hazelnut.

And these three truths, that God made it, that He loves it, and He keeps it. And so, I'm

wondering if we can take this moment, just to imagine ourselves like that little hazelnut.

That we've been created by God, that He sustains us, and that He loves us. And that little

hazelnut holds all your worries, and your fears, it's your circumstances, it's your

conditions. And just imagine the hand of God around you, like your hand is holding that

stone, or that acorn, or that leaf. And rest, rest now, in Him and in the palm of His hand.

Another teaching that Julian is known for, is this phrase, “Love was His meaning.”

And so, hear these words from ‘The Long Text’ in chapter 86. “I was taught that love is our

Lord's meaning. And I saw very certainly in this, and in everything, that before God made

us, He loved us. Which love was never abated and never will be. And in this love, He has

done all His works. And in this love, He has made all things profitable to us. And in this

love, our life is everlasting.”

Anne Lewin, in her book, ‘Love is the Meaning,’ speaks to this passage that I just read to

you, of Julian's. And she writes, “God's love is always to be found manifesting itself

somewhere. In the death camps of the Holocaust, God's love was shown in the

selflessness with which some people took the place of those who were on their way to the

gas chambers. God's love was shown in the way people took risks to save the lives of Jews.

Schindler, with his list, was only one of those, who used their position to provide papers to

enable Jews to find their freedom. Julian says that the answer to her question about God's

intentions, is that His meaning was love.”

So, as you read Julian more and more, and you get into her worldview, she really mixes

pain, sorrow, joy, love, depth. And she allows them to all mingle together. For this reality,

that love is His meaning. This must have come across when she had a vision of Him on the

cross, with the blood mingled down. The horror, the sorrow, the grief, and yet, the love. And

so, with this phrase, “Love is the meaning,

” I just invite the Spirit to, sort of, hover over the

spaces in our stories where there is just heartache and unfinished work, still. And sorrow,

and weakness, vulnerability. May we be able to see those little spaces of love reaching and

manifesting itself. And maybe, we can be those manifestations of love in these darker

spaces.

Lastly, Julian is known for another phrase; “All shall be well, and all manner of things shall

be well.”

And Anne Lewin writes, “Jesus couldn't be spared suffering, and neither will we avoid it.

Suffering is part of the world, as it is. But, because of what Jesus accomplished on the

cross, it is not the last word. God has the last word when Jesus says, ‘It is finished.’ We

won't be spared suffering, but Julian says that the way to meet it, is with trust.”

And then, Julian writes here, “God did not say, ‘You will not be assailed. You will not be

belabored. You will not be disquieted.’ But, He said, ‘You will not be overcome.’ God wants

us to pay attention to these words, and to always be strong in faithful trust, in well-being

and in woe. For He loves us, and He delights in us, and so, He wishes us to love Him, and

delight in Him, and trust greatly in Him, and all will be well.”

Allow me to read that last sentence, “God wants us to be to pay attention to the words, and

to always be strong in faithful trust, in well-being and in woe. For He loves us, and He

delights in us, and so, He wishes us to love Him, and delight in Him, and trust greatly in

Him, and all shall be well.”

And so, friends, as we sit together in this private room of prayer, wherever we are, as we

hold this stone, this leaf, this hazelnut, may we be anchored, may we be rooted, in this

deep love of God, that He has for us. And that He holds us in the palm of His hand. May we

be reminded, that in the face of death, and darkness, and in an unrest, just as Julian was in

her time, that seeing through the cracks, “Love was His meaning.”

And, as we continue to live our hours and days, with woe and well-being, we will trust. We

will trust in Him, that all is well, and all manner of things shall be well.

So, friends, may we all get up from this prayer time, moving into our days and the hours

ahead of us, with this great truth that we can hold on to, that we are in the palm of God's

hand, that He loves us, and our response to that love is to trust Him, that all shall be well.

Go in peace.