All Will Be Well, All Manner of Things Will be Well...


"All will be well...." Julian of Norwich
 Friday was the celebration of the life of Julian of Norwich, always one of my favorite mystics. Hers is the story of faithful devotion in the face of illness and near death; hers is the story of ego-loss and reception of true self. Hers is the revelation of the sustaining power of Love in everything!
Today I am reflecting on her particular situation which may have become the situation in which many of us live. She was an anchorite. She lived in an anchor-hold of a church. She lived in one room with a window into the sanctuary so she could worship and a window onto the street so visitors might be blessed by her wisdom.
It makes me think of quarantine. It makes me think that so many of us are moving within a confined space from a window input to a window output, many of these computer windows or other technological portals. However, instead of being inspired by this space we rage against it. It feels more like a prison cell than a monastic one.
We feel limited and restricted instead of liberated. 
There are many lessons which we might learn from Julian but to learn them often takes descending from the physical to the spiritual, from the head to the heart. To learn them requires us to recognize as Julian did that the entire reason for the world is LOVE. 
Her story is often represented in the image of a hazelnut or something that size sitting in her hand. In contemplation she remarked: “in this he showed a little thing...I looked thereon with the eye of my understanding and thought ‘What might this be?’ And it was answered generally thus: ‘It is all that is made.’ ...’It lasts and ever shall because God loves it. And so all things exist and are sustained in their existence because of the love of God.’” 
In this amazing, difficult and wonder-filled time Love is flowing in and through our anchor-holds and our selves, in and out of windows, in and out of portals. May it rest and be revealed in something the size of a hazelnut in the palm of your hand. 
May you gaze from your windows with eyes of understanding and be surprised by signs of Love.

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