We Are Not the First

We are not the first to follow Jesus.

Others have gone before us. Did they always get it right? No. Neither do we. Our goal is to follow Jesus, not those who have gone before us. But we have much to learn from those who have followed far on the way to a deeper life with Jesus.

A decade ago, I walked the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in Spain. I followed a guidebook by John Brierly who had walked the Camino six times. I benefited from his insights that he had discovered by walking himself. That is the spirit of these Sunday posts: to introduce you each Sunday to someone who, before us, found the way to a deeper life with Jesus and later shared with us what they learned as they navigated the interior journey.

This week, a person worth knowing: Julian of Norwich (1342-1416) and her The Revelations of Divine Love

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Now, back to Julian. Shortly before 1373, Julian entered a prayer cell and became a member of a unique form of the monasticism knows as the anchorite movement. Many of us know about the beginnings of monasticism in the Egyptian deserts. Fewer of us know about the anchorite form that, in England, reached its heights in the 13th and 14th century. It’s worth knowing about and tonight, at a dinner table at The Stillpoint, Julian’s story will be featured. More on that later, but for now, Julian, the Anchoress (the term used for women who joined the movement.)

The more common form of monasticism is the decision by men and women to withdraw from the world into community with others who were also withdrawing from the world. They gathered in monasteries or convents built in remoted and isolated places chosen because of distance from ordinary life. An anchorite (male) or anchoress (woman) also withdrew from the world into solitude, but they chose to withdraw in the middle of ordinary life, enclosed into a prayer cell built onto a parish church located right in the middle of town. Their mission was to give full attention to God without being distracted by the ordinary pressures of life. But they served a community purpose: each small prayer cell had a window looking out to the community from which they had come. That window meant an anchorite/anchoress became one of the most important and accessible spiritual resources a local medieval community had. People came with all manners of real life needs: grief, fear, sins, decisions. The man or woman in the prayer cell listened for what God was up to in that moment of distress. Over time, it became clear that these men and women living with a vow of solitude had withdrawn from the community in order to have something to give back to the community.

Shortly after Julian’s arrival in that Norwich prayer cell, Julian became ill. The illness got worse. On May 13, 1373, Julian seemed to be at the end of life, and the parish priest administered last rites. But Julian survived that evening and began to recover. When strength returned, she recorded in short form a vision she had experienced that evening as her fever raged and her death appeared to be imminent. That vision, later lenghtened by Julian into its present form, The Revelations of Divine Love, became the first surviving book written in English by a woman. While that gives it some well-earned distinction, its core message is even more important. At the height of the vision was this message she received: “All shall be well. All shall be well. All manner of thing shall be well.” It was not a message of positive thinking. It was a message based on the fresh reality of God’s unshakeable love that Julian had sensed that evening in an out-of-body experience.

When able to receive community members at the window of her cell, those three sentences began to ring a bell of hope in a world gone mad around. The deadly disease, plague, was raging in the 14th century. 30%-50% of the English population died from it. Additionally, the peasant class in England had revolted from their oppresive burdens placed on them by the nobility in what is known as The Peasant’s War. An in England, the religious and political hierarchy was pushing back violently against the Lollards, a movement that grew from the convictions of the Oxford scholar John Wycliffe. Wycliffe was convinced the medieval church had drifted far from its spiritual roots and mission. Among other things, he advocated for and produced the first Bible written in English for the English population. It hardly needs to be said how popular his ideas were among his students at Oxford and they began to go across England spreading the gospel in common language. But the leaders of church and state turned violently against them. In Norwich, where Julian was located, a pit was dug within view of her window where Lollards were burned. You can see that from these three events alone, the plague, the Peasant’s War, and the brutal treatment of the Lollards that the community needed someone like Julian with a vision of God’s love and the reassurance that all shall be well.

As word got out that the woman in the prayer cell at the Norwich parish church had something to say, people from all walks of life came: grief-stricken parents, widows and widowers, soldiers, peasants, nobility. Julian became for the surrounding community and beyond a spiritual director. She listened. She prayed. She wondered what God was up to in a person’s story and life. And she reassured them from her own near-death experience what she now knew in her bones: All shall be well. All shall be well. All manner of thing shall be well.

At The Stillpoint, we have special guests with us from time to time. Men and women who have been called into the mission of God. Many are pastors. Some are missionaries. All are leaders in some form of Christian ministry at a time when resilience in that calling has grown thin. Last night, as Lorri and I ate dinner on our deck and admired the surrounding Glacier mountains, Lorri, had a brilliant idea: Let’s feature a spiritual formation waymarker at each dinner and tell their story. A waymarker in the world of spiritual formation is a man or woman who has traveled far in the interior world and told us of the way they traveled. Further, Lorri said, she’ll set an extra placesetting, with a picture of that person at that place. And as we tell their story, one each night, our guests will become aware they are not the first to have walked this way. They are not alone. God, full of love, is with them, and all shall be well. All shall be well. And all manner of thing shall be well.

Tonight, dinner with Julian.

Gratefully,

— Gene

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