A Nut, A Tree, Prospering into Possibility

An image that really stood out to me while reading about Julian was the vision she had of God holding a nut within his hand. It said, "She describes seeing God holding a tiny thing in his hand, like a small brown nut, which seemed so fragile and insignificant that she wondered why it did not crumble before her eyes. She understood that the thing was the entire created universe, which is as nothing compared to its Creator, and she was told, 'God made it, God loves it, God keeps it.'" This fragility described by her of the entire universe was perplexing--balance is required for it to remain, and balance, especially by God's creation of humanity, is difficult to maintain.

Her relation to this created universe being lesser than God himself was a little over the top for me. I'm not a religious person, but if this universe was created by someone, do we think the creation is better than the Creator? Personally, I think the former is more important, more impactful, and more compelling. The universe theoretically would not exist without the creator, sure, but then when God separates himself completely as Julian described, does that really make him better?

Especially when going into what was later pointed out in the document of when Julian was living during the plague--as many religions point out similarly to Julian, there is no mercy or good fortune without some suffering. But such levels of anguish and disparity between people seems immoral, at the very least. It was what the universe, or the creation, does with this suffering that becomes more important and impactful than God's creation of them. Julian had a very holistic view of the universe, which I think is apt to her idea that if we are all created by God, then we are all intentionally connected to one another. What exactly do we do with this connection, and how do we hold ourselves accountable to our impact on one another? Going back to the imagery of the nut, humanity is fragile and significant, and I feel that especially now that nut is on the verge of cracking.

Love Visions

After reading about both Hildegard von Bingen and Julian of Norwich, I feel more aware of the concept of mysticism and how it relates to the blossoming, influential perspective that magic primarily stems from a benevolent or malevolent religious origin. Julian's visions heavily assert that God is made of love, that "before He made us, He loved us, which love was never slaked nor ever shall be. And in this love he has done all his work" (Kiefer 2).

I also find it fascinating, as I always have, how people choose to depict God and the controversy that surrounds those images. The Norton Anthology source talks about Christ's humanity and how he died to "clear the debt" humanity owed Him as a moral obligation (Greenblatt, Abrams 355). Julian's visions about God's relationship to his greatest creation, an 'endlessness' of love and rebirth, feels like an answering balm to the suffering of life and the impossible chasm between human violence and God's magnificence. The line, "Julian never leaves the sight of the wounded, bodily Christ, whose very physical suffering is somehow simultaneous with these almost immaterial visions," perfectly encapsulates, to me, what Julian's life of solitude was about (Greenblatt, Abrams 371). If God can love us through endless time despite our flaws, then, Julian seems to say, we should devote ourselves to Him and simultaneously remember our physical bodies while ascending into our spiritual selves.

Overall, the concept of a loving and forgiving God reminds me of modern platitudes/sayings passed around as band-aids to a bad day or an assurance that "everything happens for a reason," and that sometimes "bad things happen to good people." I wonder if this welcoming perspective on God was semi-founded or made popular by Julian of Norwich.

https://www.berfrois.com/uploads/2019/02/julian-of-norwich.jpg

So Many Visions

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Jesus is Our Mother?

"And thus in our making God almighty is our kindly father, and god all wisdom is our kindly mother, with the love and the goodness of the Holy Ghost, which is all on God, one Lord. And in the knitting and in the oneing he is our very true spouse and we his loved wife and his fair maiden, with which wife he was never displeased. For he sayeth: "I love thee and thou lovest me, and our love shall never part in two." (NAEL page 378)

The two types of relationships Julian describes here are very interesting and I found it surprising that she wasn't condemned for saying that Jesus is a mother to all of us, who suffered for us in the same ways our mothers suffer for us. I also thought it was interesting how this Father and Mother relationship, with all of creation as their children, parallels what we think of as a familial relationship.

I've seen some shizz