Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with a clear message about what the morning’s blog topic will be . . . and that happened night before last. But I saved it for this morning, because yesterday was Juneteenth. And that needed acknowledging in a big way.
The title of this blog (Well) comes from the most famous quote by Julian of Norwich.
Who was Julian? She was a woman who lived in the East of England in the 14th century during the plague. Now, remember, I said she was a woman — and women during this time had precious little power, status or voice.
Julian was very religious — in a town that was focused on religion with a gigantic cathedral in its center. A town that was also regularly devastated by bouts of the plague.
In her prayers, she asked God for three “graces”, and God obliged when she was in her late twenties.
Julian asked God:
To have a recollection of Christ’s Passion
To have a bodily sickness so severe that it should appear mortal
To have three wounds from God: Contrition, Compassion, and Longing for God
She did indeed fall mortally ill — and was given the last rites. As it appeared she was about to die, she received sixteen incredibly graphic (and often bloody visions). And then she revived and came back with a loud and clear message that God is Love, that Love is All there is, and that nothing can remove us from that Love. Even in our own failures, failings, mistakes. Even the pain we’ve caused others and ourselves.
In a city in which there are mass plague graves into which people were sometimes mistakenly pitched while still alive and in which all the amped-up fears and inequities of 14th-century life ran rampant under a patriarchal sin-dominated church, Julian’s message was a game changer.
In other words, despite what we appear to be experiencing here, God is Love — and Love is constantly reassuring us that Love can only offer us love. Because God is Love, there is no condemnation in or from God, only acceptance. Because Love only loves.
Julian ended up becoming an anchoress. She lived in a small room literally attached to the outside of a small church where she could see people and share her healing message of Love.
She ended up writing her mystical visions to share their message with the world.
In her thirteenth vision, Jesus comes to her and comforts her by saying, “All will be well, and all will be well, and every kind of thing will be well.” Jesus assures her that sin has “no substance, no share in being, nor can it be recognized except by the pain caused by it”. But that it does help us know ourselves and ask for release from what no longer serves us and often hurts others.
But as we wake up from these old stories, false beliefs that cause us, others, our planet pain, we wake up to the Allness of Love. We feel the love that reassures us that all will be well and all will be well, and every kind of thing will be well.”
I think that’s why this quote came to me to share in this blog.
We are all waking up to all the ways that the lies we have believed about ourselves and one another have caused pain, and instead we are choosing Love. And when we do that, and keep doing that, ALL WILL BE WELL.
W: Wake Up
W: We not me.
W: Well. All will be well.
W: When we choose Love and keep choosing Love. When we live Love.