Earle: Julian

Earle: Julian

“Then, with a glad face, our Lord looked into his side, and gazed rejoicing ; and with his dear gaze he led his creatures’ understanding through the same wound into his side. And then he revealed a beautiful and delightful place which was large enough for all humankind who shall be saved to rest there in peace and love.” Mary Earle,  Long Text 24, p. 69, Julian of Norwich,  Selections  from  Revelations of Divine Love, annotated and explained,   2013 SkyLight Paths.

Episcopal priest and well-known writer, Mary Earle, was the keynote speaker this year at the Community of Hope International meeting at Camp Allen this year. Her topic was “Julian of Norwich and the Oneing Love of God.” Julian was a 14th century English mystic who is perhaps best known for her sayings, “All shall be well. All shall be well”  and her Revelations of Divine Love, her reflections on a series of visions or showings she received when she was near death. The writings are in two parts, Short Text written soon after the visions and Long Text written much later and are thought to be the earliest book written by of  a woman in Middle English.

We know so little of her life and even her name except that in later life she became an anchoress to St. Julian Church in Norwich, living in a walled off cell connected to the church. Julian lived in a difficult time before the Reformation during the 100 Years’ War between England and France as well as three outbreaks of  the deadly Black Plague caused by a bacteria living in the fleas of rats which decreased the population of Europe by probably one half. There also  was a lack of leadership in the church with  Great Western Schism when there were two and sometimes three popes. 

All this is to say that most people must have felt like the world was coming to an end! But in the midst of this comes Julian’s message from her mystical experience not with an angry God who must have retribution, but with the God of love. This God of love comes to her through her relationship and visions with the suffering of Jesus on the cross. Earle believes wherever Julian mentions Jesus she means the Trinity, God in three parts. Through God’s suffering Julian saw and felt God’s love for all mankind. Julian believed that we can enter into a mystical relationship with God through suffering, where like the disciple Thomas we enter into wound in Jesus’ side and find a place large enough for all mankind to rest in peace and love, or like Nicodemus we are born again through pain and suffering.

Earle suggests that instead of our arguing over how Jesus was born of Mary, our energy should be concerned about whether Jesus and God’s deep love is being born in us.

This is our ministry as spiritual friends to help others see not a vengeful, hall monitor God but the God of love calling and caring for us even in the darkest times as we and the loving God of Julian’s understanding stand beside our friends in their pain and suffering that is also so well-known by our God.

Joanna  joannaseibert.com  

Scripture: Ignatian Exercises

Scripture: Ignatian Exercises

“Take a passage from scripture that you enjoy. Ignatius invites you to enter into the scene by ‘composing the place’ by imagining yourself in the story with as much detail as you can muster.”  James Martin. SJ,  The Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything, p. 147. 2010 HarperOne.

Ignatius  practices spirituality by taking those he is guiding and himself deep into the story of scripture in their imagination.  We start with the senses, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling. As we live inside the story, Ignatius asks us to pay attention to what insights might come. Soon in our imaginary journey, we can travel in time and find ourselves back in the scripture with a different understanding than when we are just intellectualizing the story in our head.

At the front of the refectory at the College of Preachers at the National Cathedral, in stain glassed was written, “if you do not dramatize the message, they will not listen.”  You can see this from many angles, but what it came to mean to me was that my job as teacher and  preacher was to help myself as well as those in the congregation “experience” the scripture, usually the gospel, as Ignatius is asking us to do. My experience is I can best do this by taking myself and all who would like to make a journey into the story, be one of the characters, feel that person’s feelings, know his or her hopes and fears, their frustrations, their loves, their passions, their humanness.

The same is true for advice to spiritual friends whose study of scripture has become stale. It is hard to become dry when we actually go into a story in scripture and become a part of it. With each new journey we will hear voices we have never heard before.

I was first exposed to this Ignatian exercises and this method of studying scripture in a small purple book, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius in the Image Classics.  I know there are now so many more. A priest I work with, Michael McCain, recommends this one by James Martin as well.

Joanna   joannaseibert.com

Other Traditions

Other traditions

“What can I learn from a spiritual tradition different from my own? Over the years I have had an open border policy when it comes to faith. I have never felt nervous about the need to guard my frontiers of belief. I have been deeply informed, matured and blessed by such diversity. I have learned more about myself by learning more about others.” Bishop Steven Charleston Daily Facebook.

What richness we can gain from other traditions.  An Episcopal priest and well-known author, Lauren Winner, introduces us in her book, Mudhouse Sabbath, An Invitation to a Life of Spiritual Discipline, to many Jewish practices that she grew up with that could enrich other traditions. Jewish spiritual practices around the death of a loved one honor the one who died but also compassionately honor the grieving left behind in time honored rituals through that first hard year after a death, the initial seven days of mourning when friends bring food and sit with you, the next 30 days when you sit initially in a different place in the synagogue, the prayers you say twice a day with a community of at least ten people for the next year. You cannot say the prayers alone in your house. Every year at the anniversary of the death of a loved one you light a candle and say the prayers in the synagogue.

We have had the privilege of celebrating Passover with Jewish friends.

We have learned from Muslim friends about the honoring of a fast at Ramadan.

The Eastern Orthodox tradition has given us the gift of icons as a spiritual practice. 

Other Eastern religions have taught us about yoga and contemplative prayer.

The Catholic monastic tradition has given us the gift of chanting and developing a rule of life.

Exploring other traditions can only enlarge our image of God and our God language. They help us take God out of the tidy box our traditions have a tendency to cloister our God in.  

Joanna   joannaseibert.com