When I first read your invitation to write words on HOPE, I felt unable to make any meaningful contribution, as I confess that at times I become so deeply despairing of humanity’s appalling behaviour, in regard to the worldwide avoiding of any solid action on climate change, the unspeakable suffering imposed in war zones, and Australia’s own inhumane treatment of refugees and indigenous people, that I avoid the news, retreat into music, escapist books and films, and often don’t feel much hope for the future at all.
However, today I attended a quiet day, focussing on the words of Julian of Norwich, and I have been remade!
The leader of the retreat was an American, Mark Burrows, who has researched Julian’s writings extensively, and offers retreats around the world. The day was magical. We learnt that Julian, a 13th-14th century mystic and hermit (an anchoress) had suffered greatly herself from illness, and had lived though the Great Plague, the Hundred Years’ War and the burning of Lollards as heretics (probably suffering comparable with the years of Covid, Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan…..). She received sixteen visitations, or visions, and wrote first a basic description of her visions, and, 20 years later, an expanded version, which included meditations, based on her observations of human suffering. Her text, known as Revelations of Divine Love, is a remarkable affirmation of trust in God. She bases her thoughts on three verbs: Showing, Beholding and Beseeching.
She asks us to consider a hazel nut, such a small, insignificant thing – which God, made, loves and keeps. This is also true for us, she tells us. God made us, God loves us, and God keeps us. Mark gave us all a hazel nut, and asked us to write on a small piece of paper all the good things we could think of about ourselves, and then, on the other side, all the negative things we were ashamed of. We then had to crush that little piece of paper around our hazel nut. And then we had to write on another small piece of paper similar contrasting aspects of another person we knew well and cared about, and crush it too around our hazel nut. And then we walked, clutching our enlarged hazel nut, each choosing our own route around the beautiful, spacious grounds of the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture, focussing on Julian’s statement that “God is the ground of our beseeching”. And I found myself able to let go of anxieties about myself, or the other person I had chosen, or the world in general, and trust that, as Julian says, God loves us and keeps us. “We are God’s bliss, he delights in us without end, and so shall we in him, through his grace.” This supreme trust in God’s care for us engenders a huge optimism, or hope, big enough to overcome everything I had been feeling was impossible. The ground I walked on became the ground of my beseeching, and anchored me. Another writer about Julian says “ her spirit saw light in darkness, possibility in adversity. This hope, or trust in the goodness of God in spite of circumstances, is born not in ease, but is forged in challenge. We are to trust the transformative power of love. Our hope is not about escaping difficulty, but rather journeying through it with vision and trust.”
We closed the day listening to a beautiful, simple song called The Bells of Norwich. It is based on Julian’s best known saying, “All shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” I have loved those words for decades, having them stuck up somewhere on a wall in every place I have lived. I set them to music for choir – that piece was sung at the end of my exploration of ageing and death (The Threshold, on Youtube.) Today, all 50 of us, most oldish and maybe wobbly, held hands in a circle and learnt a very simple dance, and moved as we sang along to the recording of Sydney Carter’s The Bells of Norwich. It was absolutely uplifting. If ever I am at the south coast again I hope we could hold hands in a circle, and sing and dance this song. Hope will be forged!