Julian of Norwich

As I was clearing out one of the drawers of my bedside cabinet I came across a dog-eared scrap of paper covered with my writing. I must have written it a few years ago and it contains a passage from the Revelations of Julian of Norwich, which she wrote about 1373. She lived the life of an anchoret, living in a cell attached to the church.

At the same time, our Lord showed me in a spiritual manner, how intimately he loves us. I saw that he is everything that is good and supports us. He clothes us in his love, envelops us and embraces us. He wraps us round in his tender love and he will never abandon us. As I understand it, he is everything that is good. He also showed me a tiny thing lying in the palm of my hand, the size of a hazelnut. I looked at this with the eye of my soul and thought, "What is this?" And is this is the answer that came to me. "It is all that is made" I was amazed that it managed to survive. It was so small that I thought it might disintegrate. And in my mind I heard this answer, "It lives on and will live on because God loves it." So everything owes its existence to the love of God. The first is God made it; the second is God loves it; and the third is God preserves it.

For those who did Middle English at college I give the passage from the original manuscript.

And in þis he shewed me a lytil
thyng þe quantite of a hasyl
nott. lyeng in þe pawme of
my hand as it had semed. and
it was as rownde as eny ball.
I loked þer upon wt þe eye of
of my vnderstondyng. and I
þought what may þis be. and
it was answered generally thus.
It is all þat is mad. I merueled
howe it myght laste. for me
þought it myght soden ly haue
fall to nought for lytyllhed. &
I was answered in my vnder=

stondyng. It lastyth & euer shall
for god louyth it. and so hath
all thyng his begynning by
þe loue of god. In this lytyll
thyng I sawe thre propertees.
The fyrst is. þt god made it. þe
secunde is þet louyth it. & þe þrid
is. þat god kepith it. But what