Dear Julian of Norwich,

If God is only Love and God does everything according to God’s eternal divine plan, then how could God ever condemn any of us?

But if God never condemns any of us, then even Hitler upon his death is thanked in front of all Heaven for his service on earth. And that seems a bit much. Still, so does condemning anyone, be he ever so vile, to eternal condemnation.

What is the system at work here?

And if all creation is a ball the size of a hazelnut, and God created and sustains it all out of Love, why does God drag this tiny ball through so much sin and misery? You said God gives us woe and weal to show us that God holds us equally in both, but how does predestining us to sin and the rejection of God help us? How is that done out of, through, and for Love?

You said that God loves our seeking as well as those moments when in a flash God allows some of us to a moment behold some portion of God’s wondrous Being. That sounds only fair. Here I have no particular question.

Why is it so great that you chose only Jesus as your salvation? I don’t understand how it can possibly be best to believe that Jesus was the son of God and died for our sins and then rose on the third day. This seems too mythic to be either True or Good.

What’s really going on, Julian of Norwich? I’m so lonely and tired. I don’t want to go back to this job tomorrow. I’m stuck between dreams of escape, vague plans and faltering maneuvers, and an ever-returning fall-apart. What should I do?

Some of what you write makes me think it doesn’t matter at all what I do, since God already decided how things will go and everything that happens in life happens by God through humans. If that is so and God is only Love and all creation is made and sustained out of God’s eternal Love, why should I do anything except abide and be glad of God’s Love? But where is this Love divine? And don’t I still need a way to pay for myself that doesn’t make me miserable? And wouldn’t it still be better if we could avoid the collapse of democracy, global warming, nuclear Armageddon and other impending dooms? And how can you say that you chose Christ if God set up everything since before timespace began?

Is it like Leibniz suggested: everything’s preorchestrated with God’s knowledge of all our choices (freely chosen) built into the schema? But you said God is doing everything and nothing is actually good or bad; that seems to imply that neither freewill or a coherent criterium for judgement exists. But then in other places you speak of the saved and in another of the unique horror of hell (despair) — traditional abode of the eternally damned.

This everything was created out of a happy lark, out of Love by a Love infinitely greater than all possible created things. How could there be room for spiritual agony there? Bodily, emotional, and intellectual agony: OK, sure — I can believe that those are as you say: quickly passing and insignificant when compared to the eternal perfection of God’s Love and our celebration within God’s eternal embrace. But how could this fun overflow of creative Love have space for anything truly sinister? Such possibilities again seem neither True nor Good. But here you don’t dwell much, and in places, though you go at pains to point out you are not contradicting scriptures, you say that God revealed to you only the saved. And in some wordings, it seemed to my understanding like you imply that everyone is saved.

I don’t know what to do.
It is 4:30pm
I wasted the day.
I must return to work tomorrow.
What should I do?
I don’t know how to make use of your shewings.
They don’t cause me to experience or believe in God’s eternal infinite love more or less.
I believe you, but I already believed that God was Love and loved us all, though I could not experience God’s Love in a way that allowed me to Know that God is Love. So nothing’s changed by my reading and believing you.
The details about Jesus’s pain and passion and love are like strange, meaningless stones to me. I can’t and don’t wish to connect any particular historical characters and their story — however compelling — to God’s Love.
I don’t understand you, Julian of Norwich. Who are you? I’m half way through the book. But I don’t see how finishing it will help all that much.
Everything in creation is a ball the size of a hazelnut. So we’re incomprehensively tiny beings inside an incomprehensively tiny multi-verse, and we only think we’re bigger than hazelnuts because we’re living an illusion? This story I understand allegorically; did you?; would a disagreement here matter? And if not, could we go further?: Could we we still understand each other if I understand the Jesus parts as an allegory and you don’t?
Or is everything really the same size as a hazelnut?
How can this book of shewings help us to live?
Living is making decisions, but the book’s worldview seems to consider our decisions to be empty illusions, while simultaneously delighting in a choice. Not only that, but the correct choice — basing our every moment around a faith in Jesus Christ — doesn’t make sense to many of us, including me.
What should I do?
I want to go home.
Another weekend wasted.
Still stuck in this dead-end.
Lonely
Nothing terrible is happening to me, but I can’t seem to move. I’m stuck in place while time carries me towards weakness and death and various dangerous threaten to crack the world apart. What should I do? God is Love and God Loves us all and all is well and there’s nothing to do but trust in God and be glad in God? But I’m lonely! And frustrated. And scared. I want salvation someday, but right now I just want health and safety for me and others, a task that is fulfilling and helpful, a world that doesn’t fall apart, and a partner to cuddle into. what do your shewings tell me?

Sincerley,

Pudd Inn Taine

Author: AW/BW
Copyright: AMW