I don’t care who you voted for. I ask the following from anyone, regardless of party. Because I’m also asking it of myself, too.

I ask you to be, first, a kind person. Refuse to tolerate for others what you would not tolerate for yourself. Take one full minute to imagine yourself in their shoes before you decide what is acceptable for them to endure.

Keep learning. Expand your circle and keep yourself open to new ideas. See the value of other’s opinions, even if you don’t yet agree or understand. When someone tells you their lived truth, believe them.

I ask you to be on guard against the desire to control others, even if you think it’s for their own good. Check your prejudices. Consider your actions carefully. Avoid pressing your preferences onto the path of other people’s lives.

I ask you to fight for “their” rights as fiercely as you might for your own. Do not make excuses for building up your rights on bowed backs.

I ask you to see every person who is unlike you as worthy as you believe your family, friends and yourself to be.

Seek fairness for all.

Realize how often fear makes us hide from each other.  Consider for a moment who might be afraid of you, maybe even someone you know. Because someone most certainly is. Should they be?

I ask you to consider: are ALL of them evil? Are ALL of them bigots or fascists or racists or communists or simpletons? Really? ALL of them?

I ask you to see our common resources as something to be stewarded well and shared responsibly, especially in times when others seem to need more.

I ask you to care about other people’s ideas, other identities, other ways of seeing and being. What have they lived through that you haven’t?

I ask you to consider that working with one another is better than judging one another, and that it is possible even to learn from one another, so that the whole is greater than the sum.

Look past what you’ve been told. Dig deeper.

Read the room. Gentle listening often goes much further than defending your side. Maybe it’s not your side that should be defended this time.

And finally, I ask you to insist on humanity in all things, being more vigilant towards taming your own heart, even more than anyone else’s.

If you do these things, you will have the potential to heal this unhappy Union as much as any one party, leader, religion or legislation that you currently believe in.

If.

The Gates of heaven are rusted. 

They have fallen off their hinges and are laying hidden in the tall grass.

The fence is down too. Rotted away.

It has been for thousands of years.

I look out over open rolling fields smelling of sweet timothy grass warmed by the sun.

Swallows slice the air with their scything wings, purple iridescent bodies skimming over endless green, darting in and out through dappled light among the trees.

Somewhere near those wildflowers, the soft hum of bees.

Light and shadow dance companionably to the music of the comfortable silence of a morning completely undisturbed by need.

Far in the distance, the violet mountains shoulder their silver banners of snow.

It’s so quiet.

It’s so still.

As the church so boldly guards the gates of heaven against those who would storm them, I wonder, which gates are they really guarding?

Surely not these.

It’s so quiet.

Where did everyone go?

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, and a day in which Christians around the world recognize our fragile mortality and inevitable death. It’s also Valentines Day.

So maybe the proper thing to do is to take your loved one out for a romantic dinner in a funeral home. Or hand out heart shaped boxes of hearts and champagne at a gravesite service.

Weird. And somehow, appropriate.

I’m not morbid by nature; not overly romantic by nature either. But there is something deeply moving, and perhaps even lovely, about facing our mortality and celebrating our capacity for love side by side.

Love is without doubt the most powerful force we know. We know this because it is the most lifegiving force in its purest form, and the most corrupted ravaging force when braided into the dangerous strings of insecurity and selfishness. Love burns either way, a lifegiving warmth of safety in the dark, or a conflagration of destruction that consumes everything to ashes. Love is irrefutable; probably the only other force that comes close to its massive power is the shadow of death.

And if we’re really being honest, love and death are also probably the things we are most frightened of all our lives. We search for their meaning. We protect ourselves from both. We try to understand them, and inevitably fail. We joke about them, to stave off the shivers. We write songs about them. We hide the savage pain they both inflict. We never really fully recover from either one. They each await us around any corner. We do well to be in awe of both.

So today, when love and death coincide, light and shadow, we get a rare spiritual eclipse, something not just one nor the other, but something altogether new.

An eclipse hides the sun, or the moon, with the shadow of a heavenly body. Something which should be shining is cast in eerie shadow, and is so compelling, so weird and yet so familiar, we have to run out onto our porches to stare.

Perhaps its because an eclipse remind us of something primal in our hearts that we already know. It says that light and dark are not enemies of one another, but elements that deepen each other’s meaning. Light shining in darkness gives hope. Darkness surrounding the light calls us into mystery. Like plants, we need the light to grow. Like seeds, our deepest self starts in the dark unknown. Like the beasts of the field we thrive in the light of love. Like the young they carry in their wombs, we grow into what we will be only in the hidden, solitary dark. There’s a reason there are cave paintings from thousands of years ago. There’s a reason we bury our beloved dead. We are, in our essence, both light and dark, and cannot be complete without each one.

So today I think about all my unremembered, distant ancestors who loved, had families, and died. Their lives were so important, but I know nothing about them, not even their names, and I feel no sorrow at their deaths. I think about my parents, now long gone. I think about my baby granddaughters, bursting with energy and new life. I marvel over the thread of love that binds me to all of them, living and dead, and honestly, that love holds us together without my even understanding or feeling it in its completeness. Could I love my granddaughters with the fierceness I do, if my great great great grandparents had not thrown their tenuous lot into loving one another? If my loving parents had not yet died, and I had not yet experienced the shadow of that loss? Maybe, but I don’t think so. Something of all of those loves and all of those deaths has brought something to fullness in me that I will never fully understand or be able to explain. But I can feel it. Oh, yes, I can feel its truth. I love because we are here together now, we who are privileged to live these hours, and not for very long.

On this day, when Death and Love both have their day of remembrance, it does me good to remember the gifts they both impart. Impermanence and Eternity, sisters sitting side by side, holding hands, watching a candy heart that will melt eventually into the sand but never lose its sweetness.

Happy Ash Valentines. May it be a day for you in which you remember and cherish that what makes you truly human, precious, momentary, and forever loved.

Day 1. Advent Begins Today

Ok, let’s just start with the immediate. Ukraine and Russia are still at bloody war. Israel and Hamas are at war yet again, civilians caught in the middle, babies and children among them. White supremacists are boldly spreading their toxicity all over our country. Congo and Somalia are a mess, and it’s not even getting into the news because there’s no room for it with all the other messes on the radar. There are entire states banning books like “To Kill A Mockingbird” and “Fahrenheit 451.” People are afraid to read stuff I did book reports on, for heaven’s sake. Congregations across the country are weaponizing faith with their “God and Guns” rhetoric. Our governing officials are more interested in being at each other’s throats than addressing the needs of the nation. Polarity is the norm. 

And it’s only Tuesday.

When I take this to God in prayer, I start the list of wrongs with a “Please help…” I feel afraid, on edge, small and vulnerable and impotent to make any meaningful change. I find myself wanting to pull the covers over my head and roll over back into the pillows.

But having covers and pillows is a reminder to me of the millions who don’t have that luxury, and then guilt and embarrassment is added to the list of feelings. 

I read Isaiah 55:12… “You shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the fields shall clap their hands.” 

For a moment, I say, “Yeah, right. In your dreams.That was then, this is now. And we’ve still learned nothing at all.”

Then my attention is caught by the sparrows outside my window, fussing around the feeder. Another passage comes to mind. “Don’t be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows.” (Matt. 10:31)

That passage always made me smile, both because of its poetry and because, really, it’s such a low bar. Jesus doesn’t say the disciples are worth more than temple gold, or a bag of money or a stable of war horses or the jewels of the king. He says they are worth more than sparrows. Kinda like saying you mean more to me than this slice of cheese pizza.

Well, thank you, Mr. Jesus. I feel so much better.

I keep watching the sparrows to see what they are going to teach me today. And that’s when I notice…

They constantly bicker and shoo each other away from the feeder, yet they all manage to get something to eat. They stay in a flock, and I see that there is always at least one looking out for danger; after all, almost everything bigger than them eats them, except for us. They chatter constantly, who knows what they are saying, (probably cussing each other out) and it sounds cheerful and pleasing. They are plain, mostly brown and white, which makes them safely hidden in bushes and trees for the most part. They all look virtually alike until you really look close; then you see a smattering of speckles on this one, a blotch of chocolate brown on that one, a wonky feather on that one’s head. They are all unique after all. Sometimes there is a dead one that died crashing into a window, or succumbing to the neighbor’s cat, and the sight always makes me sad because in that stillness of death I see the little amber jewels they really are. They are common, quarrelsome, messy, noisy, selfish, and quietly beautiful. I really enjoy the glamor of a stellar jay or a flicker at the feeder, but I rely on the sparrows to let me know the seed is still good and hasn’t rotted in the rain.

I need that community of sparrows to remind me that the world is hard and mean and cruel, and also beautiful and spacious and bountiful. I need them to remind me that death is everywhere, but so is the whole wide sky to leap into with stubby wings. I need the sparrows to remind me that I won’t understand why there is still war and pain and evil and why, why, somehow, I am spared almost all of it, at no merit of my own. I don’t begrudge them their night perches and the quiet intimacy of their sleep. I want them all to be forever safe, well fed and happy, and I know I can’t possibly make that happen for them, or for anyone. They, like all of us, must die.

But I can put out a feeder. I can learn from their community. I can observe how they are with each other in the flock, and wonder what I can do in my own flock, my own small place in the world. I can take comfort in their occasional clumsy fluttering, because if these tiny masters of the sky can flounder, I certainly can expect myself to do far worse without the world coming to an end.

And if it does come to an end, as all things do eventually, I look to the sparrows for their clear, animal insight.

Stay with the others, do what I can. Return to what nourishes as often and as soon as possible. Listen always, life depends on it. Be watchful without panicking. Know the difference between a squabble and an assault. Forgive the occasional insult, because we all need to be at the feeder to survive. Even if grudgingly, make room. Keep an eye out for hawks. Know where safety is found. Let the present moment inform my actions. I do not live in the future, only in the now. Never think of myself as an eagle, because that’s just ridiculous. Don’t pose to be what I clearly am not. And don’t forget the value of what I really am. Recognize that I am small, but not unimportant. And neither is any other sparrow or soul.

The world is huge and often terrifying. My place in it is miniscule, and my understanding even more so. The wars will rage. Evil persists. Perhaps someday I will find myself on the front line of a war. Hopefully I will do more than hide, that the lessons learned now will make me more bravely human then. But until then, I watch the “sparrows” of this world for wisdom given out freely, and pray that I am awake enough to learn from them.

“You shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the fields shall clap their hands.”  I wonder how much that song from the hills will be sparrows singing. Us, all of us little sparrows, finally at peace, one flock singing. I’ve got to let myself believe that this is not an empty hope, but a truth that is yet to come. An open sky yet to be seen, ready for flight. Tiny perches waiting for us, all around the throne.

You, after all, are worth more than the sparrows, many sparrows. We all are.

We must not forget our song.

I keep brushing yellow cedar needles off everything. The deck. The windshield of my car. My sweater sleeves, my jeans. Finding cedar needles sprinkled in my hair, like confetti leftovers from a ticker tape parade.

Except this parade isn’t marching bands and homecoming queens or valiant soldiers marching home from victory. This parade has no floats or cheerleaders or drum majors proudly leading the way.

This parade is the passage of Time. I am well and truly retired now, having given up the last of my gainful employment and usefulness as a children’s choir conductor at church. Twenty-seven years have passed, hundreds of little voices piping along merrily, sometimes even in tune, now grown and gone. The hugs and tears, gone too. Only the memories of them in the thousands, a flurry of cedar needles floating dancing in the wind to finally rest in the dark, loamy forest floor.

Little shiny slivers of memory, tumbling over each other, wafting gently everywhere I go. Hiding and peeking, gathering in nooks and crannies, these shy wild things. They are so small, so fragile, and so easily broken into small pieces.

Do the cedars mourn? Are they remembering spring, still full of tender jade needles sparkling with morning dew and silvered in midday showers? Do they sigh and recall when their branches were noisy with nests of sparrows and jays? When their heavy emerald arms stretched high into a brilliant azure dome? Do they remember the still, heavy heart of a July afternoon when gray squirrels pancaked themselves out on the railings, flat as thumbtacks?

I put all my choral books away. I boxed up the hand-drawn greeting cards, the photographs, the papers sticky with red paper hearts glued on with Elmer’s. I found recordings of all the songs I remembered that I had taught and sent them to the new director with my blessings. I take walks. My memories softly drift along with me, whispering.

When cedars drop those golden needles by the thousands, by the tens of thousands, are they happy, letting go of what has been? Are they just tired of carrying the weight?

Or are they spreading themselves out even further into the world, needle by needle, underfoot and wind borne? Are they ancient farmers readying the soil for a distant future harvest?

Maybe something in between.

Maybe both.

It’s good to be in a new chapter of my old life, I tell myself. And that’s true. To look at something new is a gift not everyone gets. To let go gratefully for what has been, and maybe to still spread something of myself further into the world. But I’m still looking back sometimes. Still stopping to listen, in case something back there wants me to wait just a moment longer. Am I truly content for what is past? Am I longing for one more summer when the needles are still green?

Yes. And yes.

Needles I’m brushing away, sweeping off, shaking out of my clothes, maybe I should be collecting you into holy bundles. Maybe I should gather you like grain, to put into a safe place until I need you for nourishment, having laid you out on the threshing floor of my mind. Maybe there is more to glean?

After all, nothing is wasted, not even the chaff. Everything, everything returns to its beginnings, to be savored, then lost, forgotten, decayed, and only then, when it is absolutely nothing of what it once was, miraculously taken up by something living, returning to life once again.

I gather a handful of cedar needles in my hand, gazing at them a bit. I roll them gently between my fingers. I put my ear to them to listen. I feel silly. I am about to throw them away, but at the last moment, I smell them.

They gift me with a warm, spicy scent that immediately transports me. Suddenly, I am in my dusty hiking boots, squinting against a dazzling autumn sky, resting my eyes in the deep purples of the mountains across the valley, up there on the ridge. Remembering my sore knee, the thirst, the wonderful coldness of the water bottle. The weight of my pack, dampness between my shoulders. The wind tangling my hair and whistling in the trees. The cedar trees.

I haven’t thought of that hike in over thirty years. Probably more.

Time marches on. Memories fade. Summers disappear, and needles fall.

A handful of cedar needles reminds me that the path has been wonderfully adventurous, and the journey not yet over. It’s a long hike, a wandering into places that are bright, shadowed, miraculous, frightening, and never completely tamed. A hike right through the secret middle of the heart, headed into unknowns that are the only true direction home.

The needles are there every year, for remembering. For savoring, for looking ahead and letting go. I’m grateful for that.

Little cedar needles scattered along the path, golden companions on the way towards horizons yet to come.

I give up trying to get you to change your mind.

I give up wanting to show you just one more article, one more podcast, one more Facebook post that will convince you that I am right and you are mistaken.

I give up thinking that if you just saw it my way, you’d really understand and you’d be better for it.

I give up writing insightful, witty responses to let you see that we can still be friends and you can still be wrong and I will put up with you because I am just that kind of person and aren’t you lucky I am?

I give up thinking I am more informed. I give up snickering. I give up arrogance disguised as caring.

I give up waking up in the middle of the night wondering if I just said it THIS way, you’d get it and we’d be on the same page and I would have won and it would be for your own good.

I give up hoping that we’re somehow going to be able to ignore this if we just don’t talk about it at the next time we meet.

I give up imagining you coming to your senses, and finally being just like me.

I give up unfriending you.

I give up sending you long texts and emails and forwarded messages from experts.

I give up, because I see what hanging on has gotten me.

It has made me want to fix you. To put you under a microscope and examine everything you say, every look you give, every post you write, every political reference and social meme. It has made me want to dissect you. It has made me blend you in with a thousand others who I don’t even know.

It has made me fear you, worry about you, avoid you.

It has made me turn myself inside out to mold me into something you can identify with, in the hopes I can unmold myself back to what I actually am before everything hardens. It has made me wonder if I should harden anyway, take a stand, refuse to budge. Write the manifesto. Put my foot down once and for all.

It has made me worried, angry, fearful, depressed, resentful, harried and tired.

Mostly tired.

I can’t change your path. I can’t make the world in my image. I can’t call a moratorium on grief or pain or injustice or greed or ignorance or shame. I can’t claim a monopoly on virtue. I can’t justify myself to you. I can’t invent the thing that will coerce people to love each other, to forgive, to listen, to be patient, to sacrifice self interest, to try again, to endure. I can’t see into your soul and marvel at all the complexity and depth that got you where you are. I can’t even see into my own soul enough to understand fully my own place and how I got here. All my best intentions are mostly, in the clear light of day, reactions based on my own prejudices, my own needs, my own failures and illusions.

So I give up.

Consider this my surrender.

Instead, I will ask how your kids are, and how your pets are. I will inquire politely about your day, and wonder if you had a good one. I will tell you about mine, if you ask.

I will ask if you need anything from me.

I will hold open the door for you, and won’t mind if you didn’t thank me.

I will listen to you when you are saying something that gives me worry or resentment, and I will choose instead to look as deeply at you as I can, trusting that my eyes can see your humanity even when my ears hear something that would make me slam the door to my heart.

I will admit I am wrong.

I will ask for your forgiveness.

I will not cross the street to avoid you.

I will put down my posts, my articles, my Facebook examples, my data and my reasons. I will risk listening to you beyond your words.

I will do what I can . I will support the charities that do what I cannot. I will strive to understand and respect.

I will assume the best, and when I can’t, I will try for deeper understanding.

I will honor my commitments and do my best to be simply decent.

I will stop assuming that I understand your life, and that you should understand mine.

When I am about to take a step back into the battlefield, I will first open my eyes and breathe. It may well be the best and only thing I should do.

I will surrender my pride and my reputation and the esteem I would want you to have for me.

I will choose stillness before action, and action only as it shows love.

I will choose first to surrender to what is true, and respond with what is just and kind.

The only way I see myself able to do any of this is to give up my life back to the One who gave it to me with the same lack of restraint He showed first.

So, God help me…I surrender.

I give up.

It’s been awhile since I wrote – which is my typical way. I am undisciplined, lazy, occasionally fearful of what people will say, uninspired, and prone to reach for the ice cream much more often than the computer or pen. I’m the stereotypical “fat and lazy sitting on her ass on the couch.” I’m sitting on my couch right now. Disclaimer given. Proceed at your own risk.

Today, a pastor I highly respect chose to preach on the sovereignty of God. This after eleven months of Covid, innumerable days of political unrest, and five days after the storming of the Capitol building. Yeah, he said a few things, but mostly he said God is Most High. God Most High. Of all the things that people have been saying, this, that God is Most High, has been conspicuously absent in the discussion. Cuz’ we know that, Captain Obvious, we don’t need reminding. Duh.

Our nation is divided; this is not news. My family is divided; that’s not all that new, either, just more apparent of late. Everybody’s upset. I do mean everybody. Everybody’s scrambling for justification. I have heard both sides of the political debate saying that Jesus is on their side. I have heard both sides saying that they alone are acting in righteousness. I have stopped counting the sad/angry/barfing emojis. They are innumerable. I have heard both sides praying for the win. I have heard both sides insisting on staying the course, of claiming victory against the foe. I have heard both sides say that the other side hates them. Hate seems to be in plentiful supply.

So saying something like, “God is Most High” sounds at first like hoity-toity religious-speak that just puts a nice bow on everyone’s point of view and, yet again, reinforces the divide.

However, if I consider the statement, “God is Most High,” it requires much more than a nod to faithfulness. Because it’s not that obvious after all, is it? How radical that is? In its simplicity it’s dangerously powerful. It dumps me off my high horse. You, too. It requires an entire reset of thought. A laying down of weaponry. A drop to our knees. A full stop.

For if God is indeed Most High, that means at the simplest – we are not. I am not. You are not. If as in Islam, it is said “Al Malik” and as in Judaism it is said “El Elyon” and in Christianity it is “El Shaddai” or “Deus Omnipotens” (if you’re referencing a Latin liturgy) – then there are a whole bunch of us willing to say the words of a simple truth – but not act on it. I admit first. I have said it and walked away mindlessly. La de friggin DA. But it’s a bit more important than that.

If God is indeed Most High, that means my political views are not. If God is Most High, then my choice of representatives or senators or presidents is not. If God is Most High, then my understanding of justice or fairness or mercy or truth is not. If we are Christian, or Muslim, or Jewish, or any other faith that says God is Most High, we are still not most high ourselves. Our understanding is human, biased, flawed – every single one of us, because we are not God and we are not most high. MY entire way of being in this world is flawed, erroneous, dissipated by human frailty, through the lenses my upbringing made for me. At my very best, I am still not most high. I should be begging to be taught by God, passionate to learn what I am missing in my understanding, eager to leap into the bible and drop everything for one second of God’s sweet revelation of truth. But I am me, and so I am watching Netflix. Or Amazon Prime. I’m open to all sides, and I use humor to deflect my embarrassment at my spiritual laziness.

Crap. That is a humbling thing.

I don’t like admitting it. But the truth is, if I say that my understanding of the gospel is right and yours is wrong, I have missed the point. BOTH our understanding is wrong. Both colored by our experiences and history. And both of us need to go back to basics.

God is Most High. And he’s also remarkably consistent. In every sacred book of the monotheistic tradition of our family tree (yes, the Koran; yes the Bible, yes, the Talmud, yes. Sorry about that.) God is Most High and His words are peace. Justice for the oppressed. Mercy for the sinner. Help for the poor. Equity among all peoples. Love.

It’s when we decide to parse out those words with our filters that the whole thing falls over. When we insist on it making sense on our terms. When we start getting out our boxes and labels. Peace, but only for those who look like us and agree with us. Justice, but only for those we deem worthy of it. Mercy, but only for those who have capitulated to our demands. Forgiveness, but only if they’re sorry for being so horrible to us, and only if we think they paid enough for it. Help for the poor, but not for that waste of skin over there. He should get a job. She’s a welfare mom for God’s sake, just popping out kids to work the system. Equity, but not for those parasites. He’s an illegal alien. She’s a convicted felon. He’s an addict. She’s white trash. He’s a black thug with a record. She watches CNN. He only listens to Fox. She’s a snowflake libtard. He’s a racist pig with a Confederate flag. Don’t you realize you can’t just hand out this stuff like candy? They don’t deserve it!

And let’s not even get started about love. We aren’t even close to dealing with THAT.

If we agree though, even at the most superficial level, that God is Most High, then that means…

God is Most High.

So much as I’d like to, I don’t get to choose who He loves, or to whom He grants peace. I don’t get to limit His reach of blessing, of redemption, of acceptance. I don’t get to decide who is family here. I don’t get to say who deserves it. That’s His choice.

What I get to do is to worship. To listen. To praise. To stand awestruck before the Ineffable, then fall down from the sheer majesty of Someone so much more than I can grasp. To let me go and everything I care about. And while I’m there flat on my face before the Lord, to repent, not for my feelings of anger or hurt, but for the sinful actions I take as response to my emotions. To repent, not of my fear and confusion, but for my insistence that I be comforted, that I feel safe, or vindicated, or — dare I say it? — not judged by you, dear reader. I get to let you go ahead and judge me. It’s ok.

Because I know that God is also judging me, even as Jesus stands beside me. God will find me wanting, sinful, dirty and messed up yet again. But He also takes pity, giving me yet again His word of forgiveness and correction.

I’m often wrong, either by ignorance or stubbornness. I am weak, biased, prone to anger, easily hurt, a people pleaser, a person who can’t seem to let go of shame, no matter how many times God forgives me. I love learning but lean precariously towards relying on intelligence as an idol. I try to keep myself safe from the world by retiring into my head. I have a hard time trusting. I envy those who are more patient than I am. I sometimes want to be holier than thou, mostly because I know too well what terrible sinfulness lies under the surface of my cheery demeanor. I can be a heartless bitch. I’m also kind, funny, self-deprecating and fun to be around. I can topple towards humblebragging. I’m a hot mess.

Even now, I hope you admire me for my humility. Do you? Do you like me? Can I have my shiny award now?

Because this is what I am. I am capable of being a good person. I am also capable of being a horrible one. I am covered in self-inflicted wounds of sin, I have hurt others and must make amends in my life, and I am beloved of God anyway, because He chooses that. It’s got nothing to do with me and I can do nothing about it.

I don’t know. Maybe you are some of these things too. But I do know you can’t do anything about His incredibly love for you either. It’s MOST HIGH, and you are stuck with that.

After all, God is the Most High. Not you or me. God.

God. Is. The. MOST. HIGH.

Go talk to Him. Take the risk. Plop over horizontal and listen.

Maybe go see what He says.

Wikipedia: An anchorite or anchoret (female: anchoress) is someone who, for religious reasons, withdraws from secular society so as to be able to lead an intensely prayer-oriented, ascetic, or Eucharist-focused life. Whilst anchorites are frequently considered to be a type of religious hermit, unlike hermits they were required to take a vow of stability of place, opting for permanent enclosure in cells often attached to churches.

Or, in our cases, a living room?

The last post I wrote was one written in a time of doubt, sadness, disappointment. In other words, last week.

The only thing that has changed from last week is that the restrictions for our state have tightened. Restaurants are closed to indoor dining again, gyms closed, and perhaps most painful of all, indoor gatherings with anyone other than who is living with you right now are prohibited through mid-December, to try and stem the tide of new Covid infections. Rates of infection are up. Families are separated again. Holed up. Hunkered in. I just told my stepdaughters not to come for Thanksgiving. And I hate that.

So why do I feel better today than last week, when things are looking even worse?

I have no freaking idea.

But the words written by the Middle Ages anchoress Julian of Norwich have started running quietly unbidden in my head, over and over…

“All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.”

So I looked her up, to find out why her words are in my head right now. Haven’t thought about her since I lost my ancient copy of Baker’s Lives of the Saints.

Apparently Julian, along with more than half of Europe, contracted the Black Death, the plague; unlike so many, she survived it. But in the middle of her illness, at the very moment of deepest sickness and despair, near to death, THAT’S when she received the visions of Christ that she wrote of, for the rest of her life. THAT was when she heard him say that all shall be well.

ALL SHALL BE WELL???

It’s the kind of ridiculous thing people say when they are beyond logic, splashing merrily about in the River of Denial. It’s what you think in delirium. Woo-hoo, pour me another gin and tonic, all shall be well. It’s unhinged. It’s potentially pathological. It’s the thing the Black Knight of Monty Python says – “It’s just a flesh wound!” MAYYYBE it will be well later. But now? In the middle of the disaster? I don’t think so. It’s silly. It’s irresponsible. It’s absurd. You smack someone saying that while the ship is sinking. “GET A GRIP!” If you would have heard that in your plague-induced fever, you certainly wouldn’t admit it once you’re past the whitewater, out of danger. You wouldn’t give it a second actual thought, right??

Unless of course it’s true.

Then it’s insane.

It’s even stranger when you think about the history of this woman. Again, Wikipedia says of her, “An important church ceremony would have taken place at the church, in the presence of the Bishop of Norwich. During the ceremony, psalms from the Office of the Dead would have been sung for her, as if it were her own funeral, and at some point Julian would have been led to her cell door and into the room beyond. The door would afterwards have been sealed up, and she would have remained in her cell for the rest of her life.”

Damn. Who does that level of crazy?

I am glad that I’m not feeling “the call” to become an anchoress. Don’t be singing no Office of the Dead for me, yet. As soon as they laid in the last brick in the wall, I’d be a hysterical hot mess.

But this quarantine thing….well. Not to compare, not to exaggerate, but sometimes, it feels like the bricks are stacked nearby…

I guess the calm I feel isn’t really mine, anymore than the words “all shall be well” were Julian’s. It’s safe to say I am not that mature, or that crazy. But Jesus apparently is. Jesus is insisting that all is still well. Right now.

So. What do I do with that?

I honestly don’t know. I doubt that I’m going to get some mystic vision like Julian, and the fact that she had it while having THE PLAGUE doesn’t inspire me to step up and volunteer. But it’s good to know that someone heard that, and had the wisdom to repeat it, to write it down. It doesn’t make sense, but it rings true. Go figure.

“All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.”

Get up from your couch. Wrap your bathrobe around you. Put down the tumbler of wine. Use the peephole on your door. Look out there. Up and down, as far as the peephole allows. There are truths bigger than what we know out there. There is love beyond what we can feel out there. There is space and wind and power and joy that goes far past our horizon of sight. All manner of things beyond. And inside too, where we are. There too. Look.

All manner of things.

Shall.

Be.

Well.

Postscript. Apparently Julian had a cat for company. Wise girl.