We are made of God

"Julian of Norwich, the fourteenth-century Christian mystic, said most simply but most radically that we are not just made by God, we are made of God. We are not just fashioned from afar by a distant Creator. We are born from the very womb of the Divine. This is why Julian so loves to refer to God as Mother as well as Father. She sees us as coming forth from the essence of the One who is the Source of all things."

John Phillip Newell
"The Rebirthing of God"

Photos: Mountains appearing out of the mist (Rocky Mountain National Park, CO), Prickly-Pear Cactus (Lory State Park, CO), and Rocky Mountain Iris (Rocky Mountain National Park, CO); June 12-16, 2015

The Inner Meaning of the "Sleep" Associated with Christmas Eve

In the previous post, I mentioned Divine Listening as one of the meanings of the "Silent Night" of Christmas Eve. The "sleep" of the Christ-child gives us a clue to another aspect of this Silence. For contemplatives, this sleep represents the practice of "resting" in God. For example, Lady Julian of Norwich - a 14th century English mystic - reminds us that "God is the Very Rest . . . When, for love of God, it is empty, the soul can receive His deep rest." Here, the God in whom we rest is perceived to be the "Ground of Being" or as "Being Itself." After all, each of us is primarily a "Human BEING" rather than a human DOING. Resting in this silent Ground of Being then enables all of the forms of life, together with their associated energies, to emerge out of this Ground, as though out of Nowhere. 

There can be no movement of the life-force present within each creature and phenomenon without a Silent Stillness to serve as the backdrop out of which it can emerge. All "becoming" emerges out of the prior ground of "Being." During meditation, we identify with this silent, still ground and then watch - spellbound - as all thoughts, perceptions, forms, energies and phenomena arise out of the Silence and begin to circulate like stars or meteors in the nighttime sky. When we BECOME the Silent Night, then - suddenly - all of creation begins to emerge from within us. How amazing!

Photos: (Left and Middle) Snowy rock formations on the Gem Lake Trail, December 22, 2014; (Bottom) Bierstadt Lake, with Long's Peak in the background, December 19, 2014. All three photos were taken in Rocky Mountain National Park, CO.

All will be well!

 

"Sin is necessary, but all will be well, and all will be well, and every kind of thing will be well."

Mother Julian of Norwich,
14th century English mystic

Photo: Pasqueflowers sprouting from barren ground; Gem Lake Trail, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; April 5, 2014

We are God's bliss, because he endlessly delights in us.

"We are God's bliss, because he endlessly delights in us."

Julian of Norwich,
14th century Christian contemplative

Photo: Daffodils, with the Flatirons in the background; Boulder, CO; April 2, 2014

We are enclosed in God's rest and peace.

 

"We are enclosed in God, and God is enclosed in us . . . As truly as God is our Father, so truly is God our Mother . . . God is our clothing that for love, wraps us up and winds us about; embraces us, totally clothes us . . . We are enclosed in God's rest and peace."

Mother Julian of Norwich,
14th century English contemplative

Photo: Ladybug enclosed in a Pasqueflower; Hewlett Gulch, Roosevelt National Forest, CO; April 1, 2014

"I saw truly that our Lord was never angry, and never will be."

Today in our Contemplative Christianity class, we are studying a truly amazing woman - a mystic named Julian of Norwich. Julian lived in 14th century England, a time of great turmoil. Bubonic Plague - "the Black Death" - was ravaging Europe, killing as much of 60% of the population. Because people had no knowledge of microbiology, they attributed this disease to the "wrath of God." However, Julian knew otherwise. Accordingly, she wrote the following words after receiving a vision from God:

"We are sinners and commit many evil deeds. And despite this, I saw truly that our Lord was never angry, and never will be. Because he is God, he is good, he is truth, he is love, he is peace; and his power, his wisdom, his charity and his unity do not allow him to be angry . . . And between God and our soul there is neither wrath nor forgiveness in his sight. For our soul is so wholly united to God, through his own goodness, that between God and our soul nothing can interpose. Our God cannot in his own judgment forgive, because he cannot be angry - that would be impossible . . . For I saw no kind of wrath in God, neither briefly nor for long. For truly, as I see it, if God could be angry for any time, we should neither have life nor place nor being. For though we may feel in ourselves anger, contention and strife, still we are all mercifully enclosed in God's mildness and in his meekness, in his benignity and in his accessibility. For I saw very truly that all our endless friendship, our place, our life and our being are in God . . . [For] we are God's bliss, because he endlessly delights in us . . . We are his bliss, we are his reward, we are his honor, we are his crown. His thirst and longing for us were in him from without beginning."

Photo: Spring-beauty flowers blooming next to a burned tree; High Park Burn; Roosevelt National Forest, CO; April 29, 2014

The substance of our being is enclosed in God.

"God is closer to us than our own soul, for he is the foundation on which our soul stands . . . For our soul sits in God in true rest . . . And therefore if we want to have knowledge of our soul, and communion and discourse with it, we must seek it in our Lord God in whom it is enclosed . . . We are enclosed in God’s rest and peace . . . We are enclosed in the Father, and we are enclosed in the Son, and we are enclosed in the Holy Spirit.  And the Father is enclosed in us, the Son is enclosed in us, and the Holy Spirit is enclosed in us . . . For I saw surely [in a vision] that our substance is in God, and I also saw that God is in our sensuality, for in the same instant and place in which our soul is made sensual, in that same instant and place exists the city of God . . . This sight was sweet and wonderful to contemplate, peaceful and restful, secure and delectable.”  

Dame Julian of Norwich
14th century England

Photo: Chokecherry leaves encased in ice; Lory State Park, CO; October 6, 2012