Emily Rose Meditations

I wonder if we are given to assume that our suffering and trials are meaningless. Jesus, out of his great love gladly suffered for us, so I wonder if we struggle to remember and believe the truth that love is what animates us, what gives us life, what sustains us. This is inspired by the seventy-third chapter of Julian of Norwich's long text, Revelations of Divine Love. Join the conversation at pa...

What does it mean that we most desire to gaze brightly and fully on God’s face? How might we do that now, in practice for our eternal occupation? This is inspired by the seventy-second chapter of Julian of Norwich's long text, Revelations of Divine Love. Join the conversation at patreon.com/emilyhylden

We could see the greatest, most blessed and beatific sights, but if we gaze not upon God, we continue to be lost in lament, darkness, weeping. On what do your eyes dwell? This is inspired by the seventy-first chapter of Julian of Norwich's long text, Revelations of Divine Love. Join the conversation at patreon.com/emilyhylden

For Julian, faith is a trust, a rope and anchor to cling to when the storms and trials rage around us. She gave us the example earlier of combating the Fiend with truth, and faith in action seems to be a continually repetition of what we have come to believe is truth, according to God and the communion of the saints. So when our faith wavers because our eyes and senses tell us a falsehood, or our...

The fiend is overcome by truth. Way back in the Garden of Eden, the fiend twists truth to entrap the first humans, it is the mantra of the truth of Christ’s passion that Julian uses to defeat the fiend who torments her at night. This is inspired by the sixty-ninth chapter of Julian of Norwich's long text, Revelations of Divine Love. Join the conversation at patreon.com/emilyhylden

What might it mean to not be overcome, if we know we will still face torment, trouble, grief, evil, illness, and death? How might our perspective change on what it means to be defeated or overcome? What are the conditions for failure, or for victory? This is inspired by the sixty-eighth chapter of Julian of Norwich's long text, Revelations of Divine Love. Join the conversation at patreon.com/emily...

Our worth and goodness, the root of our selves, comes from the fact that God made us. Julian tells us today that in her vision God has said that we have been made as gloriously, as wonderfully, as any creature could be. There is no surpassing the craftsmanship and the care, the intricacy and excellence of our selves, of our souls, in front of God and in front of each other. There is no effort we c...

How often do we eagerly accept others’ testimony as true, in opposition to our own, and do it joyfully? What a trust and comfort the communion of saints can be to us, if we have the courage to believe our worthy companions. This is inspired by the sixty-sixth chapter of Julian of Norwich's long text, Revelations of Divine Love. Join the conversation at patreon.com/emilyhylden

The only place and time we have to encounter God is this moment, the present moment, right now. Each one is fleeting, and as we grasp it, it is gone. This is inspired by the sixty-fifth chapter of Julian of Norwich's long text, Revelations of Divine Love. Join the conversation at patreon.com/emilyhylden

Rather than imagining suffering and trial as a scab or tumor to be excised from our bodies, Julian conceives of suffering as a sort of slop in which we swim and struggle, from which we will be rescued. This is inspired by the sixty-fourth chapter of Julian of Norwich's long text, Revelations of Divine Love. Join the conversation at patreon.com/emilyhylden

How does it feel to imagine that our whole life-long, we are as children? How does that thought experiment feel? I wonder what kind of characteristics we might incorporate from our childhood to live into this identity. What kind of wonder might we employ? What kind of humility and guilelessness might we enjoy? Perhaps there are gifts to be mined in a child-like faith. This is inspired by the sixty...

There is, of course, much dross, much frailty in our institutions, much to be repented of, but we also see in this image Julian gives the way that the church is like Noah’s ark, somehow adrift in the sea of destruction and sin, imperfect but sustained by God, protected as a beacon of God’s presence and a symbol of God’s great love. This is inspired by the sixty-second chapter of Julian of Norwich'...

What an act of faith and confidence in the Holy Spirit to say that the Holy Church is never broken. Though this is before the Reformation, there’s never been a shortage of division among Christians; there’s that bit even in 1st Corinthians about saying “I belong to Apollos, I belong to Peter, I belong to Paul!” It seems that Julian is saying that no matter what things look like from our perspectiv...

What if the deepest and trust loves inside us are not corrupt? What if they’re not to be fought against, but welcomed, and encouraged? What might it look like to cherish the love you have in your heart, whether you’ve got somewhere to put or pour or offer it right now? How might you enjoy the love you’ve been given to tend? This is inspired by the sixtieth chapter of Julian of Norwich's long text,...

Julian famously pushes the boundaries of what “mother” means by asserting that Jesus is our mother, but if we are curious about this concept, what might we find Julian, and Jesus, to be showing us? Is it really something to revolutionary or strange? Or is Jesus as mother actually a very reasonable identifier? This is inspired by the fifty-ninth chapter of Julian of Norwich's long text, Revelations...

There’s an analogy based on a zoological mistake from the ancient world, that offers a window on how Jesus is our mother. In antiquity, it was believed that the pelican mother would pierce her own body to feed her young on her blood. It’s why pelicans are depicted in churches and medieval manuscripts. They were seen as an analogy for Jesus’s sacrifice, how he gave himself up to be pierced for the...

When we reverse the direction of the comparison – letting go of perfect parenting or ideal families, finding our understanding of relationships and love from God first, and letting that grace and mercy trickle down, we find divine love filling in any gaps that our beloved broken human families suffer. This is inspired by the fifty-seventh chapter of Julian of Norwich's long text, Revelations of Di...

If God dwells in each person, then I wonder if looking to others, if continual, insistent conversation and prayer and worship in a community might guide us toward that essential piece of our being. If we might learn best who each of us individually are when we are more concerned with being part of a group, say, part of the Body of Christ. This is inspired by the fifty-sixth chapter of Julian of No...

We’re spending a lot of time this month wondering around what it means to be human – this creature that’s a funny mash up of animal and divine. We are dreamed up and created by God, exactly how and comprised of what, we do not know. But it is clear that God has our echoes of the divine in us in depths and levels that we can’t quite put our fingers on, we cannot grasp the make-up of ourselves. I wo...

We undoubtedly have power in ourselves, we are the dwelling place of the divine! But Julian also reminds us that it’s not on or in or out of our own power, our own resources, or our own strength, that our deliverance and peace and transformation comes. This is inspired by the fifty-fourth chapter of Julian of Norwich's long text, Revelations of Divine Love. Join the conversation at patreon.com/emi...

I wonder what it might mean for us to lean into that sense that time is somehow foreign to us. How might our lives and interactions look or feel different if they were not subject to the constraints of time? How could we choose to live and make decisions with a more eternal set of convictions? This is inspired by the fifty-third chapter of Julian of Norwich's long text, Revelations of Divine Love....

Continuing to interpret the parable of the lord and the servant, Julian highlights the ways in which we ourselves as humans, containing aspects of both Adam and Jesus, might feel overwhelmed and undone by the emotions, events, and the very existence we experience. How might we reckon with this reality? This is inspired by the fifty-second chapter of Julian of Norwich's long text, Revelations of Di...

Julian received this parable in her showings, but it took another few decades (in her testament) to understand what she was seeing. She delves into sin and the Godhead, the relationship between Adam and Jesus (the "second Adam"), and how this parable might provide fodder for our own minds and hearts. It's a long one, and I don't offer commentary, but go take a walk and let Julian herself -- and Go...

The next chapter reveals in practice what Julian has often preached in her words: that some mysteries take much longer to unravel than others, and that some mysteries are never cracked open this side of heaven. She shows in her decades of wondering about these visions that the daily hard work is to carry these mysteries and wonderings with us, to continue contemplating them patiently, never knowin...

It is the character of this God to never waste anything, whether it is bits of creation or the fuel of emotions or even our anger and suffering. This God recycles and reuses and transforms everything into something new and beautiful. This is inspired by the forty-ninth chapter of Julian of Norwich's long text, Revelations of Divine Love. Join the conversation at patreon.com/emilyhylden