The angel visits me.
Shocking sound, vast colors, she’s suffused in light. A messenger, her words deeply stirring. Her face purest yellow, shining,
smiling, brings ease, a luminosity
She says everything
Will be all right,
All’s well, all shall be well,
All manner of things
Shall forever be well,
Like Julian said
Centuries ago
This is a picture I took from Wikimedia Commons of a statue of Julian of Norwich, an English anchoress from medieval times who is regarded as an important Christian mystic. Julian (1343-after 1416) wrote Revelations of Divine Love after seeing visions (or “shewings“) of the Passion of Christ. She was on her deathbed at the time of the visions, but she recovered and wrote about the visions sometime later.
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Some of you may recognize this illustration – it’s one from William Blake called “Christ in the Sepulcher, Guarded by Angels.” I’m a big fan of Blake’s poetry and famously weird illustrations, so I wanted to distort one a bit with some graphic effects from Canva. I like how this turned out and I particularly like the orange hues.
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Watching the horizon, bright sun rising above
baking the desert this lonely morning
I came here for mystical union, total silence
but the mighty sun cares not this morning
What of the Desert Fathers, who searched for love
retreated to their cells in the morning?
Did they unlock secrets, away from violence
find perfect solitude in quiet mornings?
I’ve read their books, listened to their tales,
but the words escape me this morning
I want my eyes to be removed of scales,
like St. Paul seeing Jesus in the morning
The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it,
so why do we insist on depleting it?
treating it, beating it like a dirty dog –
Adam named everything he saw,
the beasts & critters that crawl,
the plants & trees so tall,
and since those days in Eden,
we’ve furiously assaulted the planet –
“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.” ― Søren Kierkegaard
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