Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love: You can find the full text of “Revelations of Divine Love” by Julian of Norwich on [Project Gutenberg](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/52958/52958-h/52958-h.htm)

I

Revelations of divine love, Julian of Norwich teaches (37), God keeps his chosen ones very safely, even though they sin, for in them is a godly will that never assented to sin. (translated by Barry Windeat)

Julian of Norwich sees the believer as in their nature, in their heart, living in a higher place where to sin is not possible but often falling to that  lower or fleshly place where we sin. She sees this as being an opportunity for God to bring honour to God’s name through the grace of forgiveness. Sin becomes a place of compassion and healing grace. The contrition felt by the sinner is an acknowledgement by them of God’s healing purpose and honouring to God. I might have embellished this.

Personally, I see people and myself struggle with goodness and have to frequently examine myself. Healing I find is in being present to my failings and my community; a commitment to live with honesty with others whatever. I don’t see that this comes naturally but is a consequence of being present first in God and present with people, the community he gives me. Sometimes this is the church community but often it’s the people we encounter on a daily basis. God is at work when we become a gift to those around us through compassion. I see this as being the healing choice that, in becoming the kindness that is needed for others, we know wholeness in our humanity and find peace. We forgive ourselves as we first forgive others, aware of our own failings.

And being forgiven is a human need. We need to know all’s well if we are not to be haunted by who we are. The Christ like choice is to prefer the other in a trinitarian dance – giving and receiving forgiveness in God and to others  as we move through our day. We may not receive love back from our community, but receiving the love of God is our foundation for giving love. In our giving and forgiving we know love from God. God brings us into Gods own self and our essential being is raised into the glory of deity.

This is good news as life is mostly thankless. Thankfulness is a gift we receive from God despite this and God receives honour even in our failing as we repent and determine to turn into the flow of love. Truly this brings healing in the face of the daily reality, renewing the gift of an ever-new life as it is exposed to the troubled world. For in Christ we are a new creation. Abiding in Christ, God’s own self abides in us. This is a gift of God as we dwell in this renewing redemption, reconciled as we choose good. Truly our hearts are divided but in Christ we naturally live in that higher place. The promise is that on the lower place of our hearts God has written the law and our hard sinful hearts are transformed by God to hearts of compassionate and humble flesh.

All are called to this and in the mystery of its outworking, we have knowledge of the holy. I do believe this work is exclusive to Christ the only way to God the father. The son dwells in the heart of each of us and his goodness is etched on all our hearts and all are called to respond, moment by moment. In the response to the word in each of our hearts we are set free from sin. It’s our trusting in the steadfast love of God that sustains us, is real food for the journey.

II

When we speak of sin, do we speak of the turning away from the face of God? God’s love is overflowing, God is the destination to which we flow and the source of  the outpouring –  a fountain of love. The spirit within us is an overflow of love –  streams of living water.

Maybe sin is a swimming against the current. Maybe it’s a damming up of the flow of the river of love. Many claim to be without sin and unaware of sin – many have no concept of God and have a dodgy idea of how all things come together. There is no meaning outside experience, no reality beyond our senses.

And yet we have a sense within us a guide that alerts us to broken connections. The breaks maybe with ourselves; who we think we are or suppose ourselves to be. They may be breaks with others; a sense of disconnection with our community, our loved ones, our family and friends. The breaks may be a sense of alienation from what sustains us, our choices, our lifestyle, the earth. The flow of life is disturbed and all is not well. The breaks are exposed as ruptures.

What are we to make of this inner revelation? How are we to be content and know joy? I think we need to find a deep forgiveness. Forgiveness that resonates with us and our experience of the world and causes us to do better, the Julian place of compassion and healing.

There is a prayer practise that begins with a bathing in the light of knowing what is right, the law on our hearts –  a stilling of the soul in a moment that names the moments of contentment and joy. Secure in this grace the prayer moves on to naming the breaks, the barriers. This is a work of a moment and may only be a wordless groan. But then comes a resolve to forgive and be forgiven. The practise can be of the hour, the day, the week; just when we notice. On our own we can rest in God’s mercy and extend our prayer into a time of asking and listening. But first we must be able to pray, forgive us our sins as we forgive the sins of others against us.

This may take time but will become real as we come to know Jesus. Else it’s an indulgence, a distraction. If our prayer doesn’t lead us to the source of all forgiveness in God’s person and God self we’re lost in the idolatry of a practise. The healing purpose is found in the person of God.

The good news is God is found with us and in us and God’s light shines in all our hearts. God’s presence sets us free and heals as revealed in the death and resurrection of Jesus, the person in whom is the ever-flowing ground of all truth.

III

Galatians 5: The full text of Galatians 5 can be accessed on [Bible Gateway](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians%205&version=NIV) .

Colossians 3:15: You can read Colossians 3:15 on [Bible Gateway](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Colossians%203:15&version=NIV) .2 Timothy 3: The full text of 2 Timothy 3 is available on [Bible Gateway](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20timothy%203&version=NIV) .

As we walk into God through our experience of compassion and healing of our sin our being will be clothed with an unnoticed loving restraint in the face of frustrations and disappointments that all too easily take us down and set us facing away from the fount of all blessing. God restores us in our contrition.

We will actively need to put on this clothing. In these times of set spiritual discipline we are invited to notice the times of restraint. Galatians 5 calls these the fruits and Colossians 3  gives us the list; compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience and love. The virtues we inhabit are love, hope and faith. Each drawing us towards the goal of goodness; beauty, truth and justice. So, there is the knowing and the unknowing or maybe the unknowing brings us to the knowing of joy and contentment, an exercise of the will and a noticing of habit, founded on an experience of God in Christ.

We find an encouragement to this in 2 Timothy 3. Surely Jesus is the way, the truth and the life and our worship is in the spirit. We should not be ashamed of this and include all in whom the light of truth shines; all are in the flow of divine grace and all are called to be forgiven as they forgive.

IV

Colossians 3:15 says, Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you’re called to peace.

This dwelling in forgiveness is what brings peace. Open our eyes to peace, and what brings peace flows through us. Jesus speaks of a bubbling up and overflowing of living water –  a refreshing flow from the fount of all blessing. Forgiveness we discover is in the person of the overflowing, ever being, creator and sustainer, God the father, son and holy spirit.

In much of our sin, we are our own victims; my anger, frustration and disappointment affects me. With my selfish exercise of power comes the ability to victimise and along with chance and time, my choices hurt others. Evil attacks the innocent and systemic powers rule and justice acts in a way so as to create collateral damage for the greater good.

We are given free will and can bless and curse and our neglect or wilfulness can destroy others. Mistakes in high jeopardy situations might kill and maim. With our free will comes vulnerability and the ability to do great damage.

Love does not insist on its own way and in my view, this is the love that has brought about this creation. The creation as we see it is the most loving, meaningful existence a loving creator God could make. That seems harsh and meaningless unless at his heart is compassion and healing in view of all the suffering. Creation, as Saint Paul says is subject to futility for the sake of the one who subjected it. This is the outworking of love! Is this love?

At the heart of love is forgiveness, a giving way. Before each of us and within us is a glory set before us and the glory is, all is made well in Christ. This is what Julian reveals, this is what brings meaning and purpose – there is justice and there is mercy –  a burning of the fire of love.

In Christ, is the eternal final judgement. We know it now on the cross of Jesus, son of God, and it’s forgiving work is open to all in Christ. As followers of Christ, the faithfulness of Jesus works a spiritual new creation in the reformation of our hearts. We are born again into the final judgement of all things, the redemption of all creation. As a people we rest in the peace that comes from the ever-present work of the cross dwelling in us and are priests of salvation for the world –  a resurrection people –  a company of the redeemed.

All are called to participate in God’s self – hands and feet of the living God. The work of God, in Christ is to bring compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience and love. We taste and we see the fruits in ourselves and others.

Yes, God will work this in all through Christ when all is brought to fruition,  but we who know the final judgement now are privileged to be members one of another, participators in the body of Christ. Our work is to glorify the father and our practise is to forgive as we are forgiven.

V

God is love: God is all powerful. Love is love that does not insist on its own way and keeps no record of wrongs. And so God creates. In us God becomes God’s self –  our experience leads us towards the knowledge of the holy. We cannot trust in the faithfulness of another’s experience of God. We can only know the God who has revealed God’s self to us personally. From this experience we draw strength. Each of us grows from the knowledge of the light within to the knowledge of the holy. Jesus is the way and in Jesus the father is revealed.

Forgiveness is at the heart of love. In creation this love is spiritually discerned in our experience of God. God is love before creation came to be and so forgiveness is our experience of love, as before creation there was no falling away from love to be forgiven. We experience darkness as we contemplate ourselves –  neglect, abuse, jealousy and guilt. As we contemplate God we gaze into darkness, a darkness of unknowing, of dim holiness. As we are transformed by our encounter with love ,we are able to enter further into the darkness –  a comfort, a place of grace and security; a place of forgiveness.

We know the intimacy of God’s gaze as we love. From our knowing forgiveness, we look on others and they are touched by our attention.

Jesus death on the cross opens us up to this resurrection love. The sin of humanity, the standing against the flow of God’s love, is the curse of freewill –  perfected free will is a will that flows with God’s will.

God speaks a word to us and out of the sheer silence of God, we choose life or death. Love is perfected in our choice of life. Each moment; each particle of being; each force of creation; is held by God and yet is free. The creating and forming voice of God directs and draws us in love but at every level creation is free to become and in some way is conscious. Every choice is made one in God though it is completely free.

This we see as chance and time and good seems often unseen in this. God is perceived in our spirit as are his ways. Everything I write makes sense without God where it speaks of our well-being through living reflective lives and meditation. Yet families, regions, government and systems, exert power. Freedom includes death and there is a will to have power that can be malevolent. In many ways we’re collateral in this rule of nature, subject to suffering through geography, history, genetics and disease.

My hope is the suffering is defeated by love. Jesus suffered in this life and suffering had its day as powers took him to the cross. There the sin of the world was put on his shoulders. It is the will of God that even death on a cross would not have victory and we see Jesus powerless –  choosing to die rather than overpower. His prayers of anguish are recorded as he stepped into love, becoming what he had been from the beginning a sacrifice for sin.

Sacrifice in our experience is of giving up something for a greater good. When we sacrifice, we give up what is ours that something might flourish. We see sacrificial love in parents for children, friends for friends. The greatest love we see is when one gives their life that another might live and that one is a stranger. That God and Jesus would remain powerless even to death open us up to the possibility that this sacrifice is for our flourishing as it appears so futile. Only Jesus resurrection makes sense of it else it truly is futile. This is where trust that God in Jesus is the evidence of our forgiveness, the person in whom we hope our forgiveness is enfleshed. In Jesus we trust our forgiveness is secure and we become new creations, redeemed from the sin of humanity.

We continue to fall short as Julian says but our hearts are renewed so that we turn acknowledging our sin and grow in glory piercing the darkness.