Writing
Anchorhold: Corresponding with Revelations of Divine Love
This is a book of letters to Julian of Norwich concerning her Revelations of Divine Love. It is an attempt to search for my life by giving myself heart and soul to the teaching of a text and it is about the possibilities of transformation that ensue.
For those in Winnipeg who would like to purchase a copy, please connect with me at kpgcounselling@gmail.com
To write is to practice seeing.
I write what I see because it helps me to pay a form of attention that is transformative and expansive. I share what I write because I believe that we can gift to others our visions of ideas, creation and ultimately God, in ways that serve their own seeing and loving.
I spent a wonderful three years writing letters to Julian of Norwich and her text, commonly known as The Revelations of Divine Love. I wrote these letters in order to better see the love which Julian saw which made her believe the promise that “All shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” The letters have become a book entitled Anchorhold: Corresponding with Revelations of Divine Love which is published by Wipf and Stock Cascade imprint in the Kalos Series.
“all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”
Julian makes extreme claims about the Love of God revealed in the body of Christ on the Cross. She claims that in Love the human self can truly flourish and in the end that “all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” I need to know if these claims are true. Thus, I write letters, ask questions, and look for answers as to how to indwell the vision given to Julian, while engaging the limits of my personhood and the modern paradigms which constrain my thoughts. The centrifugal force of the work is the face and body of Jesus Christ revealed on the cross as infinite love. As such, it grapples with the suffering of this world and reveals something about the nature of our human vocation. I bring my whole being to the correspondence, I am changed, and I do find my life.
Wisdom is slow, it has rhythms, it deals in wholeness.
Since Julian, I have turned my gaze outward onto the created world around me as I seek wisdom for the healing work to which I am called. Thus far, I have found that wisdom is both always present and always elusive. It comes as gift when we are alert to reality, it comes as gift when attending to the teachings of sacred texts, and it comes as gift through experiences which humble us and make us full of awe. Wisdom is slow, it has rhythms, it deals in wholeness. It is always expansive. Every day, as I seek, I learn how desperately the culture and society in which I exist needs wisdom; how much I need wisdom. By grace, I live in the land of the Manitoba Interlake, nestled between the Canadian Shield and the Prairies, a land full of subtle beauty, and a land full of wind and weather which can enthral you and often break your heart; the land is a good teacher. Julian taught me to be enclosed in love, I am now learning scripture and other sacred texts afresh, while attending to the greening rhythms of the year within this enclosure and this place. I am seeking wisdom while watching the trees. I will try to tell you what I find.