A Showing

Lately I've been reading Julian of Norwich (ten out of ten would recommend) as opposed to merely quoting her best of lines.  Her private revelations ("showings") are part devotional, part medieval cognitive behavioral therapy, and part pure hilariousness.  Consider, for example, the following showing (her second, I think, although the text is meandering enough that it is a little hard to tell when one vision ends and the next begins).

Julian is shown a imaginative vision of the bottom of the sea, filled with moss and seaweed and peacefully flowing blue-green water.  (I am paraphrasing from memory, but it's a brief literary description to that effect.)  She's enjoying the view, more or less, when she gets her dollop of spiritual insight: that if she were just plunked down here with the sea plants she'd never get into any trouble and be reasonably happy in the contemplation of divine things as a result.

Julian, of course, went on to become an anchoress.

But she's not wrong ...

"I mean, if I were just at the bottom of the sea I'd stay out of trouble, now wouldn't I?"

Me too, Julian; oh, yes, me too.

Then Julian has a doubt: this is such a trivial insight, is it actually a divine revelation?  Did the thoughts come to her from God or from her own mind?

She is told, of course, that it is a real revelation, worth repeating--otherwise it would never have made it into manuscript.  But the doubt too, whatever one thinks of Julian's answer, is remarkably relatable.

Did this good idea that popped into my head come from God?  Naw, it's too trivial ...

Think again, mes frères religieux.