Clergy from left, Pastor Deb Church, Deacon Amy Schmuck, The Rev. Mary Ann Hill, The Rev. Lynn Finnegan, Deacon Cynthia Biddlecomb, retired, and Pastor Nicolé Raddu Ferry. Photo by Nate Limback/ladailypost.com

By Deacon Cynthia Biddlecomb, M.Div.
ELCA

Thanks to many of you, who read our column each week, “All Shall Be Well” has been appearing in the Los Alamos Daily Post for two years, now! We, a few women in ministry who live in Los Alamos, have had the privilege of writing this column since August of 2022. Perhaps, now is a good time to remember why we named this “All Shall Be Well.”

The medieval woman who became known as the mystic and anchoress Julian of Norwich (1343—c.1416) was at death’s door one night in May of 1373 when she received sixteen “showings,” as she called them, of God’s love. A priest had placed a crucifix before her eyes as she neared death; as she trained her eyes upon it, she entered into a mystical understanding of the suffering Jesus, too, had experienced. All that night Julian heard Jesus speaking to her, revealing the depth of God’s love in a mystical conversation with her.

Upon her recovery, Julian wrote down a short text about each of the showings. After 20 years in meditation—during which time she served as an anchoress at a church in Norwich, England—Julian wrote an exposition about each showing in a longer text entitled “Revelations of Divine Love.” (Reading this book in seminary was a huge gift for me!)

In his daily meditations at CAC.org this week, Richard Rohr wrote:

“Julian’s interpretation of her God-experience is unlike the religious views common for much of history up to her time. It’s not based in sin, shame, guilt, or fear of God or hell. Instead, it’s full of delight, freedom, intimacy, and cosmic hope.” 

In our own era of religious guilt-shaming and fear mongering, we can learn a thing or two about God’s grace, mercy and love from Julian, and about what Jesus taught and experienced for us from reading the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John ourselves. It’s just so tempting for us to point the finger at someone else’s shortcomings rather than to examine our own. Perhaps that is because it’s hard for us to accept that God loves us unconditionally and that there is nothing we can do to make God love us more. God’s abundant love and grace is pure gift and not something we must strive to earn.

To summarize what Julian learned from her revelations of divine love, here is a quote from her short text “Showings” (from Edmund Colledge’s translation):

“[God] did not say: You will not be assailed, you will not be belabored, you will not be disquieted, but he said: You will not be overcome. God wants us to pay attention to his words and always to be strong in our certainty, in well-being and in woe, for he loves us and delights in us, and so he wishes us to love him and delight in him and trust greatly in him, and all shall be well.” [Showings 22, short text]

So, dear ones, let us delight in God’s love, knowing that “All shall be well.”

Editor’s note: ‘All Shall Be Well’ is a column written by local women clergy including ELCA Deacon Cynthia Biddlecomb, M.Div., retired (czoebidd@gmail.com); Pastor Nicolé Ferry, Bethlehem Evangelical Lutheran Church (pastornicole@bethluth.com); The Rev. Lynn Finnegan, Associate Rector, The Episcopal Church of the Holy Faith, Santa Fe (rev.lynn@holyfaithchurchsf.org); Pastor Deb Church, White Rock Presbyterian Church (pastor@wrpchurch.com) and The Rev. Mary Ann Hill, Rector, Trinity on the Hill Episcopal Church  (momaryannhill@gmail.com) and Deacon Amy Schmuck, Bethlehem Evangelical Lutheran  Church (deaconamy@bethluth.com).