Lady Julian Action–from the Margins

This past week, as so many weeks,  have been full of headline frenzy: the killing of Osama bin Laden , floods in the South, the change in the Constitution of my own denomination. Loud proclamations and spins  careen around the networks and blogospheres.  In my own groups of contemplatives, we were asked to pray with the Beatitude: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake;” to have integrity , we needed to get ourselves up to speed on the ways in which persecution happens now in our world, to people who claim the community of faith, as well as many others. Calamity, chaos–big ticket items are there for our discernment and action–all needing wisdom, compassion and good news! Yet here I am, no longer in the center of the swirl, not a leader of anything, nor a policy maker, nor someone with instrumental skills that will fix the problems. I wonder how to a be a faithful follower of Christ and to participate in the healing of the world.

Today is a day of remembering Lady Julian of Norwich, whose world was full of chaos as well. Wars, plagues, rifts in the Church were tearing apart her world. Her  response of faith was to seclude herself in the church in Norwich, and devote herself to the prayer of listening for the Word of God and the wisdom of the Spirit. Her life’s written work, Revelations of Divine Love, was transformational for her, the Church of which she was part, and for decades of those who have read her subsequently. I am drawn to her over and over, no more so than when I feel the inadequacy of my place, my position, my status, my power to make a difference in the world with all of its grief and pain. What I learn from her first is that in her solitude and focus inward, she went deeply into the Mystery we call God, in a way that enabled her to trust that indeed, “all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.” From that place of deep trust, through ravaging illness, through isolation and rigor, she was able to share good news of God’s intended rule in the universe.

I am not in isolation, nor enclosed, but I have a great deal of solitude, and Julian pushes me once again to use it for urgent prayer for the brokenness of the world. In a post-binLaden world, I am called to pray for the innocent victims of and collateral damage that will ensue. For the fracturing structures of the Church, I am called to pray for compassion and grace in the truth telling. With the knowledge of how persecution persists in  our complex and competitive world, I am called to pray for powerful justice to arise in the conscience and deeds of faithful people.

On reflection also, I can see that the time and energy spent in the listening and action of prayer has brought opportunities for me to do things that make for peace as well: I had a conversation  that has helped someone come to terms with their call to a vocation for healing; I was inspired to send a one-line e-mail calling into question the intent of an agency that seemed tone-deaf to the heart of the people it served; I gathered with others to offer up cries for mercy and justice for those who have no resources to fight the powers of destruction; I showed up in places I don’t love to be, because my presence adds mass to those who stands presence for God’s peace.

In prayer I also have had to face the allure of sitting in the “seat of the scornful,” so appealing and comfortable, and cynical. I have had to resist seeing prayer as a place to duck and cover from the slings and arrows of world events. I have had to watch my words, editing generalizatios and clever slurs. And the solitude and presence of prayer is where these actions are generated, because I am coming to know as Lady Julian did, that with the action of the Spirit in the world God loves, “all will be well. “