Hope

At the start of a new year we usually hope that things will get better. The last few years have not been good for many folk- healthwise and economically, to name but two. I’m sure you can add more.

This photograph I took last January. Snowdrops are flowers that always bring hope for me. When we moved here I couldn’t believe how many snowdrops we saw in the woods, alongside the verges and in gardens. I had never seen an area with so many. In the depths of winter, in January, they bring the promise of spring, a light that shines on dark days.

Albert Einstein wrote – Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.

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Bridges not Walls

There is far too much talk about walls – especially from a certain person. We should surely be thinking about and working towards building bridges between nations, between our communities and between all age groups.

Some bridges aren’t built for transport, they’re rather trickier to construct…

 

Barriers of hate

walls of prejudice, racism

exacerbate rot.

 

Extending kindness

sympathy, friendship and  love

build bridges of hope.

Julian of Norwich

Julian of Norwich was a C14th anchoress, yet her writings contain so much  that has meaning for us in the C21st.

Perhaps she is best known for the following

‘All will be well, and all will be well and all manner of thing will be well.’ The translations from Middle English vary slightly, but the message is essentially the same.

We find this quotation in numerous texts – TS Eliot used it twice in part III of Little Gidding, the last of the Four Quartets,  and again in part V

‘All shall be well, and

All manner of thing shall be well.’

In Norwich cathedral there is a statue of Julian of Norwich holding her  book Revelations of Divine Love. In chapter 86, we read ‘ …I had often wanted to know what was our Lord’s meaning … Love was his meaning.’

From another source, written in the 1960s and sung all over the world, we read ‘All you need is love.’

Father Christopher Wood, rector of St Julian’s church in Norwich which includes Julian’s cell is quoted* as saying ‘Her gift to the world is the message that things go wrong, stuff happens, that we might make mistakes and bad decisions, but there is a bigger picture, there is hope even if it is beyond the horizon.’

Sometimes ‘stuff happens’ that is not a result of our bad decision making or our mistakes made, but hope and love are essential to acceptance.

*Eastern Daily Press 13 August 2017 – (found on the web.)