Childless Cat Lady Julian

Mystic and First Woman to Write

a book in English in the Fourteenth Century.

She lived alone, indeed, with a cat, in a cell called an Anchorage, attached to St. Julian's Church in Norwich, England.

There she lived and there she wrote Revelations of Divine Love during the infamous Black Death plagues.

Her message of hope was embraced by those who came to her window to hear about Love, Divine Love.

It's been 650 years, but Lady Julian has not been forgotten by the world writ large.

She lived as the insider/outsider in the in-between space, the liminal

space. Her theology was founded there. It is a “thinking/experiential” theology born of her mystical encounters with the Divine. The message lived beyond the church’s oppressive authority. She was never called a heretic, she was never sainted. She was someone between the two, careful with her words to honor “Holy church” while sharing with her “Even Christians”, like us, the message of hope and unconditional love. Pilgrims, like me, travel long distances to sit in her Anchorage. Some of her titles are: Lady Julian, Mother Julian, Dame Julian.

Photo of the Anchorage attached to St. Julian's Church, Norwich.

What hasn't changed?

What a whirlwind of change we are witnessing. When the time is right, things happen. Some Eastern traditions would call it the "auspicious time"; others might say, in "God's time". Eastern or Western points of view in this case amount to the same ideology that things move whenever greater forces are at work. Something is clearly at work, no matter how you look at it. With 100 days to go, change is breathing new life into the upcoming US Presidential election. Seeing new faces, it's easy to think that everything has changed and that we've turned a corner, no worries. But, look beneath the surface to see a whole 'nother story.

There has been zero change in the past week, nor will there be in the next four months to the hard right's agenda to end abortions; protect guns; deport migrants; ban books; eliminate LGBTQ+. Their message is loud and clear. They have written a manifesto, Project 2025, a mega 900-plus page document is an attempt to rewrite the United States Constitution. A side by side comparison of a small excerpt proves the point:

Chapter Two of Project 2025*

The great challenge confronting a conservative President is the existential need for aggressive use of the vast powers of the executive branch to return power— including power currently held by the executive branch—to the American people. Success in meeting that challenge will require a rare combination of boldness and self-denial: boldness to bend or break the bureaucracy to the presidential will and self-denial to use the bureaucratic machine to send power away from Washington and back to America’s families, faith communities, local governments, and states. Fortunately, a President who is willing to lead will find in the Executive Office of the President (EOP) the levers necessary to reverse this trend and impose a sound direction for the nation on the federal bureaucracy. The effectiveness of those EOP levers depends on the fundamental premise that it is the President’s agenda that should matter to the departments and agencies) that operate under his constitutional authority and that, as a general matter, it is the President’s chosen advisers who have the best sense of the President’s aims and intentions, both with respect to the policies he intends to enact and with respect to the interests that must be secured to govern successfully on behalf of the American people.

Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution:**

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

That's not all. There is also citizen's "call to action" wrapped in a "training" academy to prepare (?) for Day One:

The Presidential Administration Academy is a one-of-a-kind educational and skill-building program designed to prepare and equip future political appointees now to be ready on Day One of the next conservative Administration. This academy provides aspiring appointees with the insight, background knowledge, and expertise in governance to immediately begin rolling back destructive policy and advancing conservative ideas in the federal government.***

"Aspiring appointees . . ." Who might they be? A book published in 1955: They Thought They Were Free, The Germans ,1933-45 by Milton Mayer is a sobering look-back on the rise of Naziism under Hitler. The author interviewed ten former Nazis. He wanted to understand how ordinary, every day German people had done, or not done the unthinkable on their own, during the years leading to and including Hitler's reign of terror. More striking than the interviews themselves, is the foreword written by the author in which he spells out his own sense of what had gone so terribly wrong:

. . ."I would rather judge Germans than Americans. Now I see a little better how Nazism overcame Germany --not by attack from without or by subversion from within, but with a whoop and a holler. It was what most Germans wanted --or under pressure of combined reality and illusion, came to want. They wanted it; they got it; and they liked it.

I came back home a little afraid for my country, afraid of what it might want, and get, and like, under pressure of combined reality and illusion. I felt --and feel--that it was not German Man that I had met, but Man. He happened to be in Germany under certain conditions. He might be here, under certain conditions. He might, under certain conditions, be I.

If I--and my countrymen--ever succumbed to that concatenation of condition, no Constitution, no laws, no police, and certainly no army would be able to protect us from harm." ****

The race is on to protect ourselves against nefarious forces at work by lifting up the work and good will of the majority. We the people are here at this auspicious time in history. This is the time to add our voices and to take action to preserve and protect the Constitution of the United States of America as written. This is not going to be a "cakewalk".

As Written and in the National Archives

*https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf

**https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/full-text

***https://www.project2025.org/training/presidential-administration-academy/

****They Thought They Were Free, The Germans, 1933-45. Mayer.1955

Grace

While the whole world held its breath for an interminable week with the highest stakes imaginable in the balance, we were given a lesson in Grace. We needed it. There have been few moments in recent times when being an American has felt righteous. President Joe Biden gave us that gift as he gracefully gave up the highest and most prestigious position anyone might aspire to.

Aging “Baby Boomers”, including myself, have acquired a lifetime of learned experience. If we have learned anything at all, I hope it is to respect our elders. My parents and teachers harped on it when I was a youngin’. I thought it meant to be polite when in the company of my grandparents. Easy enough. 

Our elders have much to teach us. We have much to learn from them. Yet, we disgrace our elders when we discard them along with their wisdom. Who among us hasn’t rolled our eyes at a dawdling parent, or a spouse slowing us down? By doing so, we dishonor them and deny the fact that “There, but for the Grace of God, go I.” And, if we ourselves get that far, let’s hope for kindness and gentleness from those around us.

 Indigenous cultures across our country know a thing or two about elders which they say is “not defined by age, but recognized because they have earned the respect of their community through wisdom, harmony and balance of their actions in their teachings”. *

By definition, President Biden has earned his Elder Statesman title.

“. . .there are common principles that Elders try to instill in their community members such as respect for the natural world and that the earth is their mother. Indigenous Elders are deeply committed to sharing their knowledge, providing guidance, teaching others to respect the natural world, to learn to listen and feel the rhythms of the elements and seasons.”*

 Just last night before turning out the light, I read a beautiful poem that probably planted the seed for this blog which in turn may plant a seed in your thoughts. After reading it, share it with someone who might need a graceful reminder. 

There’s a Meadow

There’s a meadow beyond the back pasture

of my grandpa’s old farm, and when I was a city

kid, it scared me—that vast openness brimming

with nothing but wildflowers, insects, and birds.

Grandpa often took me there to read and think.

The reading I didn’t mind, but I had no idea what

to think. “Relax your mind, Jenny Bell,” he’d say.

And so we’d lie there on his red-checkered blanket,

staring at the endless expanse of sky, making shapes

out of the cottony clouds, pieces of grass between

our teeth. The hum of insects would make me drowsy,

but I’d stay awake. Grandpa would eventually tell me

his thoughts, mostly about how to invent new tractors

or what to name the new calves that were nearly born.

One time, I surprised myself by telling him about middle

school and how I didn’t like Harvey Winters because he

stuck gum on people’s seats and made fun of the freckles

on my nose. “Why do you suppose he does that?” Grandpa

asked. That’s where all the thinking came in—"I suppose

it’s because his mama is dead, and he doesn’t have a good

daddy,” I said. Grandpa made an umm hmm noise, but didn’t

add anything. He let me think some more. Over the years,

Grandpa and I shared lots of thinking time, and nearly every

one ended with—why do you suppose. Grandpa died when

I was twenty-three, right after I graduated with a psychology

degree. But every now and then, I leave my office and return

to the farm. I lie down in that back meadow, a blade of grass

between my teeth, and I talk to Grandpa just like I used to.

When I’m puzzling things out in life, I hear his voice,

Why do you suppose? And I find my answers floating among

clouds shaped like lions while a butterfly rests on my chest.

Arvilla Fee teaches English Composition for Clark State College and is the managing editor for the San Antonio Review. She has published poetry, photography, and short stories in numerous presses, including Contemporary Haibun Online, Calliope, North of Oxford, Rat’s Ass Review, Mudlark, and many others. Her poetry books, The Human Side and This is Life, are available on Amazon. For Arvilla, writing produces the greatest joy when it connects us to each other. To learn more about her work, you can visit her website: https://soulpoetry7.com/

*https://www.ictinc.ca>blog