Pilgrims’ Progress from Norwich

Charlene, Betsy, Julie, Suellyn

On the very day that we all had train tickets to Norwich from London, the trains went on strike! Three of us made it through yesterday, Betsy is on a bus adventure from Heathrow as I write. “All Shall Be Well” is already our pilgrimage mantra.

Here is our itinerary for the week ahead:

Pilgrimage to the Anchorage of Julian of Norwich                                                              

May 6:   12:30 - 2:30: Arrive Norwich a day early

Mon.      Check in with Josiah at All Hallows Guesthouse

May 7:  Pilgrimage officially begins!

Tues.      Dinner together and time to look around Norwich

May 8:   10am: Julian’s Feast Day Mass at St Julian’s Church

Wed.      10.30am-7pm: Silent Prayer at St Julian’s: Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament

               Lunch together TBD           

               7.30pm: Sung Mass at St Julian’s Church

May 9:   Ascension Day

Thurs.   2 pm: Round table discussion with local author, Sarah Law, Guesthouse living room 

              4pm: Workshop at the Julian Centre with sculptor Caroline McKenzie

              An interactive engagement with Caroline’s Holy Mother Wisdom sculpture 

              Includes a contemplative liturgy.

              Dinner together TBD              

May 10:   9 am train to British Library to see Julian’s Manuscripts 

Friday      Lunch at the library

                5 pm return train to Norwich

Optional: 7.30pm Performance of ‘CELL’ at the National Centre for Writing, Norwich

                 a play written and performed by Cindy Oswin (tickets online in advance**)   

May 11:    10:30 a.m Norwich Cathedral

Sat.           The Julian Lecture by former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams 

                “Julian on Trinity” followed by Q&A

                Lunch together at the Cathedral Refectory

                Tour Norwich Cathedral

Optional: 3:30 Evensong              

May 12:    1- 4:30 Norwich Cathedral Sunday     Bishop’s House and Garden tour

May 13:   Free Day to focus on “How will you remember to remember when you return home?” 

May 14:   Depart Norwich, UK (Check out is according to the Guest House)

Tuesday: All Shall Be Well . . .

What can we say about Tuesday? I have come to think of Tuesday as that one day of the week that stands out for its ordinariness. In our American way of life, for many, but not as many as once was true given our gig economy, Sunday is our day of rest while Monday is the first work day, or the beginning of a weekly routine; Wednesday is often felt as the midpoint, while Thursday looks to Friday with relief, at least when I was a worker bee, just aching for Saturday when the weekend officially begins. That leaves Tuesday, standing all on its own as just an ordinary space in a week of other days holding their own. Tuesday was my chosen day to write and post a blog as a kind of self-imposed deadline that has kept me thinking and writing from Tuesday to Tuesday. One week from today, Tuesday, May 7, a long-planned pilgrimage will officially begin with my Pilgrim Sisters in Norwich, UK. It will not be an ordinary Tuesday for us!

Six months ago, these women came together to learn about pilgrimage and to consider making a long journey from Florida to visit another woman who lived 650 years ago in a Medieval village known as Norwich, England. The history of that place is rich beyond the story of one woman, the Anchoress, Julian of Norwich. Julian, herself had no known name, and therefore has been given the name of St. Julian's Church where she lived in a cell from the age of 50 until her death. She is a figure that captures the imagination of many, especially women, in part because of her choice to become a solitary within the confines of a room without an exit. " . . . men were forbidden to enter the cell of an Anchoress, the space for an Anchoress became an exclusively female space. The anchoress' confinement to a cell and her solitude marked this mode of living as unique and remarkable. The anchorhold became an escape from every day responsibilities and obligations of medieval lay women."*

On my first solo visit five years ago, I sat for sometime alone in that rebuilt Anchorage. Without warning, an anxiety crept up on me. The street sounds of a late Friday afternoon with people perhaps headed for the pubs after a long work week, infiltrated the silence of St. Julian's Church without usual activity until Sunday morning. "What am I doing here?" I asked the empty 12 x 12 room. I suppose Julian, herself, would have asked that any number of times, though she never says so in her writing. She was a messenger of hope.

Julian knew well the messaging of the day ran counter to the words that she offered through her little window onto the street where townspeople would stop to ask her counsel. They knew she knew some things. Like everyone, Julian knew the Black Death, horrible ravaging plagues, were killing them; she knew the Church preached anger and wrath; she knew so-called heretics were being burned and dumped in the river close enough for her to skip stones; she knew two men thought they should be Pope at the same time, defying the election results (!); she knew the war was raging on between England and France with no end in sight; she knew, for all her solitariness that something had to give.

She wrote down her thoughts that have outlived her by seven centuries. She said in her own words that we need not accept the doomsday mentality that seized the day. She said there were other, more promising, more hopeful ideas that were wrapped in a different package. She said, looking for that alternative was the way to overcome the worst fears being projected on the people. She said all of us were free to accept a different way of seeing by rejecting what was being shoved down our throats all the time, every day and night. She knew that to help everyone to see this possibility, the message had to shift from fear to love. Fear is so powerful in the hands of the powerful, but love in the hands of the people is the counterpoint that changes thinking and things. Julian of Norwich was a change agent. She said Love, with a capital L, is what we can put our faith and trust in. That one thought alone has made its way through the centuries. She tells us what she herself had learned in the confines of her anchorage then offered to us an alternative way to think of our own times. The words most known to be hers, but were actually spoken to her through Divine Revelation**, were "All Shall be well. All Shall be most well. All manner of things shall be well." There are songs, poems, plays written using those very words. Any number of translations of her book, published posthumously 200 years after her death making her the first known woman to have written a book in English, provide easy access to her Middle English.

For a long time now, I have been thinking and writing about Julian. She has become a real woman to me. Questions remain, and the forthcoming pilgrimage, my third, may answer some, but truth be told, it is the questions that draw me to her. After all, she was an ordinary woman, much like an ordinary Tuesday, with a place all her own, physically, literally, historically and more so lovingly in a world not unlike our own. This pilgrimage to Julian of Norwich's Anchorage in my heart and soul is as much about going home as leaving home. In the coming weeks, I will offer snippets from the pilgrimage as the Spirit moves. Stay tuned!

*The Poetics and Praxis of Enclosure by Phillip Goodwin

**Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich

A Tree Cannot Know Exile

Every home or any place called home needs a sacred tree. Doesn’t matter if it is sprawling or skinny, just so long as it belongs without any question.

Imagine what it must feel like when that place you call home, whether locally or across the world, is stripped of any or all trees that have been standing there holding hands for hundreds of years.

Once, when I lived for a few months in the beautiful Tuscan hills of Italy, I found my way every morning to a special writing place beneath one of three gigantic chestnut trees. Some locals said these trees were 500 years old! As we all know from grade school, to know a tree’s age you count its rings that are hidden from sight until the tree is felled. When the tree is no longer itself, its circles appear before our eyes. I ask you, would you rather look upward at the majestic beauty reaching skyward or cast your eyes downward to count the rings on the remaining stump?

One morning in the shadow of the Apennine Mountains, I made my usual trek up the path, writing pad in hand. I suddenly stopped and stood for what felt like an eternity. Those three trees were gone! When I could finally move, I walked up to one, then another, then a third massive, perfectly smooth stump and ran my hand over yesterday’s stronghold. Today, I could only cry: Who did this to you?

Villagers were furious and without knowing what they said in Italian, they clearly shared the same sentiment. Who? Why?

This sad story is playing out everywhere, Wherever you call home there undoubtedly has stood a fully grown tree long before you showed up, quietly in service, shading and cooling the earth while filtering the air, simultaneously. Too often, these very necessary and important friends of ours are the first to go when a developer rapes the land to build as many houses as possible in their place. A house is not a home. Soon after the massacre of acres and acres of grown and growing trees, the tiniest little saplings replace their elders only to face the same fate some day. The average lifespan of our tree friends is being systematically cut, even as we require more clean air to counteract global overheating. The tragedy that happened that fateful night in Italy when the utility company came through doing the henchman’s dirty work while everyone was asleep, is unforgivable. Shame is all that remains in those Sacred trees stead.

Twenty years is a short time in a tree’s life, but for me, those years that I have had the benefit of one tree friend in my field of vision day and night, has mattered to my way of connecting beyond the screened lanai. There are others that have come to matter to me, like the one I will soon revisit in Norwich, England. I pray the sprawling Cedar’s arms will be there where it belongs beside the man made Cathedral waiting for my return.