The Greening (40 page)

BOOK: The Greening

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I wondered, were these pages that I was turning, so carefully, for fear of damaging them, turned by someone whose fingers touched Julian’s original work? There was a quality about the book that inspired reflection and deep respect. But then, how could one write such words, such wonderful words, without resonating to their meaning?

“I desired often times to know what was our Lord’s meaning,” writes the copyist scribe. “More than fifteen years later I was answered in spiritual understanding, saying this: Do you want to understand your Lord’s meaning in this thing? Understand it well. Love was his meaning. Who showed it to you? Love. What did he show you? Love. Why did he show it? For Love. Keep yourself in that love and you shall understand and know more of the same. But of this you will never know or understand anything else. In this way I was taught that Love was our Lord’s meaning.

“And I saw with certainty in this and in all the showings that before God created us, he loved us, and this love was never diminished and never shall be. And in this love he has done all his work; and in this love he has made everything beneficial to us; and in this love our life is everlasting.

“In our creation we had a beginning but all the love in which he created us was in him from without beginning, and in this love we had our beginning. And all this we shall see in God without end, which may Jesus grant us. Amen.”

I sat for some time with the books, just enjoying being in their presence and having them briefly in my care. Then I suddenly wondered if, in this library that contained so many millions of books, there might be a copy of the little book that Eleanor had mentioned from her childhood – if, indeed, the book had existed at all –
The Isle of Wirrawoo
.

I asked the readers’ adviser, who looked it up in the catalogue and said, “Yes, we have it. Do you want to order it?” I did. Twenty
minutes later the book was handed to me. On the flyleaf I read “
The Isle of Wirrawoo
, an Australian fairy tale, by A. L. Purse, published by Oxford University Press in 1923”.

It was, indeed, the story of a little girl who was lost on an island. Her island was, like East Timor, off the northern coast of Australia. The book was full of quirky poems and I found Eleanor’s reference to “the beetle in the big gum tree”. I read:

There’s an island that I know of
Where there are no aches or pains;
Where it’s always hot in summer
And it’s winter when it rains.

There are fishes in the rivers,
There are dingoes on the plains,
And a beetle in the big gum tree.

If you hear a wiffle whoffing
Or a sound like someone coughing
That’s the beetle in the big gum tree.

But the story was not quite as Eleanor had remembered it. When the little girl meets the strange sea creature, the dugong, he tells her, “You see that path running up the beach? It leads to the top of the mountain. Follow it. If you reach the top by sunset, all will be well. But if you do not, and the sun sinks behind the mountain before you are at the top, you will never see your home again. On the top of the mountain you will find the beetle, and he will show you the way home.”

However, in contradiction of Eleanor’s memory, the little girl’s companion, the elf named Mys, did not help her to reach the summit of the mountain. In the book, Mys-elf keeps leading her astray and makes her miss the path. When the little girl at last arrives home, she says she realizes that she could have arrived a lot sooner, if only she had not allowed Mys-elf to get in the way.

I chuckled at Eleanor’s mis-memory of the book. Presumably, she, like me, had been a child who preferred to rely upon her own resources and had taken a different message from the story. But the lesson struck a chord with me; for had I not always allowed myself to get in my way, rather than follow my true Self, the part of me that is part of God?

How extraordinary that a childhood image from Eleanor’s life should have such resonance in my own. In particular, the connection with East Timor felt powerful and strange. It seemed, though a small thing, to confirm that something bound the two of us together, a marker put down long ago to tell us that we had work to share – for nothing happens by chance.

It was dark when I arrived home. Blue, who had spent the day with my neighbour, gave me his customary rapturous greeting. My cat Canticle, who was curled up on the couch, stretched a languorous paw as I entered. Seren, my black cat with twinkling, coal-black eyes, padded towards me and rubbed her head against my leg. Seren had turned up at my door one morning several years earlier, little more than skin and bone, seeking sanctuary. She was a star, and so I had named her.

Blue pushed his soft, wet nose against my hand and demanded to be fussed over. As I went to the kitchen, Blue, Canticle and Seren followed me. I gave the animals food and then heated some home-made vegetable soup. I cut some hunks of bread and cheese and poured a glass of wine.

I suddenly felt I would like to hear the sea, and put on a cassette that intermingled the sounds of waves with gentle, tinkling, faraway music and what could have been a chorus of angels.

I lit several candles and brought my meal and wine and placed them on the small table by the sofa. I plumped up the cushions and made myself comfortable. Canticle curled up beside me and Seren settled down to snooze on the rug. Blue climbed onto the sofa and pushed his nose against my arm, asking to be stroked. I made a fuss of him for a few minutes, and then eased him gently aside and began to eat my meal.

The candles glimmer. I sink into the cushions and let the music flow over me. Peace takes hold of my heart, as a hand clasps an old, familiar book.

Today I have yellow tulips in my room. Splashes of luminous sunshine yellow rise on stems of spring green. The petals open wide, to reveal the intimate detail at the flower’s heart. I take up my copy of
Enfolded in Love
.

There, on the cover, is the familiar, homely figure leaning forward to embrace the child, who shelters in the loving warmth, wrapped in the folds of the adult’s cloak. I see the bare, vulnerable spot at the nape of the child’s neck and the bare soles of his feet.

Then, in the background and a little way off, I notice for the first time another figure – the figure of Jesus, with welcoming arms outstretched. I read again Jesus’ words, repeated by Julian: “All shall be well; and thou shalt see for thyself that all manner of thing shall be well.”

Can I now let go of my legacy of hurt and bitterness? Can I at last turn aside from the image of an angry, vengeful puppet master who has found me wanting and cast me out into the abyss? Can I trust in the promise made by Jesus to Julian of a secret, great deed that God will perform on the last day, through which we will be made to understand all the things that are now beyond our comprehension? Can I believe in Julian’s promise of God’s unconditional love, that I am held safe in an embrace that will never let me go?

For Julian’s book is a passionate love story, “And in the joining and the union he is our very true spouse and we his beloved wife and his fair maiden, with which wife he was never displeased, for he says I love you and you love me, and our love will never divide in two.”

Dear Julian, you have brought me to this place of peace and love… On the table before me, the flame of the heavy wax candle flickers, and I feel my heart opening.

I came to Calvary and endured the crucifixion that awaited me. But only now do hope and sorrow meet. Only now am I able to reach through my failure and despair, to claim the promised
redemption and release. A feeling of deep peace pervades me. I lay the little book upon my heart.

I close my eyes, and I imagine a gentle presence within the quiet space that I am entering. Could there be someone waiting, at the edge of a circle lit by a candle’s golden rays, with arms outstretched in loving welcome? The space is suddenly filled with dazzling light, white and golden powerful beams of love that flood my being and lift me to a state of happiness that is new to me. I feel comforted, secure, calm, content.

I am in a garden where it is always summer. I am made to understand that in this place I am known and loved. In my mind, I walk along a path that takes me into a meadow, and feel the soft, fresh air upon my skin. Alongside the path there are blossoms of gorgeous colour and scent, like none I have ever seen.

I stoop to lift aside some heavy, fringed leaves and find, in a cool, still place, a perfect violet. Each tiny purple flower glows with an iridescent sheen. I touch the petals’ velvet softness and know I have found something that was never lost. It was merely waiting, in the shadows, for the right time. How intimate and faithful a lover will patiently await such moments. The lady was never lost. She has always been there. I believed her to be lost because I was looking in the wrong place.

I still have many miles to travel, but a star shines over the road that lies ahead. I fix my eyes upon that star, which lights the path that takes me home. Love is his meaning. In the candle’s crystal light I see that through faith, by grace, we come to know that it is not how rich or clever or famous we are that counts, but how much we care. I have no fear of what tomorrow may bring because I know that, whatever comes, all shall be well.

APPENDIX

The first known copy of Julian’s book was discovered in Paris, at the Bibliothéque nationale, in the 1660s. Experts surmise that it was taken there by one of the nuns and monks who fled to Europe during Henry’s sacking of the monasteries. Julian’s first editor was Serenus Cressy, an English Benedictine monk who was chaplain to a convent of nuns in exile at Cambrai, north of Paris.

In 1753, two more copies of Julian’s text came to light in a collection sold to the British Museum by Sir Hans Sloane, a physician and scientist. So now there were three, one in Paris and two in London. One of the Sloane manuscripts appears to date from the early seventeenth century; the other from the end of the same century or early the next. Then, in 1909, a fourth version was discovered, when Lord Amherst’s collection was dispersed and sold. This text is shorter than that reproduced in the three other manuscripts. It was Julian’s first draft. She explains that the longer version was written after some twenty years of pondering the meaning of the revelations.

In 1843, Serenus Cressy’s edition was reprinted. Then, in 1877, the Reverend Henry Collins brought out the first printed version of one of the Sloane manuscripts.

Like Cressy’s original, it is unlikely that either of these two versions attracted many readers. But all the while, Julian’s book was preserved, as though intended to blossom into life centuries later. And who can say what its influence may have been on the lives of
those who read it, even if they were few? One of Julian’s readers was Florence Nightingale, who took the book with her to the Crimea.

In 1901, a new edition of Julian’s book was published by Grace Warrack. Thanks to her, Julian’s book became readily available for the first time in six hundred years. It was reprinted over and over during the next seventy years.

In the 1980s, as though her time had finally come, new translations and books about Julian’s work began to proliferate. Julian had suddenly become interesting.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Denise Treissman, who manages the estate of the late Reverend Robert Llewelyn, and Lay Canon Professor Brian Thorne for allowing me to include extracts from their Julian lectures. I would also like to thank my editor, Mary Tomlinson, for her invaluable help.