The God shaped hole

Yesterday I started re-reading Julian of Norwich's "Revelations". It starts slightly strangely with Julian saying that she has asked for three things - a near death experience, presence at the passion and then three wounds, contrition, compassion and the wound of longing for God. It might seem like an odd wishlist - but she goes on to explain it a little.

Every time I read this little book, the oldest writing in English by a woman, I am amazed by it. This time what is catching me is her longing and hunger for God. She wants to be closer and she loves - really loves - despite her own assessment of herself as one who is far from perfect.

This longing for God, this need to love God is often masked in our society. We have plenty of chances to fill ourselves up with other things - we rush and hurry by and of necessity loving God is a slower endeavour - something which has little "drive-thru" potential. The pace Julian sets is perhaps more akin to the speed with which you would eat something you love if you were told this was the last bowl of it on the earth - you would savour it, chew, feel the texture and taste - rather than sitting in the car with the engine running and scoffing down meagre nourishment before dashing off to the next thing.

But, of course, this savouring of God is both urgent and eternal. Too often we panic and think that, somehow, we need to do something that we are not designed to do and that is immediately reach some height of perfection. We worry when we are not good enough - but that is when it is time to really take our foot off the gas and allow God to slow us down - blind panic is never helpful in spiritual growth - letting go of our fears and insecurities is - trusting that God gives places and times when we can trust God and trust those whom God has called to minister for us.

Whilst mystics through the ages have been distressed by their own sinfulness - and most of them seem very good to most of us - that awareness of the divide between themselves and the God they cling to also spurs them on to deeper union. This language of finding God in such breadth and depth and height may seem foreign - the language of visions and answered prayers - but in a world where we cannot find peace it is worth asking whether Julian and those like her are not onto something.

That sideways, Godways view of life is not for someone else - it is for us. God is real and loving and we are hungry for that - whether we realize it or not. Whether we use the language of Christ, or not. Julian recognises her "God shaped hole" and the God's "Julian shaped hole" and somehow in the mystery of divine love she understands that those two things make a whole - it is not rational it is love.