{"id":18874,"date":"2020-05-15T08:50:26","date_gmt":"2020-05-15T12:50:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18874"},"modified":"2020-05-15T08:56:50","modified_gmt":"2020-05-15T12:56:50","slug":"a-radically-optimistic-theology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18874","title":{"rendered":"A Radically Optimistic Theology"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/j4taAN4QtbI\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><br><\/strong>Friday, \u202fMay 15, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>My friend Mirabai Starr is gifted with the ability to deliver the teachings of the mystics straight to our hearts. Here is what she says about Julian of Norwich<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The medieval English anchoress Julian of Norwich bequeathed us a radically optimistic theology. She had no problem admitting that human beings have a tendency to go astray. We rupture relationships, dishonor the Divine, make unfortunate choices, and try to hide our faults. And yet, Julian insists, \u201cAll will be well and all will be well and every kind of thing shall be well.\u201d [1]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Take that in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This assertion is meant to penetrate the fog of our despair and wake us up. . . . Julian repeats her declaration three times\u2014most emphatically the third:&nbsp;<em>All will be well and all will be well and every kind of thing shall be well.&nbsp;<\/em>She does not ask us to . . . [relegate] everything that unfolds to the will of God, calling it perfect against all evidence to the contrary. She squarely faces the inevitability that we will miss the mark [what Julian calls \u201csin\u201d] and that there is wickedness in this world. Even so, she is convinced that the nature of the Divine is loving-kindness, and she wants us to absorb this into every fiber of our being.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In her mystical masterwork&nbsp;<em>The Showings<\/em>, Julian shares that she used to obsess about sin. She couldn\u2019t figure out why God, who is all-powerful, wouldn\u2019t have eliminated our negative proclivities when he made the world. \u201cIf he had left sin out of creation, it seemed to me, all would be well.\u201d But what God-the-Mother showed Julian in a near-death vision [during her thirteenth revelation] was that all shall be well anyway. Not in spite of our transgressions but because of them. [<em>Or, as I like to say,<\/em>&nbsp;<em>we come to God, not by doing it right, but by doing it wrong. \u2014RR<\/em>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Julian unpacks this for us [in chapter 27]. In doing so she dispenses with the whole concept of sin and replaces it with love. \u201cI believe that sin has no substance,\u201d Julian writes, \u201cnot a particle of being.\u201d While sin itself has no existential value, it has impact. It causes pain. It is the pain that has substance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But mercy is swiftly forthcoming. It is immediately available. Inexorable! It is frankly rude of us to doubt that all will be well. . . . \u201cWhen he said these gentle words,\u201d Julian writes, speaking of God-the-Mother, \u201che showed me that he does not have one iota of blame for me, or for any other person. So, wouldn\u2019t it be unkind of me to blame God for my transgressions since he does not blame me?\u201d The merciful nature of God renders the whole blame game obsolete. . . . In fact, it is when we stumble that the Divine looks most tenderly upon us. Our vulnerability is beautiful to God-the-Mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Gateway to Action &amp; Contemplation:<\/strong><br><em>What word or phrase resonates with or challenges me? What sensations do I notice in my body? What is mine to do?<\/em><br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Friday, \u202fMay 15, 2020 My friend Mirabai Starr is gifted with the ability to deliver the teachings of the mystics straight to our hearts. Here is what she says about Julian of Norwich: The medieval English anchoress Julian of Norwich bequeathed us a radically optimistic theology. She had no problem admitting that human beings have [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18874"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18874"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18876,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18874\/revisions\/18876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}