Our Deepest Desire<\/strong><\/a>\nThursday, May 30, 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nFind your delight in the Lord who will give you your heart\u2019s desire. <\/em>\u2014Psalm 37:4<\/p>\n\n\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p><em>One of my favorite mystics is the English anchorite Julian of Norwich (1342\u20131416). After a serious illness, during which she experienced \u201cshewings\u201d or revelations of Jesus\u2019 love, she wrote about the compassionate, mothering God she had encountered. Today\u2019s meditation is longer as I want to share John Philip Newell\u2019s beautiful summary of Julian\u2019s visions:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She says that Christ is the one who connects us to the \u201cgreat root\u201d of our being. . . . [1] \u201cGod is our mother as truly as God is our father,\u201d she says. [2] We come from the Womb of the Eternal. We are not simply made by God; we are made \u201cof God.\u201d [3] So we encounter the energy of God in our true depths. And we will know the One from whom we have come only to the extent that we know ourselves. God is the \u201cground\u201d of life. [4] So it is to the very essence of our being that we look for God. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>God \u201cis in everything,\u201d writes Julian. [5] God is \u201cnature\u2019s substance,\u201d the very essence of life. [6] So she speaks of \u201csmelling\u201d God, of \u201cswallowing\u201d God in the waters and juices of the earth, of \u201cfeeling\u201d God in the human body and the body of creation. [7] . . . Grace is given to save our nature, not to save us from our nature. It is given to free us from the unnaturalness of what we have become and done to one another and to the earth. Grace is given, she says, \u201cto bring nature back to that blessed point from which it came, namely God.\u201d [8] It is given that we may hear again the deepest sounds within us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What Julian hears is that \u201cwe are all one.\u201d [9] We have come from God as one, and to God we shall return as one. And any true well-being in our lives will be found not in isolation but in relation. She uses the image of the knot . . . to portray the strands of time and eternity intertwined, of the human and the creaturely inseparably interrelated, of the one and the many forever married. Christ\u2019s soul and our soul are like an everlasting knot. The deeper we move in our own being, the closer we come to Christ. And the closer we come to Christ\u2019s soul, the nearer we move to the heart of one another. In Christ, we hear not foreign sounds but the deepest intimations of the human and the divine intertwined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And for Julian, the key to hearing what is at the heart of the human soul is to listen to our deepest longings, for \u201cthe desire of the soul,\u201d she says, \u201cis the desire of God.\u201d [10] Of course, many of our desires have become infected or overlaid by confusions and distortions, but at the root of our being is the sacred longing for union. It is to this deepest root that Christ leads us. Our soul is made \u201cof God,\u201d as Julian says, so it is grounded in the desires of God. And at the heart of these holy desires is what Julian calls \u201clove-longing.\u201d [11] It is the most sacred and the most natural of yearnings. The deeper we move within the human soul, the closer we come to this divine yearning. And the nearer we come to our true self, \u201cthe greater will be our longing.\u201d [12]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>How did we ever lose such massive, in-depth wisdom?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Meeting Christ Within Us Our Deepest Desire Thursday, May 30, 2019 Find your delight in the Lord who will give you your heart\u2019s desire. \u2014Psalm 37:4 One of my favorite mystics is the English anchorite Julian of Norwich (1342\u20131416). After a serious illness, during which she experienced \u201cshewings\u201d or revelations of Jesus\u2019 love, she wrote […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18064"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18064"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18065,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18064\/revisions\/18065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Find your delight in the Lord who will give you your heart\u2019s desire. <\/em>\u2014Psalm 37:4<\/p>\n\n\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p><em>One of my favorite mystics is the English anchorite Julian of Norwich (1342\u20131416). After a serious illness, during which she experienced \u201cshewings\u201d or revelations of Jesus\u2019 love, she wrote about the compassionate, mothering God she had encountered. Today\u2019s meditation is longer as I want to share John Philip Newell\u2019s beautiful summary of Julian\u2019s visions:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She says that Christ is the one who connects us to the \u201cgreat root\u201d of our being. . . . [1] \u201cGod is our mother as truly as God is our father,\u201d she says. [2] We come from the Womb of the Eternal. We are not simply made by God; we are made \u201cof God.\u201d [3] So we encounter the energy of God in our true depths. And we will know the One from whom we have come only to the extent that we know ourselves. God is the \u201cground\u201d of life. [4] So it is to the very essence of our being that we look for God. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>God \u201cis in everything,\u201d writes Julian. [5] God is \u201cnature\u2019s substance,\u201d the very essence of life. [6] So she speaks of \u201csmelling\u201d God, of \u201cswallowing\u201d God in the waters and juices of the earth, of \u201cfeeling\u201d God in the human body and the body of creation. [7] . . . Grace is given to save our nature, not to save us from our nature. It is given to free us from the unnaturalness of what we have become and done to one another and to the earth. Grace is given, she says, \u201cto bring nature back to that blessed point from which it came, namely God.\u201d [8] It is given that we may hear again the deepest sounds within us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What Julian hears is that \u201cwe are all one.\u201d [9] We have come from God as one, and to God we shall return as one. And any true well-being in our lives will be found not in isolation but in relation. She uses the image of the knot . . . to portray the strands of time and eternity intertwined, of the human and the creaturely inseparably interrelated, of the one and the many forever married. Christ\u2019s soul and our soul are like an everlasting knot. The deeper we move in our own being, the closer we come to Christ. And the closer we come to Christ\u2019s soul, the nearer we move to the heart of one another. In Christ, we hear not foreign sounds but the deepest intimations of the human and the divine intertwined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And for Julian, the key to hearing what is at the heart of the human soul is to listen to our deepest longings, for \u201cthe desire of the soul,\u201d she says, \u201cis the desire of God.\u201d [10] Of course, many of our desires have become infected or overlaid by confusions and distortions, but at the root of our being is the sacred longing for union. It is to this deepest root that Christ leads us. Our soul is made \u201cof God,\u201d as Julian says, so it is grounded in the desires of God. And at the heart of these holy desires is what Julian calls \u201clove-longing.\u201d [11] It is the most sacred and the most natural of yearnings. The deeper we move within the human soul, the closer we come to this divine yearning. And the nearer we come to our true self, \u201cthe greater will be our longing.\u201d [12]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>How did we ever lose such massive, in-depth wisdom?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Meeting Christ Within Us Our Deepest Desire Thursday, May 30, 2019 Find your delight in the Lord who will give you your heart\u2019s desire. \u2014Psalm 37:4 One of my favorite mystics is the English anchorite Julian of Norwich (1342\u20131416). After a serious illness, during which she experienced \u201cshewings\u201d or revelations of Jesus\u2019 love, she wrote […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18064"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18064"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18065,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18064\/revisions\/18065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p><em>One of my favorite mystics is the English anchorite Julian of Norwich (1342\u20131416). After a serious illness, during which she experienced \u201cshewings\u201d or revelations of Jesus\u2019 love, she wrote about the compassionate, mothering God she had encountered. Today\u2019s meditation is longer as I want to share John Philip Newell\u2019s beautiful summary of Julian\u2019s visions:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She says that Christ is the one who connects us to the \u201cgreat root\u201d of our being. . . . [1] \u201cGod is our mother as truly as God is our father,\u201d she says. [2] We come from the Womb of the Eternal. We are not simply made by God; we are made \u201cof God.\u201d [3] So we encounter the energy of God in our true depths. And we will know the One from whom we have come only to the extent that we know ourselves. God is the \u201cground\u201d of life. [4] So it is to the very essence of our being that we look for God. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>God \u201cis in everything,\u201d writes Julian. [5] God is \u201cnature\u2019s substance,\u201d the very essence of life. [6] So she speaks of \u201csmelling\u201d God, of \u201cswallowing\u201d God in the waters and juices of the earth, of \u201cfeeling\u201d God in the human body and the body of creation. [7] . . . Grace is given to save our nature, not to save us from our nature. It is given to free us from the unnaturalness of what we have become and done to one another and to the earth. Grace is given, she says, \u201cto bring nature back to that blessed point from which it came, namely God.\u201d [8] It is given that we may hear again the deepest sounds within us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What Julian hears is that \u201cwe are all one.\u201d [9] We have come from God as one, and to God we shall return as one. And any true well-being in our lives will be found not in isolation but in relation. She uses the image of the knot . . . to portray the strands of time and eternity intertwined, of the human and the creaturely inseparably interrelated, of the one and the many forever married. Christ\u2019s soul and our soul are like an everlasting knot. The deeper we move in our own being, the closer we come to Christ. And the closer we come to Christ\u2019s soul, the nearer we move to the heart of one another. In Christ, we hear not foreign sounds but the deepest intimations of the human and the divine intertwined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And for Julian, the key to hearing what is at the heart of the human soul is to listen to our deepest longings, for \u201cthe desire of the soul,\u201d she says, \u201cis the desire of God.\u201d [10] Of course, many of our desires have become infected or overlaid by confusions and distortions, but at the root of our being is the sacred longing for union. It is to this deepest root that Christ leads us. Our soul is made \u201cof God,\u201d as Julian says, so it is grounded in the desires of God. And at the heart of these holy desires is what Julian calls \u201clove-longing.\u201d [11] It is the most sacred and the most natural of yearnings. The deeper we move within the human soul, the closer we come to this divine yearning. And the nearer we come to our true self, \u201cthe greater will be our longing.\u201d [12]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>How did we ever lose such massive, in-depth wisdom?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Meeting Christ Within Us Our Deepest Desire Thursday, May 30, 2019 Find your delight in the Lord who will give you your heart\u2019s desire. \u2014Psalm 37:4 One of my favorite mystics is the English anchorite Julian of Norwich (1342\u20131416). After a serious illness, during which she experienced \u201cshewings\u201d or revelations of Jesus\u2019 love, she wrote […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18064"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18064"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18065,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18064\/revisions\/18065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}