All Will Be Well

A Divided Heart

 'All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.'

Long tailed Tit, taken by Julie Packham 
The statue of Julian of Norwich 
on the West Front of Norwich Cathedral, 
made by the sculptor David Holgate in 2014


Which picture interests you most? Either?  Or neither?
This week I've been noticing my divided heart.

I've been sitting outside to read and prepare a sermon on Jonah, for today's recording and this blog. 

But my heart and mind aren't settled. 
I'm distracted by the glorious sunshine. 

I'm distracted by the birdsong; the wren that appears, the pair of nesting
Blue Tits, two Mapies squawking, four large Crows, 
a Dunnock, one Swallow, two Chaffinch, endless bees, a hornet, and then...one, no two Goldfinch appear on the metal wire fence in the field.
And sit, and stay, as if to pose for a moment, and then are gone. 

If you like birds you will know the joy. 

And back to the books... and then a glimpse of the family report from last week... Ireland's smallest bird appeared again. This time, for me to see. 
A Goldcrest. Such joy. 

The day was complete. Reading continued. Lunch appeared. and was enjoyed. The table emptied. And just before getting up to leave, a flutter of wings, a longer than usual tail, and another. And for a few seconds, only the second time since moving to Fivemiletown fourteen years ago, I had the great joy of seeing Long-tailed Tits here in this very garden. 
If you're still reading, you like birds. 
I love them. I would and have, abandoned a car to run after one for a sighting. 

And on a day of sermon prep my heart is divided. And divided further still. 
Even in my quiet and prayerful moments, as well as rejoicing in His Creation, my thoughts steal away to another sight. 

Unusually I couldn't sleep and got up on Monday evening for a late coffee. 
Yes, coffee. And much as I berate the near absence of christian faith reflected positively in the media, there, ten minutes before midnight, I watched transfixed 'Dr Janina Ramirez telling the story of Revelations of Divine Love, the first book ever written in English by a woman - Julian of Norwich, in 1373 - and kept hidden for centuries.' It was amazing. 

So what? Although it was presented as a literary issue, focused on a manuscript, the first believed to be in English by a woman etc. etc., the Faith and the Hope and the True Life couldn't help seep out and appear in the interviewed lives of the Catholic sisters of Stanbrook Abbey, or the pilgrims to her home, or the clergy associated with Norwich Anglican Cathedral. 

Julian is famous for the little prayer adage, ' All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.'
But the gripping part is that despite voluntarily confining herself as an Anchoress for upwards of thirty years in one room, where she read and prayed and encountered God, Julian discovered again the Love of God, and His very great Compassion.

This seems to be a theme running through the history of the church, how God is able to re-calibrate our understanding of Him, when generally we are off kilter. To be reminded again of God's heart, His eternal self, and as St John knew, to learn again how 'God is Love, and those who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.'

If you're still reading, then you too must be interested in the God of love who made Himself known to us in Jesus. Sometimes we forget, we go off kilter, and need to be reminded.

This also happened to Jonah. A prophet of God, who of all people should have known God's heart. But he forgot, he went off kilter. He became preoccupied with nationhood, national boundaries, and refused to bring God's word of judgement and compassion to those Jonah had come to hate. 

One of the great untold stories of the Bible, is what happened to Jonah post whale. Jonah was called, he refused, he ran, he sailed, he was thrown overboard, he was swallowed by that fish, he repented, was vomited out and made his way to the city of his enemies. 

He preached, they repented, and Jonah was furious with God.

“Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. "'

My favourite part, of him sitting under the plant which God causes to grow up to shade the sulking prophet, will have to wait until next time. 

But for now, we encounter a man with a seriously divided heart; or perhaps not so divided. 

Jonah's heart doesn't seem to be for God. 

It seems that God will not share us. 
We either love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength, or we don't. 

Jonah didn't want the love which God had shown to Him, to be extended beyond His own self and people. 

He wasn't on God's agenda at all. He would rather run away from it. 


It might seem odd to us today, that an ordinary woman might set aside her life, in such a particular way, for the things of God. 

To a society usually preoccupied with itself, the things of God are hidden in a literary review, ten minutes to midnight. 

But the living God has a way of being heard. His work can be been in the moments of beauty in His creation, in the faces of the sisters whose order kept alive the words written by one of their own some six hundred years before, 
and by His own insistence, that a reluctant prophet, with a very divided heart, would learn that God's love will be shown to those on whom God had chosen to have mercy.

As we live on through this very odd time, may we use the days God gives to us, to fix our hearts more steadily upon Him.   


'All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.'



































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