Month: November 2021

Julian, recording a vision of Christ she had ca. 1373:

“And in þis he shewed me a lytil thyng þe quantite of a hasyl nott. lyeng in þe pawme of my hand as it had semed. and it was as rownde as eny ball. I loked þer upon wt þe eye of my vnderstondyng. and I þought what may þis be. and it was answered generally thus. It is all þat is made. I merueled howe it myght laste. for me þought it myght sodenly haue fall to nought for lytyllhed. & I was answered in my vnderstondyng. It lastyth & euer shall for god louyth it. and so hath all thyng his begynning by þe loue of god. In this lytyll thyng I sawe thre propertees. The fyrst is. þt god made it. þe secunde is þet god louyth it. & þe þrid is. þat god kepith it.”

— chapter V, “Westminster Cathedral Treasury, MS 4”, ca. 1450, according to Wikipedia

in modern English:

And in this he showed me a little thing, the quantity of a hazelnut, lying in the palm of my hand, it seemed, and it was as round as any ball. I looked thereupon with the eye of my understanding, and I thought, ‘What may this be?’ And it was answered generally thus: ‘It is all that is made.’ I wondered how it could last, for I thought it might suddenly fall to nothing for little cause. And I was answered in my understanding: ‘It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it; and so everything has its beginning by the love of God.’ In this little thing I saw three properties; the first is that God made it; the second is that God loves it; and the third is that God keeps it.

What I find fascinating is this phrase: “I thought it might suddenly fall to nothing for little cause”. We expect to wake up on a solid planet with a predictable sunrise and stable objects, including our own bodies, houses, the moon in the sky. And yet there are signs that this is a teaching tool for the occasion, like a lesson written on a chalkboard, newer lessons will appear later.

• matter is mostly empty space, and our cell phones get signals that come through our bodies and walls, or they wouldn’t work. Atoms are little solar systems.
• normally we can sit back and observe that matter, and rely on it, but at the smallest levels (quantum), looking at their behavior changes that behavior — is that like a teacher saying “how can I help you?”
• if you visualized the world as a beach ball balanced on an invisible fountain of water, the water pushing just enough to hold the ball motionless, it would look stable. But in the journal from Julian, she did not at first see “all that is made” as stable at all, she knew it had to be “kept” by something, but needed reassurance that it would be.

I think this is a very impressive short film (23 min.). Via the article at bahaiblog.net: “Set in the 1800s, the film imagines a conversation between two bickering prison guards at the fortress of Chihriq in north-western Iran where the prophet known as the Báb was imprisoned”. I sent out an email calling this “Bahá’í Grunge” but that wasn’t really the best phrase.

From the interview with the writer/director, one thing that today’s audience might miss is that the female guard is actually playing a female disguised as a male, which happened sometimes in the past according to the histories, I think possibly in the US Civil War too. Personally I find that hard to imagine, but as far as I know, at that time no woman would have been allowed to leave the house alone and unveiled, let alone have a job; and often we see what we expect to see.

Today is a Bahá’í holy day, the anniversary of the birth of Bahá’u’lláh (Nov. 12, 1817, but translated into the lunar calendar = Nov. 7 this year). This is the equivalent of Christmas for christians, thankfully not encrusted with the layers of commercialism that have grown over “the holiday season”. But the event is itself a gift to us, like Christmas was. My sister wants to know what I want for Christmas, and actually I can’t think of a single material thing to tell her. Instead this prayer written by Bahá’u’lláh expresses it today, for me. I picture all of us living in a nice tall shady forest:

Glorified art Thou, O Lord my God! I give Thee thanks inasmuch as Thou hast called me into being in Thy days, and infused into me Thy love and Thy knowledge. I beseech Thee, by Thy name whereby the goodly pearls of Thy wisdom and Thine utterance were brought forth out of the treasuries of the hearts of such of Thy servants as are nigh unto Thee, and through which the Daystar of Thy name, the Compassionate, hath shed its radiance upon all that are in Thy heaven and on Thy earth, to supply me, by Thy grace and bounty, with Thy wondrous and hidden bounties.
These are the earliest days of my life, O my God, which Thou hast linked with Thine own days. Now that Thou hast conferred upon me so great an honor, withhold not from me the things Thou hast ordained for Thy chosen ones.
I am, O my God, but a tiny seed which Thou hast sown in the soil of Thy love, and caused to spring forth by the hand of Thy bounty. This seed craveth, therefore, in its inmost being, for the waters of Thy mercy and the living fountain of Thy grace. Send down upon it, from the heaven of Thy loving-kindness, that which will enable it to flourish beneath Thy shadow and within the borders of Thy court. Thou art He Who watereth the hearts of all that have recognized Thee from Thy plenteous stream and the fountain of Thy living waters.
Praised be God, the Lord of the worlds.