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.