All shall be well ...

This saying, found in the writings of the anchoress Julian of Norwich, has always been a favorite. It is a timeless message.

Julian was born in England in 1342 during the time of the Black Death.

An anchoress (men were called anchorites) was a person called to a solitary life, but he or she was not cut-off from the world. Their life was one of prayer and contemplation, highly esteemed by people of the time. They thought of such a person as anchoring the presence of God in a particular location.

Dame Julian never left her cell. She had a servant who brought her meals and she kept a small garden with high wall that insulated her from the ordinary life of the time. This was not to prevent her from knowing what was going on, but to make sure that no one intruded to disrupt her life of contemplation and intercession. She listened through a curtained window to those passersby who needed counsel.

The only one who entered her space was her cat, allowed for a practical reasons: to keep the rat population at bay. (I think Sundance and Cassidy might want to take this role more seriously!) Unbeknownst to the outside world however, she had a close relationship with her beloved cat. They would sit for hours in Julian's garden in contemplation and prayer. Julian and her cat together anchored the light during one of the darkest periods of history.

Okay, I admit the cat may have been contemplating the birds in the garden, but even so ...