S p i r i t ua l i t y S t u d i e s 5 - 1 S p r i n g 2 0 1 9 5 Jana Trajtelová grace (and this was from that other level of the showing) and now my understanding led back to the first part of the showing, keeping both in mind. Then says this gracious lord in his meaning: ‘Behold, behold, my beloved servant! What harm and distress he has received in my service for my love, yea, and because of his good will! It is not reasonable that I reward him for his fright and his dread, his hurt and his wounds and all his woe? And not only this, but does it not fall to me to five a gift that is to him better and more honorable than his own health would have been? Otherwise it seems to me I would be doing him no favor.’ In this an inward, spiritual showing of the lord’s meaning settled into my soul, in which I was that it was fitting and necessary – seeing his great goodness and his own honor – that his dearworthy servant whom he loved so much would be truly and blessedly rewarded without end beyond what he would have been f he had not fallen. Yea, and to such an extent that his falling and all the woe that he had received from it would be transformed into high and surpassing honor and endless bliss. At this point the showing of this illustration vanished, and our good Lord directed my understanding onward in vision and in showing the rest of the revelations to the end. But notwithstanding all this diversion, the wonder of the illustration never went from me; for it seemed to me it was given me as an answer to my desire, and yet I could not perceive in it a full interpretation for my comfort at that time. At another place I was thinking about the parable in a more detailed and systematic manner (Trajtelová 2018). We are in the situation where sin as innocent non-intended falling defines the very ontological and metaphysical structure of reality (and thus human consciousness). The most suitable experiential description of this fundamental situation is simplypain – Julian claims that she cannot find the more fitting definition for sin. The servant innocently gets into a position of suffering and a correlative manner of isolation. We can smoothly link the myth of original sin with the phenomenon of separation (Merton 1968). Human consciousness (“soul“, “self“) gets alienated from its own divine source. This grave self-alienation, this separation from one’s true divine identity is accompanied with the birth of an illusory egoic identity and is nourished by fears and self-absorption. Consciousness becomes self-referential in its intentional orientation and unable of transcendence toward anything other than itself [4]. The illusion of autonomy implies losing the awareness of the broader context –of the profound interconnectedness of all life and being. It is perhaps no coincidence that Julian emphasizes the divine compassion (Julian of Norwich 2011, 67, 209), since it teaches us to reconnect. The reality of sin turns into a battle field of multiple blind, confused, isolated intentions of misperceiving minds [5]. The injuries of sin from the parable are the pains of conflicting isolated intentions conveyed by thoughts, aspirations, emotions or deeds – within us and among us. Moreover, we can say that sin is an “optical” illusion related to lack of an important metaphysical knowledge– experiential knowledge about the ceaseless presence of the all-embracing divine goodness. Julian’s “sin” really refers to innocent ignorance, to lack of spiritual knowledge. She writes: “[M]an is changeable in this life, and frailty and by simplicity and lack of cunning, being overcome, he falls into sin. He is impotent and unwise by himself, and also his will is overwhelmed during this time he is in temptation and in sorrow and woe. And the cause is ‘blindness’, for he ‘sees not’ God – because ‘if he saw’ God constantly, he would have no harmful experience, nor disturbance of any kind, nor the distress that is a servant to sin.” (Julian of Norwich 2011, 110, my emphasis). This means that illusion of sin is a distortion in perception, the misperception. Overcoming the illusion through healing our perception is the point of all contemplative praxis [6]. But when sin is the innocent distortion of perception [7], who is then to blame? Julian insistently claims: “But I saw no sin; for I believe it has no manner of essence nor any portion of being, nor it can be known expect by the pain that is caused by it.” (Julian of Norwich 2011, 65). InRevelations, God persistently teaches her that all what is, is good. God is sheer existence of goodness. Being and goodness are synonyms. All what exists, exists within and because of the overabundance of the infinite creative power, wisdom and love (anytime Julian uses these three words she refers to the Unity of the Trinity) (Meninger 2010, 17). The infinite loving perfectly permeates its finite concrete manifestations: “He is in all things” (Julian of Norwich 2011, 31). “What is sin?”, Julian marvels, “for I saw truly that God does everything no matter how little, and I saw truly that nothing is done by luck of by chance but everything by the foreseeing wisdom of God” (Julian of Norwich 2011, 31). In other words, sin has no essence. It has no reality, it is fullyunreal. It has no nature, nor it arises out of the nature, it is unnatural (Julian of Norwich 2011, 169). Everything else in the creation is natural, which means divine. Nature and divinity, nature and mercy, nature and goodness are the two sides of the same
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