A few other thoughts

I was going to say, before I had to rush off, that Julian of Norwich makes a cameo appearance in the historical novel Katherine, by Anya Seton. Katherine Swynford, who was a real historical figure, was first the mistress and later the wife of John of Gaunt, son and brother of several Plantagenet kings, as well as father and grandfather, but never king himself. When Katherine repents of the years she has spent as Gaunt's mistress, she goes on a religious pilgrimage and is counseled by Julian of Norwich. Whether anything like that ever happened, I don't know, but Seton makes Julian a very likable, earthy character.

Here, you can hear T.S. Eliot read Julian of Norwich's line, although he takes out one iteration:



I believe this is an excerpt from "Little Gidding," one of Eliot's Four Quartets. I took a seminar on T.S. Eliot at Calvin College. I took it because Stanley Wiersma taught it and Eliot was his passion. At Calvin, whenever possible I took classes for the sake of the teacher teaching, rather than the subject matter. When the teacher was impassioned about the subject, it always became worthwhile. I agree with Frederick Buechner: "In the last analysis, I have always believed, it is not so much their subjects that the great teachers teach as it is themselves" (Now and Then).