On the CAC podcast Turning to the Mystics, Mirabai Starr explains what Julian means by “oneing”:
Instead of talking about merging with God or union with God, Julian coined the term oneing. Oneing is a reflection of what already is for Julian. We already are one with God; we always have been and we ever shall be. This life is nothing if not a reawakening to that reality of our oneness, oneing with God. In some ways, life is a matter of remembering what has always been. That oneing, of course, is rooted in love. It’s not just oneing for the sake of oneing. It’s oneing for love. [1]
James Finley also reflects on oneing:
A word for me that echoes with oneing is presence. To put it poetically, there’s just one thing that’s happening. The infinite presence of God is presencing himself, is presencing herself through an act of self-donating presencing. It’s presencing herself and giving herself away whole and complete in and as the gift and miracle of our very presence in our nothingness without God. The oneness is all pervasively the reality of all that is. There is nothing but the oneness. Original sin or brokenness is falling out of, or being exiled from, the infinite oneness that alone is real…. Oneing, Julian was saying, is turning back around to the oneness that’s always there. We don’t want to become one; we become one in realizing the oneness that we never weren’t. It’s oneness in all directions. [2]
Contemplative theologian Howard Thurman (1899–1981) describes how Jesus and we might experience the presence of God:
Finally, there must be a matured and maturing sense of Presence. This sense of Presence must be a reality at the personal level as well as on the social, naturalistic and cosmic levels. To state it in the simplest language of religion, modern [humans] must know that [they are] a child of God and that the God of life in all its parts and the God of the human heart are one and the same. Such an assurance will vitalize the sense of self, and highlight the sense of history, with the warmth of a great confidence. Thus, we shall look out upon life with quiet eyes and work on our tasks with the conviction and detachment of Eternity….
All of us want the assurance of not being deserted by life nor deserted in life…. When Jesus prayed, he was conscious that, in his prayer, he met the Presence, and this consciousness was far more important and significant than the answering of his prayer. It is for this reason primarily that God was for Jesus the answer to all the issues and the problems of life. When I, with all my mind and heart, truly seek God and give myself in prayer, I, too, meet [God’s] Presence, and then I know for myself that Jesus was right. [3]
References:
[1] Adapted from James Finley and Kirsten Oates featuring Mirabai Starr, “Turning to Julian of Norwich,” Turning to the Mystics, season 6, ep. 1 (Albuquerque, NM: Center for Action and Contemplation, 2022), podcast. Available as MP3 audio download and PDF transcript.
[2] Finley, “Turning to Julian.”
[3] Howard Thurman, Deep Is the Hunger: Meditations for Apostles of Sensitiveness (Richmond, IN: Friends United Press, 1973), 144, 146.
Image credit and inspiration: Jenna Keiper, The Showings, translation by Mirabai Starr (detail), 2022, photo, Albuquerque. Original translation by Mirabai Starr. Cover art by Erin Currier. Click here to enlarge image. Julian of Norwich gazes at us with calm in the midst of her blazing visions.
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