Ever since I came across this modern icon of Julian of Norwich and her contemplative cat (which bears an uncanny resemblance to Gizmo Gordon), I've enjoyed 
occasionally setting it as my desktop background. Not wonderful art, but it does capture something of the crisp clarity with which this woman theologian thought and wrote about the revelations of divine love she had received.
Several years ago I was invited to teach a course on Julian and her remarkable book in New Hampshire, New England. It was February and the temperatures were between 6 degrees and -25 degrees. The students were a mixed group of mature, persistently curious, hungry-to-learn, Christian, cultured folk from the villages and hamlets around Hanover, New Hampshire - they were a joy to teach, and fun to be with. They came on three consecutive all day Saturdays, on one day through a blizzard. And as we thought about the world, our lives and God, Julian the medieval contemplative became a favourite source of wise optimism. Her sense of God as 'our courteous Lord', and of God's purposes as ensuring 'all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well', provided a strong sub-structure from which we explored the spirituality of divine love in a broken world.
And then to walk out in the snow, wrapped up in layers of wool and other heat preserving fibres, enjoying the cold because we knew we would soon be warm - I've never forgotten the friendship and conversations, and am still in touch with one or two of the folk.
So now when I read Julian I think of blue skies, white snow, millions of trees, praline flavoured latte, and mile-high apple pie! Oh the ascetic life!
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