At this time of year I long for the coming of spring and can’t wait to see the yellow of the daffodils. I love walking up the hill by Wright Hall at Smith College on the way towards the Student Center. There is a large area right near the top that is barren most of the winter. But if you keep walking up that hill early in March, all of a sudden, you will see the budding of the daffodils. And when I see those daffodils I am reminded of Sydney Carter’s song, “Love like the yellow daffodil is coming through the snow, love like the yellow daffodil is Lord of all I know. Ring out Bells of Norwich, let the winter come and go. All shall be well again I know.”

These words, of course, weren’t just Sydney Carter’s words. They were the words of Julian of Norwich. Julian was born in Norwich, England in 1343. Sister Julian was an anchoress. She chose to live in a small cell called an anchorage that was attached to the walls of the St. Julian Church of Norwich, England. Her cell had three windows. The first window opened into the sanctuary so she could hear the Mass and receive communion. The second window opened up onto an inner court near the kitchen so that the cooks could bring her food each day. The third window opened out onto the street so that the people of Norwich could come and speak to her which they did in great numbers. They came from all around the city to share with her their deepest hopes and fears, to confess their sins, to grieve their losses and reveal the traumas of their lives. Here at the window, Julian would counsel them, while all around on the outside the yellow daffodils shined in full bloom.

She would talk about the love of God that like the sun was shining upon them. She called each of them God’s beloved. She wanted them to know God’s love was working through them. And then she would say to them after they had shared their doubts and fears, “All shall be well, all manner of things shall be well, and all shall be well again.” Sister Julian was not naïve when she said, “All shall be well again.” She knew that outside her abbey in Norwich life was not easy for the people who came to pray with her and seek advice. She knew that for them life was cold and hard. She knew that many of them felt the absence of God’s love in their lives and in their world. It was the time of the Black Plague. The people of Norwich had very little food to eat, very little water to drink, and the plague was taking the lives of their children every day. But what she was able to do during these counseling sessions was remarkable. She shared with them her deepest conviction that no matter what happened, the power of God’s love could still transform their lives, and in this love of God they would have everlasting life. In her book Revelations of Divine Love, the first book in English written by a woman, she says,

“Deeds are done which appear so evil to us and people suffer such terrible evils that it does not seem as though any good will ever come of them. But when our soul sits in God in true repose and our soul stands in God’s true strength and our soul is rooted in God in endless love, all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

So go out this spring and look for the daffodils in your back yard. Or walk over to Wright Hall at Smith College and look for the daffodils there.

“For love like a yellow daffodil is coming through the snow, love like the yellow Daffodil is Lord of all I know. Ring out bells of Norwich, let the winter come and go, all shall be well again, I know.”

– Rev. Peter B. Ives, Theologian-in-Resident