Note
Conclusion
R.S. Thomas was fascinated by the inconclusive and elusive quality of the mystical path as a way of unknowing. His poem "Journeys" expresses the theme of life as a perpetual experience of departure.
The deception of platforms where the arrivals and the departures coincide. And the smiles on the faces of those welcoming and bidding farewell are to conceal the knowledge that destinations are the familiarities from which the traveller must set out.1
Like so many other mystical writers, Julian of Norwich is frequently interpreted in terms of her assurance of the abiding presence and compassion of God in her soul and in the inner depths of her fellow, "even"
Christians. However, Julian is also strongly aware of what I refer to as "perpetual departure" within the Christian mystical tradition. This is one aspect of apophatic theology, not least in Julian. The Lord, Christ, whose permanent dwelling, according to the parable of a Lord and a Servant, is in the heart of the human soul is also the one who travels ever onwards in perpetual pilgrimage. The Christian disciple is not left in a comfortable and comforting stasis but is drawn to follow after Christ in perpetual dissatisfaction with what is less than everything and in pursuit of what
Julian refers to as an indescribable "bliss in heaven."
Our good Lord revealed himself in his creature in various ways, both in heaven and on earth; but I saw him take no place except in man's soul. He revealed himself on earth in the sweet Incarnation and his blessed Passion, and he showed himself in other ways on earth, where I said that I saw God in an instant of time [a poynte]; and he showed himself in another way on earth, as if it were on pilgrimage, that is to say that he is here with us, leading us, and will be until he has brought us all to his bliss in heaven.
(Chapter 81) Note 1 R.S. Thomas, "Journeys," in Mass for Hard Times, Newcastle upon Tyne:
Bloodaxe Books 1992, p 28.