is not that God is "isness" as Aquinas and Eckhart had taught but that
Preface Evelyn Underhill called Julian "the first English woman of Letters." This alone ought to make Julian of Norwich significant in Western history but in fact she has not been. While we are in possession of over fifty manuscripts of her contemporary, Walter Hilton, we have at the most five for Julian. It would seem that her work was not well circulated in her day or in ours. Why is this? | would venture two guesses: First, because she is a woman; and secondly, because she is creation-centered. While Hilton's claim to fame was the tired image of climbing the spiritual ladder, Julian ignores such bouquets to established powers for a way of living that is non-competitive, non-compulsive, that is curved and compassionate to all creatures. In this brief preface | would like to underscore a few of the contributions of Julian to our spiritual needs today. It may well be that another reason she has been so often ignored is that until today we really were not ready for her. This may indeed be the case with many of the great creation-centered mystics such as Hildegarde of Bingen and Meister Eckhart from whom Julian learned so much.
1. The Creators and the creation' goodness For Julian, the basis of God is not that God is "isness" as Aquinas and Eckhart had taught but that "God is goodness.
. .God is nothing but goodness." God's goodness "is full and complete and in it is nothing lacking." But Julian, like Eckhart, goes further. Eckhart had said that not only is "God isness" but that "isness is God." So too with Julian: "God is everything which is good, as | see it, and the goodness which everything has is God." Here we have a metaphysical accomplishment of the first order on Julian's part. For what philosopher in the past few centuries and who in our century of despair and nihilism and holocausts multiplied has the depth and bigness of vision to believe so deeply in the goodness of the source of all things? "That goodness which is natural is God," Julian declares, "God is the ground" of all goodness.
But Julian's metaphysics of goodness does not stop with her understanding of the Creator. What is creation? It is good. "Everything is good except