Jemma

“Finally, however, everything will be perfect again. We need to recognise that there are many forms of perfection. Perfection itself may be diverse. So we should not try to divide people into those who are perfect and those who have an impairment, because basically we are all the same.”
― John M. Hull, Disability: The Inclusive Church Resource

“What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who live in it after we are gone? —Winston Churchill, former prime minister of the United Kingdom”
― Jane Healey, The Secret Stealers

“A rereading of these two events—death and resurrection—is timely in light of what we know about trauma. The dynamics of traumatic experience press Christian discourse beyond the site of the cross to think about what it means to live in the aftermath of death. Studies in trauma suggest that trauma has a double structure: the actual occurrence of a violent event(s) and a belated awakening to the event.8 Trauma is not solely located in the actual event but, instead, encompasses the return of that event, the ways in which the event is not concluded. This phenomenon is described in different ways, but the nature of trauma is such that an inability to fully process an event means that it returns. This return distinguishes trauma and suffering. Suffering is what, in time, can be integrated into one’s understanding of the world. Trauma is what is not integrated in time; it is the difference between a closed and an open wound. Trauma is an open wound. For those who survive trauma, the experience of trauma can be likened to a death. But the reality is that death has not ended; instead, it persists. The experience of survival is one in which life, as it once was, cannot be retrieved. However, the promise of life ahead cannot be envisioned.”
― Shelly Rambo, Spirit and Trauma: A Theology of Remaining

“To understand fully what she believed were ‘divine shewings’, she took the seemingly drastic step of being enclosed as an anchoress inside a cell, which was probably to the north side of the Church of St Julian, on King Street in Norwich. Becoming an anchoress around the age of 43, she lived on for up to thirty years in one room, her only door to the world walled up, and her enclosure confirmed by the last rites. This saw her as effectively dead to this world.”
― Janina Ramírez, Julian of Norwich: A Very Brief History