“Also in this he shewed me a little thing, the quantity of an hazelnut, in the palm of my hand; and it was as round as a ball. I looked at it with the eye of my understanding, and thought: ‘What is this?’ And it was answered generally thus: ‘It is all that is made.’ I wondered how it might last, for I thought it might suddenly have fallen apart in dust as it was so small. And I was answered in my understanding: ‘It lasts, and ever shall last because God loves it.’ And so everything owes its existence to the love of God.”
Julian of Norwich’s Hazelnut
Julian of Norwich once wrote of a vision in which she saw the whole of creation contained in something as small as a hazelnut. It was fragile, seemingly insignificant, yet it endured—held together entirely by the love of God. This idea, that love sustains all things, is both comforting and challenging. Love is not merely a gentle, pleasant force; it is something deeper, something that transforms and endures.
For today’s Lenten reflection, I invite you to listen to a poem read aloud by Steve Page, Love is Not Nice. His words, delivered with clarity and depth, invite us to consider love in a different light—perhaps as something that moves beyond sentimentality into something truer, more difficult, and more profound.
