Why Julian of Norwich Matters to Me

I first “met” Julian of Norwich through reading Evelyn Underhill’s magisterial book Mysticism: The Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness. Underhill’s book changed my life, for a number of reasons: it gave me a language and a context for making sense of my spiritual experience, it helped me to see that there is a place for an intellectually honest, interfaith-friendly expression of Christian spirituality, and — perhaps most important of all — Underhill introduced me to the grand tradi...