Tag Archives: Julian of Norwich

I Am the Blossom Pressed in the Book

By Robin Bates | Published: May 21, 2022

In this poem, Jane Kenyon speaks of moments that come with the force of revelation.

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Finding Love while Dying

By Robin Bates | Published: March 1, 2011

From time to time I bring you updates about my friend Alan Paskow, currently failing because of cancer. Julia and I visit the Paskows every Sunday night. Julia administers a Reiki massage to Jackie while Alan and I converse. In our recent visits, Alan is always in bed when I talk to him. Our conversation […]

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What Can I Give Him? Give Him My Heart

By Robin Bates | Published: December 19, 2010

Spiritual Sunday Snow currently blankets southern Maryland as we enter the final days leading up to Christmas, making this the perfect time to print Christina Rossetti’s gorgeous poem, “In the Bleak Midwinter.”I love how it begins with hard and cold images and concludes with a simple gift of the heart. Although God is worshipped by […]

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Out of Near Death, a Vision of Love

By Robin Bates | Published: August 22, 2010

Spiritual Sunday Thanks to all of you who wrote this past week following the twin blows of my uncle’s death and news of the severity of Alan’s latest cancer diagnosis. The discussion in response to Thursday’s post about which goes deeper, self or love, brought to the periphery of my mind a catechism in which […]

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Can We Imagine Another’s Pain?

By Robin Bates | Published: October 5, 2009

In Friday’s post I mentioned how we read and discussed the first few pages of Elaine Scarry’s The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World in our most recent salon, held to support colleague Alan Paskow as he battles with cancer.  Scarry claims that language is inadequate when it comes to physical pain so […]

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Perpetual Migraines and Julian of Norwich

By Robin Bates | Published: October 2, 2009

This is the first of a series of posts I will be writing on literature and pain.  There are a couple of reasons why I write about this now.  First, in last night’s salon in honor of my cancer-stricken friend Alan Paskow, we discussed the introduction to Elaine Scarry’s The Body in Pain: The Making […]

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