God's wounded hand reached out to place in hers the entire world, 'round as a ball, small as a hazelnut'. Just so one day of infant light remembered her mother might have given into her cupped palms a new laid egg, warm from the hen; just so her brother risked to her solem joy his delicate treasure, a sparrow's egg from the hedgerow. What can this be? the eye of her understanding marvelled. God for a moment of our history placed in that five-fingered human nest the macrocosmic egg, sublime paradox brown hazelnut of All that Is- made, and beloved, and preserved. As still, waking each day within our microcosm, we find it, and ourselves. From The Showings: Lady Julian of Norwich, 1342-1416 No. 4 from "Breathing the Water" by Denise Levertov In the icon above, it is the crucified Christ that shows the hazelnut to Julian witnessing to her the three properties she understood from it: The first that God made all, that God loves it and tha...