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All shall be well



In times like this, the words, often attributed, incorrectly, to poet T.S. Eliot in ‘Little Gidding’ come to mind:

All shall be well,
And all shall be well,
And all manner of things shall be well.

These are the words of mystic, Julian of Norwich (1342-1416), who wrote 'Revelations of Divine Love.' She is also referred to as Mother Juliana.

She lived in Britain, in Norwich, and she wrote the phrase ‘All shall be well’ during the time of the Black Death plague in 1373 at the age of 30 when she was seriously ill. The Black Death killed half the population in Norwich and recurred in several outbreaks between 1373 and 1387. 

One of her original documents, the ‘Long Text’ - known as the Paris Manuscript - is in the National Library of France in Paris. 



MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author  of: Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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