Unitarian Universalist Church in the Pines

Unitarian Universalist Church in the Pines Ours religious community welcomes everyone who is searching for a spiritual home that is guided by respect, love, reason and conscience.

Find us in-person and online every Sunday at 11:00 AM. To join us Online, send an email to UUChPines .com (remove space before @). Our mailing address is:
Unitarian Universalist Church in the Pines
PO Box 1062
Brooksville, FL 34605

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08/31/2026

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Julian of Norwich lived in a world where religious authority overwhelmingly belonged to men. Yet sometime around 1395, an Englishwoman quietly produced what is generally considered the first surviving book written in English by a woman.

And inside it was an extraordinary idea: God could be understood as a mother.

Julian was born around 1343 and lived through an England repeatedly devastated by plague, war and religious anxiety. In 1373, when she was about thirty, she became gravely ill and believed she was dying. A priest was summoned. As she looked toward a crucifix, Julian experienced a series of sixteen intense visions of Christ.

She survived.

Then she spent years trying to understand what she had seen.

Julian eventually became an anchoress at St. Julian's Church in Norwich, voluntarily withdrawing into a small enclosed room attached to the church. She was not completely cut off from humanity. People could approach her window seeking spiritual counsel.

Her writings became remarkably bold.

Julian described Christ as "our true Mother." She connected motherhood with creation, nourishment, suffering and unconditional love, arguing that the maternal could reveal something essential about the nature of God.

This was not simply Julian declaring that God was female. Medieval Christian writers had occasionally used maternal imagery for Christ before her. But Julian developed the idea with unusual depth, making divine motherhood central to her understanding of God's relationship with humanity.

Even more striking was the conclusion she reached after contemplating sin, suffering and a terrifying world:

"All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."

A medieval woman enclosed in a tiny room had found a way to speak with a theological authority women were rarely permitted to possess.

And more than six centuries later, people are still reading her words.

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316 W. Jefferson
Brooksville, FL
34601

Opening Hours

11am - 12pm

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