Julian of Norwich

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

The Web is riddled with orphaned “quotes”: mangled versions of what someone—the author or one of his characters—may or may not have said. We use them for our own purposes, with no regard for the original context. I’m as guilty as anyone else, but trying to break the habit, as I did when ending my previous post with the above.

Three days after finishing that post, I found the source of those words on sale in our local Oxfam, in a particularly fine edition of Julian of Norwich’s famous book.

This was such a coincidence that I latched on to the view that this was an encounter meant to happen, just as I was finding glimpses in my daily life that my recently-diagnosed lymphoma was a gift to teach me lessons I’d have gone on blithely ignoring otherwise.

So I started eagerly to read it, taking the content more or less at face value, making allowance for the manners, customs and beliefs of those days. I didn’t stop to check the feminist framing that celebrates her as the first woman to do this that and the other. I simply felt I could relate to what she said and learn from it. After a while I repented of this, and did some framing of my own, starting to see her in a more cynical & negative light.

Her Revelations were written in Middle English by an anchoress during the time of successive waves of the Black Death—these hit East Anglia especially hard. They were based on a series of visions when she was thought to be dying, and which she called Shewings, on account of the messages she derived from them. The manuscript as passed down has come to us as Revelations of Divine Love.

When I found my copy, it cried “Serendipity” once more to my receptive ears, tuned as they had once been to all that New-Age stuff. My critical faculties went into voluntary hibernation. Here was something “meant” for me to discover, which I must study carefully, in confident expectation that its eloquence would fill the gaps in my confessed inarticulacy. As it happened, I did find common ground with Julian: precisely in that unshakeable sense that seems to come from within, that all is well: not from belief or books but a special bodily feeling.

Perhaps some of us have this from birth, taking it for granted in our dealings with, without giving thanks or credit to any mystical source. We are simply strong and self-assured, succeeding in what we do, harvesting the recognition and material well-being that comes from being well-constituted. Perhaps we make a more-than-average mark in the world, and congratulate ourself for it. But those of us who have acquired this sense later in life, after many struggles, are unlikely to take it for granted. We treat it with awe, as a gift from the blue, an unheralded blessing.

A child nurtured consistently out of love or at least kindness has a better chance to thrive. I know from my own case that it’s never too late to benefit from such attention. Many are those, I suspect, who fall in with a community and are led to believe they have been saved by God’s love. In the case of Julian, we know nothing of her life beyond the words she wrote. We don’t even know her name. She has been named posthumoudly after the little-known saint Julian, patron saint of the church next to which she dwelt as an anchoress.

Her “Shewings” are occasioned by the sight of a crucifix when she’s sick unto death, and a curate has been called for the last rites. Her God comes to her and swears eternal love. He shows her images of his physical form at the Passion: scourged, crowned with thorns, crucified, wounded in the side, left hanging on the cross and ultimately bloodless, his face and flesh discoloured and dried out. By this means she is won (I want to say “seduced”) by the power of love, and so is her reader. There is something compelling about her use of language, whatever she finds to say.

As the book progresses she elaborates on the bliss of her all-loving, all-comforting Shewings, and compares them with the doctrines of the Church. Consistently, she draws our attention to a marked contrast. Apart from the pains and disfigurements of her Lord as he appears to her in the throes of his passion, there is no shadow to the optimism of her vision. It’s all love, all is well, evil has no power. The pains and disfigurements underline how much he loves her, and by extension, all Christendom. But until they meet in Heaven, she’s to surrender without question to Mother Church; whose doctrines, as she notes are grim and cruel. See what it says about the Jews:

One has the feeling that she considers herself uniquely privileged by virtue of these ghostly audiences with her Lord; but is at pains to put herself in the same position as any other Christian.

Anyone who reads her Revelations*, admiringly or critically, will ask at some point, “Why did she write them?” They are not just recollections of a vision but closely-argued and enumerated issues of theology, which she weaves together, personal viewpoint and clashing church authority, intending to leave no loose ends. This is where the critical part company with the admiring. Her editor, of the latter persuasion, provides a lengthy Introduction, some of which borders on hagiography—I was going to add “based on slim evidence” but that goes with the genre. In a section headed “The Manner of the Book”, she begins thus:

In musings recorded here over eleven years, I’ve found occasion time and again to agree with the view described above, that there is something native to the human heart that’s capable of elevated states; which cannot happen without love’s transformation. And when it is found to be not directly associated with any particular gratification, nothing is more natural than to ascribe these states to God. Do we find it extraordinary that Christianity lays claim to the whole territory? That depends on our cultural upbringing. Adam by disobedience lost that primal state of bliss; Christ by his sacrifice offers it back , leaving us forever indebted, sheep in need of a shepherd.

There is of course no reason why any of us should care about Julian of Norwich and European Christendom 600 years ago; except that we haven’t entirely distanced ourselves. We haven’t come back with better explanations, Authority has changed but not the human heart.

In a nutshell, her dilemma as God’s loyal and privileged advocate is to defend one point, declared succinctly in Chapter XI:

All thing that is done, is well done: for our Lord God doeth all.

A lot of sophistry is needed to defend that position. She does not flinch from the challenge. God doeth all, therefore “sin is no deed”, whatever that means. Her Church comes out unscathed. Her Christ of the Passion, as seen in her Shewings, tells her (and by implication us as readers) to obey its doctrines. And if we suffer, it is to help us understand how much he, who suffers far worse seeing our sufferings, loves us forever.

Who, then, is she trying to comfort? I suspect it is herself, and those equally privileged who enjoy sophistry, have no fear of destitution, can protect themselves from bubonic plague by retreating to an anchorage, or fleeing from the city. They can keep themselves safe, but they need to salve the nagging conscience. I can forgive those who believe in religious doctrine, but not those who use it specifically to turn a blind eye on human suffering.

In the following, the good Lord Jesus Christ speaks to Julian like a lover, and she speaks of him as a lover would. He would do anything for her.

For which love He said full sweetly these words: If I might suffer more, I would suffer more. He said not If it were needful to suffer more: for though it were not needful, if He might suffer more, He would.

Are they not the words of a seducer?

But why should I care about some unknown woman who died naturally in her own physical and mental comfort, in those terrible times 600 years ago?

Because I too am privileged, in so many ways. And the question, as to whether God is the only doer, hasn’t gone away. Stephen Fry (privileged) was asked on Irish TV what he would say to God at the pearly gates, and said “Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?” And a listener reported him to the police who had no choice but to investigate because their blasphemy laws have never been repealed. Which is probably not worthy of mention at all.

All I shall say is this. A belief in “Serendipity” led me to take seriously the origin of this oft-repeated phrase

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

when I saw the Revelations on a small shelf of “Collectibles”; as if I was “meant” to spend days reading it, and report findings to the world. OK, maybe I’ve done that. Is anyone the wiser? No, but I’m back to being a sceptic, who’s not waiting for any Divine Revelation; who doesn’t argue against reality, which includes Julian of Norwich (historically), you, me and Stephen Fry. And what I think about reality doesn’t matter much, even to me. Because it is. And all I have to do is see it without any protective filters.

It’s good to be back on the old briar patch again. I’m looking forward to writing about clouds and simple things.

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* The Grace Warrack edition with the original footnotes but not the Introduction, is available from amazon.com @ $1.86 or amazon.co.uk @ £1.49. For a complete edition (I assume) in book form, contact The Julian Centre who offer it at £12.99.