Back on the Briar Patch

Note to self on 12th March 2018: there is something seriously wrong with this post, but I’ll fix it some day. Comment on 1st April 2026: I’ve no idea what, but have put in some missing graphics

I never like to fight with a tar-baby. That’s a game for losers, as Brer Rabbit discovers, when he gets entangled in the sticky bitumen. There are things best left alone, but he finds this out too late and ends up at the mercy of Brer Fox, who wants to invite him to lunch, with him as the main dish. Fortunately, tricksters can be tricked too. “I’m all stuck-up and in your power,” he tells Brer Fox. “Do what you like but please don’t throw me into that briar patch! That’s what scares me most.” Which persuades the not-so-cunning fox to do exactly that. Brer Rabbit has the last laugh. He was born and raised in that briar patch. It’s like home to him.

My transformed persona Vincent was born and raised on this blog, till lately exiled. Every time I’ve tried to sneak back, those dreaded posts have stood there full of menace, taunting me with their incoherence, “serendipity”, false wisdom and vague Newagery. Too much already. Something had to be done. Sometimes you have to creep up on your enemy, beard him in his lair, or better still, yank him by the tail; in this case the final phrase from my last:

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

As a popular expression of magical optimism, its origin is no secret: a treatise in Middle English by an anchoress during the time of successive waves of the Black Death which hit East Anglia especially hard. It was 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.

So when I found a copy on sale at our local Oxfam three days later, it cried “Serendipity” once more to my receptive ears, tuned as they were 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 bodily feeling.

Perhaps some of us have this from birth. We take it for granted and go about our business, 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 which came unheralded.

Everyone knows that in order to thrive as infants and children, we need to be in receipt of consistent love, or at least kindness. But it’s never too late; and those whose sense of self is dramatically transformed in full adulthood may trace it to nothing more tangible than God’s love. In the case of Julian, we know nothing of her life outside the words she wrote. We don’t even know her name. Julian was the obscure patron saint of her church.

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 do anything for her. See  the Ninth Revelation. 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.

* 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.

2 thoughts on “back on the briar patch”

ellie
Is there any objective reality? Objectively the answer seems to be ‘No!’: there are only subjective realities mediated by filters, dictated by firing of synapses, underlain by hardwired structures, selected by repetition and ordained by chance. From the outside it may look like a briar patch; from the inside it looks like home.
Vincent
Thank you Ellie, beautifully put. God bless those synapses and that hardwired structure through which we see and select and trust chance, and find our home in that prickly briar patch!