Showings written in a cell

Julian becomes an anchoress — a woman enclosed in a small cell attached to a church, walled in, committed to a life of prayer. Her cell at St. Julian's Church in Norwich has one window looking into the church and one window looking onto the street.

She does not retreat from the world entirely. Through the street-facing window she receives visitors — the troubled, the desperate, the curious — and offers counsel. Margery Kempe, the eccentric mystic of Lynn, visits her. Julian's wisdom, Margery records, is specific and grounding: she tells Margery to test her experiences against scripture and the church's teaching, to be suspicious of visions that produce spiritual pride, to look for the fruit of love.

The twenty years of reflection produce the Long Text of the Revelations — a theological work of extraordinary depth and originality. Julian wrestles with the hardest question her visions raise: if all shall be well, what about sin? What about the damned? What about the suffering that God apparently permits?

She does not resolve these questions. She sits with them, names them honestly, and finds in the sitting a peace that is not the peace of resolution but the peace of trust.

Her most famous image: she sees God holding something the size of a hazelnut in the palm of his hand. What is it? she asks. It is all that is made, she is told. How does it endure? It lasts and ever shall last, for God loves it. And so have all things their being by the love of God.

All that is made. Held in a hand. Sustained by love.

Thou shalt not be overcome.

Not: you will not be tempted. You will be. Not: you will not be afflicted. You will be. Not: the suffering will be brief or mild or explicable.

But: you shall not be overcome.

This is the promise Julian received and spent twenty years sitting with — the promise that is not a guarantee of safety but a guarantee of survival. Not that the waters will not rise but that they will not overwhelm. Not that the fire will not come but that it will not consume.

The distinction is not small. It is the difference between a faith that promises protection and a faith that promises presence.

God did not promise Julian the plague would end. He promised she would not be overcome by it. That promise is still operative.

Thou shalt not be overcome. Not: you will not suffer. Not: this will end soon. Not: you will understand why.

You shall not be overcome. Receive it as the specific promise it is, for the specific thing you are facing. It was spoken into exactly this.