All manner of thing shall be well

For a good while now in my newsletter and on my Instagram page, I have been exploring Julian of Norwich’s wisdom via botanical images and short meditations. Because the phrase for which she is principally known—“all shall be well”—can easily become sentimental, I’ve been slow to write about it. But I have thought about it, a lot, and the time has come to take it up. And to write about this in a longer form seems important.

            First, the word well. Julian uses it frequently to express her desire for the world, so I looked up the etymology—she wrote six and a half centuries ago, after all! Well in her day was understood to mean abundant, as desired, satisfying, lacking nothing. Julian was essentially seeking the Hebrew state of shalom: peace, well-being, healthy relationships, love.

            Julian asks God about wellness for the world more than once. How can things become well, when evil seems to permeate the world so thoroughly? Wouldn’t all have been well if sin had been prevented in the first place? Couldn’t God have thrown up an impenetrable barrier against it?

To accompany Julian’s question, I drew a single leaf from the peacock plant. Peacock leaves display a striking green and white pattern, as if painted. In my drawing I repeat the leaf in a symmetrical arrangement to symbolize what my own mind wishes for: perfection as symmetry, clean and free of blemishes or suffering. Julian longed for such innocence and worried hard over God’s reasons for allowing sin. “I ought much to have given up this disturbing wondering,” she admits ruefully, “but nevertheless, I made mourning and sorrow about it without reason or discretion.”

            I’m glad the questions troubled her. They trouble me too. I will never forget one night in my young adulthood when, having learned of a Colombian baby born with a genetic abnormality that caused chronic pain, I tossed, turned, and wept in bed. The child was receiving tender care at my parents’ foster home, but still, how could a good God have allowed this? How could God ever make it up to little Diana?

            You may well have endured a night like that. Or a day, or a week, or many months. You may be Diana, suffering incurable chronic pain.

            How can all be well?

*          *          *

I was tempted to leave the question hanging and try to do justice to “all shall be well” in a later post. But I won’t. Here’s how I understand God’s response to Julian’s anguished cry.

I chose to draw part of a bald cypress tree in late autumn to accompany the words Julian heard Jesus say. I think you’ll see why.

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            Jesus tells Julian that sin is “behovely.” I retained this Middle English word because there’s some discussion among translators about its meaning. The phrase “it behooves us to ____” incorporates a more recent version of the term: we need to do x, it is the right thing to do. Behovely could mean necessary. It could mean appropriate. The late Father John-Julian, whose Julian translation I’ve been adapting, chose inevitable here.

            Jesus doesn’t answer the how-question directly, but he seems to be saying that sin (which has no being in itself but is parasitic on God’s good creation) is an occasion of something beautiful. Because of Adam and Eve’s fall, the Second Person of the Trinity fell into the creation and identified with its suffering, becoming the Child of Humanity. The story of God’s involvement with the world is still being told. It is a story of redemption, of movement toward shalom.

            The Lord doesn’t say shalom, of course. Jesus uses Julian’s own word, well. I find it sweet that Mother God offers Julian this mirroring, the way a human mother repeats her toddler’s words to affirm them and maybe help the child to pronounce them clearly.

            Julian has rebuked herself for her desperate struggle, but Mother God does not scold her. Quite the opposite.

            Your desire is good, Mother God is saying. It is my very purpose. The promise is never conditional: indeed all shall be well—abundant, lacking nothing, satisfying.

*          *          *

Julian’s earlier showings include strange and gruesome visions of Jesus’s sufferings on the cross. I am not drawn to those images, but Julian found them marvelous and comforting. I think she was able to believe God’s assurances of wellness—well-being and restoration of all that is damaged—because she had seen Jesus suffering with us.

            The healing of all things does not involve a magic wand. It’s not the detached action of a god who is playing a cosmic game. Jesus suffered damage just as we do. The need for things to be well is personal for Julian’s Lord.

            The “when” that goes unvoiced in Julian’s question is implicitly eschatological, and another day I will write about her blazing insight into the Last Things. For now, let’s simply burrow into the promise.

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

           Oh child, Mother God says. Your desire is not too much for me. You don’t even know how much and how many things need to be set right, to be brought into wellness. It is more than you can ask or imagine. I promise you, though, that restoration is for all. Not just for humans, not even just for creatures that breathe. Every kind of every thing shall be well.

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If you want to explore Julian’s theology further, I highly recommend Amy Frykholm’s May 2023 article “Julian the Theologian.” And there are more writings and podcasts to check out on my Julian’s Porch page (see menu).

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