FINDING SAFETY IN SUFFERING WITH JULIAN OF NORWICH
Traditional Icon of Julian of Norwich. Public domain.
“All shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” This well-known saying of the 14th-century English mystic, Julian of Norwich, used to sound really banal to me. It was trite, the kind of pernicious feel-good statement that seemed like empty optimism in the face of real suffering. Yet my opinion quickly changed last year, amid a staggering season of strife and loss, when I read Amy Laura Hall’s Laughing at the Devil while in lockdown. Hall casts Julian as a bold visionary whose spiritual insights express a defiant resistance against all the forces of evil and suffering at work in the world. Writing in the aftermath of a deadly plague, in a world seized by unjust social systems, Julian’s reflections cast a vision for resisting evil. Amid a world where things are certainly not well, Julian radically proclaims that all shall be well. In the face of suffering, she laughs at the devil knowing that the all-loving grace of God will overcome. Julian has been teaching me how to better live into my baptismal covenant, to persevere in resisting evil. Amid suffering and sorrow, Julian points towards the strength and safety we can find in levity. “All manner of things shall be well” suddenly sounded less like a cottagecore cross-stitch and more like the chorus to a punk rock anthem.
Reading Hall’s book in the middle of 2020, I was struck by the similarities between Julian’s context (14th-century England) and our own. In Julian’s time, the Black Death had swept across the continent, both highly lethal and highly contagious. It harmed more than just people’s physical bodies. Fear and confusion spread as quickly as sickness, and communities suffered countless traumas. It was not just the loss of life, but the loss of life as people knew it — the end of fellowship, trust, security, hope. The plague even impeded the sacramental life of the Church, as sickness prevented clergy from administering Last Rites. The effects of the pandemic lingered beyond the immediate outbreak, as communities lived in fear of residual surges while struggling to grieve the profound loss of life and opportunity. The plague had also laid bare the inadequacies and injustices of the medieval social system: authority figures shirked their responsibilities, apocalyptic fear turned people towards self-dependence rather than mutual support, and the rigid social hierarchy created a system in which some lives were more valuable than others. I don’t need to belabor the comparison here. The COVID-19 pandemic continues to fall upon us in waves of suffering and loss. The spread of this physical illness has exacerbated a number of social sicknesses: white supremacy, xenophobia, political polarization, economic inequality, abuse, addiction. Against all this, Julian proclaims a reality where God’s goodness — not earthly misery — has the last laugh.
Hall is particularly drawn to (and names her book after) one of Julian’s visions, where the mystic laughs at the devil. Standing at the side of Jesus, Julian experienced a contagious laughter that spread to all those around her — the heavenly host cheering and rejoicing because the Fiend had been conquered. This defiant laughter does not deny the existence of suffering, but robs it of its final power. As Hall puts it,
“A reasonable response to the manifold traumas around [Julian]... would have been precisely to catch a contagion of terror... [but] rather than viewing the world around her as filled to the brim with misery, she saw miracles and resilient safety. She did not deny that there was a fiend to be conquered. She did not pretend the world was simple… [or deny] the evil around her. Because of this her laughter is all the more powerful an antidote to a religion of fear.”¹
For Julian, the work of resisting evil is not grim and dour — it’s joyful, exuberant, light-hearted. She doesn’t make light of suffering, or overlook the evils lurking in the shadows of our lives. Rather, Julian boldly looks the Fiend in the face and laughs — not a spiteful or cynical sound, but a joyous one. She is full of hope, rejoicing in the triumph of Christ over death and all powers of darkness. Julian’s infectious laughter spreads, inviting us to join in the victory celebration of God’s all-powerful love.
Laughter is a powerful force in Christian theology. There is an old, anecdotal church tradition known as the “Easter laugh.” Easter is a season for telling jokes, recognizing that God has made a laughingstock of death and the Devil. The resurrection is an occasion for rejoicing, for light-heartedness as we feel the heavy weight of the grave lifted from our shoulders. Another English writer, G.K. Chesterton, says it well: “Moderate strength is shown in violence. Supreme strength is shown in levity.”² Resisting evil is hard work, and it requires strength. But it can be a task we approach with a spirit of levity, rather than feelings of dread. This levity lends us not only strength, but energy. The major crises and challenges facing our communities will take time and effort to tackle, and we won’t perfectly solve all our problems. Under the exhausting influence of late-stage COVID fatigue, watching the rapid resurgence of the Delta variant, Julian’s laughter offers us a model of perseverance. Levity, laughter, light-heartedness: these virtues keep our spirits high when the work is long and hard. They remind us that a posture of joy, even in the face of suffering and misery, can sustain us in the love of God.
Christian levity is neither cheap optimism nor some kind of vapid positivity culture. It is resistance, a stubborn refusal to succumb to despair and a persistent conviction that God’s saving promises ring true. It is the defiant hope that, no matter how dim the world may seem, we are never beyond the saving light of Christ. I think this is part of our Christian witness — to take up the work of the gospel (resisting evil, affirming dignity, pursuing justice, serving others, praising God) with an attitude that reflects the joy we find in the Good News. While we cannot will ourselves into happier circumstances, we can resist spirits of pessimism, cynicism, and fatalism. This too is part of perseverance — resisting the erosion of our hope amid the changes and chances of this life.
Julian’s light-hearted resistance invites us to balance safety and vulnerability. Throughout her reflections on Julian, Hall frequently refers to the theme of safety:
“One response to suffering would be to build up a layer of protection from any potential intruder, seeing each person as a possible danger… Our task is not to be stronger than or impervious to the evil around us. [Julian’s] version of safety makes us part of God’s crown, and that crown is on a savior who is also like a nurse, caring for children.”³
In our own moment of pandemic and political polarization, it is easy to see the people around us as threats. But Julian warns us away from same-thinking silos, or self-preserving isolation. Safety is found not in invincibility, but in vulnerability. Safety is paradoxically located in Christ’s crown, hanging from his bleeding head upon the cross. In a space of danger and death, God offers us hope. Julian envisions Jesus as a nurse, a source of comfort amid suffering. Describing Christ this way would have been an unusual metaphor in Julian’s day — nurses were not figures of power or prestige, but figures of messy and unflinching service. The nurse risks herself for the benefit of others, in spite of danger and contagion. Yet to benefit from the care of the nurse, the patient must be willing to be vulnerable. For us to benefit from the ministry of Jesus, we must allow ourselves to be cared for — a task that can be challenging and uncomfortable. We must accept that we have no power within ourselves to save ourselves, that our actions cannot guarantee safety or justice or peace. Envisioning Jesus as a nurse captures what is different about the power of Christ — it is not impervious strength, but unhindered compassion. As Christians we are called, not to toughness, but to tenderness. Julian’s timely wisdom seems especially evident now, as I recognize the sacrificial stories of nurses and medical professionals persevering through the present pandemic. In those moments when we are able to find safety amid suffering, we can hear echoes of Julian’s heavenly laughter.
I’m reminded of a song by the Australian rock band Gang of Youths. In “Persevere,” the singer writes about trying to make sense of unspeakable loss — the death of his friend’s infant daughter. The song is a gut punch, and I commend it to you (though it does include some strong language). One moment hits particularly hard: after the singer breaks down in doubt, anger, and disbelief; the voice of his grieving friend comforts him with a crude sort of creed:
“He just smiles and takes a dignified pause, and says ‘It’s okay to feel unbelievably lost. But God is full of grace, and his faithfulness is vast; there is safety in the moment when the shit has hit the fan. He’s not some vindictive motherfucker, nor is he shitty at his job... It’s not some disembodied heaven,’ he assured me then he laughs and says through tears: ‘You’ve got to persevere.’”
Amid all the turmoil of the past year, when I haven’t known whether to laugh or cry, I’ve reached for the simplicity of this refrain — we’ve got to persevere. Christian hope is built on the trust we have in Jesus: that he’s not bad at his job, that it’s okay to feel lost, that heaven is not distant or disembodied. This simple trust is the bedrock that grounds Julian’s levity. She can be light-hearted because she deeply believes in God’s unfailing, ever-faithful, all-loving goodness. In the face of suffering and evil, perseverance is not really about our words and actions. Rather, perseverance is our simple trust in God — about returning, again and again, to the goodness of the Lord.
And so Julian’s words resound, not just as the gentle murmuring of a comforting mother, but with the defiant force of a punk singer: “[The Lord] did not say, ‘You shall not be tormented, you shall not be troubled, you shall not be grieved,’ but he said ‘You shall not be overcome.’”⁴ Julian invites us to return to the Lord with both our tears and our laughter. We can persevere in the unassailable hope that the Fiend has been conquered, that there is safety in our suffering, that all manner of things shall be well.
Amy Laura Hall, Laughing at the Devil: Seeing the World with Julian of Norwich (Durham: Duke University Press, 2018), xiv.
G.K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday (1937), Chapter XIV.
Hall, 90.
Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love.
Gang of Youths, Go Farther in Lightness (Sydney: Sony Music Studios, 2017), “Persevere”.
