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Contemplation and the Lay Cistercian Life
My latest column is now online at Patheos. It’s called Beholding the One Who Beholds Us and, as always, you can access it by following the link.
It’s my most personal column to date. In it I talk about my recent profession of life promises as a Lay Cistercian, and explain how that is related to my sense of being called to a contemplative life — even though, technically speaking, I live a “mixed” life since I aspire to contemplation without formally entering monastic life.
Please take a moment to check it out — and let me know what you think.
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Julian of Norwich In Her Own Voice
The Writings of Julian of Norwich
So today is May 13 — the other possible anniversary date for Julian of Norwich’s showings (the first being May 8). So to commemorate this day, I thought I would highlight editions of Julian’s writings that feature her text based on the old handwritten manuscripts we have of her writing — in other words, Julian in Middle English.
There are several editions of Julian in Middle English available. The first one I ever owned was the Colledge & Walsh edition, published by the Pontifical Institute for Mediaeval Studies in Toronto. Called A Book of Showings to the Anchoress Julian of Norwich, this was a two volume edition (the short and long texts of Julian’s visions bound separately) with extensive annotations. It’s a wonderful book — the editors drew on all of the most important manuscripts to pull together this edition — but, alas, now out of print. Used copies online range in price from about ten dollars to well over $100 — just be sure that you are getting both volumes, as the books should be sold as a set.
If you really want to go whole hog, you can order from Italy the SISMEL Edizioni del Galluzzo edition of Showing of Love: Extant Texts and Translations, edited by Sr. Anna Maria Reynolds, C.P. and Julia Bolton Holloway. This tome features four of the earliest manuscripts of Julian’s text, along with translations of three of them. Included are transcriptions of the British Library (Amherst) Manuscript of Julian’s “short” text (believed to date to the fifteenth century, making it the oldest Julian manuscript in existence); the Westminster Cathedral, Paris Bibliothèque Nationale, and one of two British Library (Sloan) Manuscripts of Julian’s “long” text (all dated to the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries). Along with the other manuscript in the British Library (Sloan) collection, these are the oldest copies of Julian’s work that we have, and like all handwritten manuscripts there are variations between them (like the date of the revelations: the Paris manuscript has the “XIIIth” of May, while the Sloan manuscript says the “VIIIth” of May). Furthermore, the Paris manuscript appears to have been edited at some point — the language is more formal and regularized than the Sloan manuscript, and its presentation of Julian’s arguments shine with a bit more clarity and polish. By contrast, the Sloan manuscripts seem to be more faithful to Julian’s own voice, showing more linguistic idiosyncrasies that are consistent with the dialect of East Anglia — including Norwich, where Julian lived. So it is nice to have a book that collects these different manuscripts together. It’s not cheap, though: expect to pay about two hundred Euro for the book itself, plus the shipping costs to get the book (it weighs about seven pounds) to you. If you think you want a copy, contact Julia Bolton Holloway directly.
The Showings of Julian of Norwich
Thankfully, less expensive editions of Julian’s writings are available, usually in annotated editions designed for students. My favorite would have to be Nicholas Watson’s and Jacqueline Jenkins’ The Writings of Julian of Norwich, published by Penn State, which includes both the short text and the long text (edited from both the Sloan and Paris manuscripts, creating a sort of “hybrid” edition of the long text). Carefully annotated, balanced in its presentation of modern Julian scholarship and textual criticism, and beautifully typeset, this is the edition of Julian I turn to first.
Meanwhile, Denise N. Baker edited the Norton Critical Edition of The Showings of Julian of Norwich, based on the Paris manuscript. This book features essays by several important scholars, including Grace M. Jantzen, Joan M. Nuth, Caroline Walker Bynum and B. A. Windeatt. And if you really want to economize, the TEAMS Middle English series of books from Western Michigan University includes a student edition of The Shewings of Julian of Norwich which is yours for the bargain price of only $10! Edited by Georgia Ronan Crampton, this book is based on the British Library Sloan manuscripts.
Now, I would encourage anyone interested in discovering Julian in her own voice to acquire all three of the student texts listed here — Watkins/Jenkins, essentially a “hybrid” of the Paris/Sloan manuscripts; Baker, based on the Paris manuscript, and Crampton, based on the Sloan. Why does this matter? Because of the textual differences I mentioned above. We should read the Sloan manuscript to get the best sense of Julian’s own voice, while the Paris manuscript offers the most incisive presentation of her theology. A hybrid edition that draws from both manuscripts hopefully preserves what is best in each, which is why the Penn State edition is so useful. Nevertheless, if you want to be thorough, take the time to explore each of these editions. It’s like listening to music in stereo: the distinctions only make it richer.
The Shewings of Julian of Norwich
Some contemplatives and scholars — a notable example being Maggie Ross — often insist that the only way to truly and fully appreciate the wisdom of a mystic like Julian of Norwich would be to read her in her own voice. I’m not quite that much of a purist: I’d rather see someone read Julian in an imperfect modern rendering of her words than not read her at all. But the more I learn about textual criticism, and the more time I spend with Julian in Middle English, the more I’ve come to appreciate the beauty and importance of reading an author like Julian in her original voice. It’s not like you have to learn Sanskrit or Mandarin Chinese! Middle English is actually quite easy to pick up (I’ve found that if I have difficulty with a passage, reading it aloud will often unlock its meaning), and if you have to have a dictionary handy and find yourself reading the text at a snail’s pace, well, so what? Julian is best read in a lectio divina manner anyway. So take the plunge. Get an edition of Julian’s revelations based on one of the old manuscripts, and explore. I am confident you will be richly blessed.
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Mysticism and Human Dignity
The Silent Cry
As the experience of oneness with God, mysticism is the radical substantiation of the dignity of the human being.
— Dorothee Soelle, The Silent Cry:
Mysticism and Resistance
I think this one just about says it all. It’s interesting to me that the most vocal critics of mysticism often seem to be those who have the most pessimistic view of human nature, stressing such ideas as the “total depravity” of humankind. It’s almost as if the mysticism-haters are saying “we reject mysticism because, frankly, we have no faith that God could ever love something as disgusting as a human being.”
Mysticism doesn’t say there is no such thing as sin, evil, or horrific ways in which human beings act against the nature of love. Mysticism merely proclaims that such horrors are never the final word. In pointing us to the transforming love of God, mysticism offers us the hope for healing and transformation, that even the most wounded (or wounding!) person remains within the reach of God’s healing power and grace. Therein lies “the radical substantiation of the dignity of the human being.” We do not presume to dignify ourselves — rather, we receive our dignity, lavishly, abundantly, and beyond what we could ever earn or deserve, from and through the boundless love of God. And that is a dignity that no human act (or opinion) can ever efface.
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Julian and Patheos
Continuing my celebration of Julian of Norwich this week, here is my latest column for Patheos: Julian of Norwich’s Timeless Message. Please follow the link and check it out.
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Generosity to God
Today is one of two possible days for the anniversary of Julian of Norwich’s visions, which took place either on May 8 or May 13, 1373. So of course, today I want to share with you one of the many gems to be found in her writing.
Revelations of Divine Love
God is the ground of our praying. Arising from this, we are shown true prayer and steady trust and God wants us to be generous in both alike.
— Mother Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love,
Backhouse/Pipe edition.
This little snippet from the first chapter of Julian of Norwich’s book of showings struck me as so powerful in its implications that at first I had to wonder if it was even a literal translation, or just a paraphrase. Sometimes editors take liberties when rendering ancient texts into the language of today. So I turned to the Watkins/Jenkins edition of The Writings of Julian of Norwich in Middle English, and found the passage I quoted above in Julian’s own voice:
God is ground of our beseking. Heerin was seen two fair properties: that one is rightful prayer, that other is seker trust, which he will both be alike large.
Watkins’ and Jenkins’ annotations point out that “seker” means “certain” while “alike large” means “be equally generous.” So it may not be a literal rendition, but it seems accurate enough. And what a wondrous statement it is! Julian, the fourteenth century visionary, reports that God wants us to be generous in our prayer and generous in our trust. Hold nothing back! Share all your anxieties and worries with the Divine Mystery — and then let them go.
So do the two go hand in hand? I think so. If I can more fully and freely give myself to God in prayer, I am liberated to more fully and freely trust God, even when worldly circumstances might suggest that such trust is hardly useful at all. Trusting in God is hardly a magic ticket to ease and happiness — my family and I watched the movie Soul Surfer the other night, about a young devout Christian named Bethany Hamilton from Hawaii, whose two great loves are God — and surfing. She and her family had been praying that God’s will be done in her life, only to have a horrifying tragedy ensue: one October morning when she was 13, a shark came along and made a meal out of one of her arms. At this point skeptics will cry “See! Life is absurd!” while true believers will emphasize the rest of the story, of how less than two years later Hamilton won a national surfing competition with only one arm and went on to become a professional surfer — and an evangelist who travels internationally. See the deal? God can give us something far beyond anything we can imagine, but that doesn’t mean we get to avoid the suffering and pain that is a part of every life. In fact, sometimes it is through that very suffering that miracles happen.
Bethany Hamilton's Autobiography
How can we trust life, and God, in the face of apparent absurdity, unspeakable tragedy, or just normal circumstances where life seems so hard, and hope in such short supply? I believe Julian’s insight provides us with a meaningful answer. Be generous in prayer, both the vocal and the contemplative varieties. Be transparent before the Divine Mystery. Befriend God’s presence in your life through word and silence, and then learn to trust. I think trust is a spiritual “muscle” — if we use it, it gets bigger and stronger, but if we’re lazy with it, it atrophies. It’s our choice. We just have to remember that we might be called to trust even through the most harrowing of circumstances —but if Christ can trust on the cross, and a young surfer girl can trust losing a limb, cannot you and I do the same?
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