Medievalish 3.7
Julian & My Children on Littleness
Dear friend,
I am in the last stages of writing the draft of my second book… mere weeks left! So this newsletter today is not particularly new… it is about Julian of Norwich and my children! In other words, my favorite things to think alongside and with since 2015. But it is always where I return in my mind under stress and at my limits, when I feel daunted or afraid. If its reality comforts me, I figure it might comfort you as well.
My youngest daughter got married yesterday morning to a burgundy-colored bear aptly if uninspiringly named Bear Bear. She wore her finest frilly socks and a pink netting in her hair that a cheap toy had once come wrapped in. The bride’s elder sister was in attendance, wearing her own superior white veil (as befits the grandeur and dignity of the eldest). Her big brother flitted in and out listening to a Boxcar Children audiobook on headphones but occasionally offering loud advice. Weddings are unusual, but the general flavor offered by my children, of charm, creativity, chaos, with a spicy and sometimes liberal dash of whine, characterize my summer days.
I have been regrettably grumpy with them a lot these days with an upcoming big deadline. But I am also thankful for the rats, beastlings, Young Queens and King, chimmy-choppers, to use a few of their household nicknames. And I have been thinking on what they teach and freely offer, because I need to remember how to be little—how I am already little, and how good it is to be little.
When I first read the fourteenth-century English contemplative writer, Julian of Norwich, I was surprised by how much she mentions being “litel.” She especially foregrounds littlehead, or littleness, the state of being little, at the beginning of her Showings.1
Julian, in May of 1373, thought she was dying. She was in her bed, with a priest and her mother in attendance, when the crucifix held by the priest for comfort suddenly began bleeding and looking upon her with love. Julian is awestruck that Jesus would be “homely” with her, a simple creature still in the flesh. Immediately following, she sees a vision of Mary at the Annunciation. I write about this passage in Jesus through Medieval Eyes, and I regularly return to it in my thoughts. Julian, following long tradition, sees Mary as a model for receiving (and interpreting!) the presence of God. But prominent in her description of Mary is the repeated emphasis on Mary’s littleness:
…ghostly in bodily likenes, a simple maiden and a meeke, yong of age, a little waxen above a childe, in the stature as she was when she conceivede. Also God shewed me in part the wisdom and the truth of her soule, wherin I understode the reverent beholding that she beheld her God, that is her maker, marvayling with great reverence that he would be borne of her that was a simple creature of his making. For this was her marvayling: that he that was her maker would be borne of her that was made. And this wisdom and truth, knowing the greatnes of her maker and the littlehead of herself that is made, made her say full meekely to Gabriel: “Lo me here, Gods handmaiden.” (4.24-35)
This emphasis on littleness is repeated in quite a different context in the next chapter, at first seemingly unrelated to Julian’s Marian vision. Julian very famously sees “a little thing, the quantity of a hazelnut” which she understands to be the entire universe of creation. She marvels with fear that it could so easily all fall into nothingness. But she is answered in her understanding: “It lasts, and ever shall, for God loves it. And so all things have being by the love of God.” (
She reflects on this image longer and comes to multiple conclusions:
We need to know how small we are, and how small are things made are. For we seek rest in them, when we could have the larger reality, the Uncreated God who offers “very rest,” true rest. All that is created will not suffice, when Uncreated Love offers himself to us.
It is a great pleasure to God when a “simple soul comes to him naked, plainly, homely” and says, “God, for your goodness, give me yourself. You are enough to me, and I do not want to ask for anything less than you.” For his goodness “comprehendeth all his creatures and all his blessed works and overpasses without end. For he is the endlessness…”
This showing was given so that we can learn to cleave our souls to the utter goodness of God, and change how we pray, not from fear and avoidance and unknowing of love, but in confidence of how we are held in the greater love of the Godhead.
Julian then returns to Mary at Annunciation, her littleness again, her humility again. Clearly this matters deeply to her. From here, Julian moves into the theologically sophisticated series of sights and sounds that she will meditate on for decades. She starts, always, in the embrace of need and littleness.
We often use little as pejorative. We are moving on to bigger and better things. This is gonna be huge! Smallness of heart. To be sure, some of these phrases are pretty apt. So, what is with the littleness? What do Julian and my children have in common as teachers? Julian desperately wants to remind us of the beauty of littleness, of the ability to receive and welcome and enjoy it.
Here in America, we are staring down an increasingly frightening election year that feels like a train barreling towards a broken bridge. Our world faces some pretty scary monsters—global warming, unrepentant hatred of all kinds in the public arena, polarization. In return, I feel exceptionally tiny, and I want to do everything I can to control, to not feel that way, to BE BIG and strong-arm goodness upon the world.
“The root of all sin is fear,” wrote the great modern-day Dominican theologian Herbert McCabe,
the very deep fear that we are nothing; the compulsion, therefore, to make something of ourselves, to construct a self-flattering image of ourselves that we can worship, to believe in ourselves—our fantasy selves. I think all sins are failures in being realistic; even the simple everyday sins of the flesh, that seem to move from mere childish greed for pleasure, have their deepest origin in anxiety about whether we really matter, the anxiety that makes us desperate for self-reassurance.2
Isn’t this what Julian writes about? Julian turns her face toward reality, like the sunflower in my yard before it even blooms follows the sun. Leaning into one’s littleness is to embrace reality, to learn how to trust that God is much bigger than faltering empires and failing statesmen and even our own self-destructive willfulness to be big. But we are little. And we must learn how to be little again. Mary knows her reality, because Mary knows her littleness. And yet Mary changes the world!
This is where my children come in. Curious, ravenous, trying to clean up mistakes, desiring the good, fighting with their brother, celebrating, playing, apologizing begrudgingly but really playing together again, accepting failures and asking for help, learning with a zest and joy—these are the things that for us little ones of God. They are confident in their parents’ love and the love of God, even though I am a fairly poor model of love at times. I am watching them. I want to be more like them in this season of uncertainty, even when things are hard. Go to bed, Grace. Eat a snack, Grace. Go play with your friends, Grace. Clean up the mess you’ve made, Grace. Yes, research your local candidates, volunteer for things you care about, try to use less trash. But if we all can show up in our belovedness and our limitations, into what we are called, the world will be more real and less of a liar.3
I cannot be big enough to make it better. But I can look to what must be done right now, in my corner, with my people, of this little hazel-nut life held without fail in the love of God.
What I’ve been up to this month:
Painting the exterior of my house and surreptitiously saying lots of cuss words.
Footnotes and revision of book 2… countdown to draft deadline of AUGUST FIRST and it needs to be out of my hands, praise God.
I am guest preaching at my church in a series on virtues & vices on July 21 & August 18. The series itself runs from this Sunday through the end of August! If you’re a Denver local, come visit us, or if you’re not but you’d like to hear it, watch online.
Relatedly, I love teaching, leading retreats, and helping folks into the world of historical writing. If your church, ministry, or class would like to learn more about imagination and literature, our medieval brothers and sisters, Christian mysticism, or related topics, book me—my fall is starting to fill up!
Could I ask you lovely Substackers a favor? Would you please review Jesus through Medieval Eyes on Amazon if you’ve read the book? (I read them all and am profoundly grateful for each one.) You don’t even have to leave a comment if you’re uncomfortable, even just your stars go a long way. This is a part of publishing I do not particularly enjoy, but it’s important for platforms and publishers for reasons I do not fully understand. It has also been on super-sale the last couple of weeks, so snag a copy while it’s cheap if you haven’t!
What I’ve been reading this month:
Nonfiction: Henri Nouwen’s Following Jesus: Finding Our Way Home in an Age of Anxiety. A fitting title for the times.
Fiction: Kevin Kwan’s Lies and Weddings, which is not amazing but I did enjoy that it turned out to be a retelling of Anthony Trollope’s Doctor Thorne. Total surprise, not advertised anywhere on the book jacket, I just started noticing Barsetshire names everywhere!
Medieval/Medieval-adjacent: Frantically completing footnotes in the manuscript, so whatever odds and ends that requires.
Article: Nothing, my brain is fried.
A Prayer from the Past
Did you know that the song commonly called the Doxology was written as part of a whole poem? A seventeenth-century Anglican bishop named Thomas Ken (1637-1711) wrote it in the turmoil and chaos of the seventeenth century in England. I did not know this until very recently—I am surprised that it is that young! It feels like a song that has existed in my bones forever. Enjoy the rest of this poem-prayer for nighttime… you can even sing it to the hymn’s tune, “the Old One Hundredth”…
Glory to thee, my God, this night For all the blessings of the light; Keep me, O keep me, King of Kings, Beneath thy own almighty wings. Forgive me, Lord, for thy dear Son, The ill that I this day have done, That with the world, myself and thee I, ere I sleep, at peace may be. Teach me to live, that I may dread The grave as little as my bed; Teach me to die, that so I may Rise glorious at the awful day. O may my soul on thee repose, And with sweet sleep mine eyelids close, Sleep that may me more vigorous make To serve my God when I awake. When in the night I sleepless lie, My soul with heavenly thoughts supply; Let no ill dreams disturb my rest, No powers of darkness me molest. Praise God from whom all blessings flow, Praise him, all creatures here below, Praise him above, ye heavenly host, Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.
Peace for your July,
Grace
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Julian and my children have a long history of being partners in my spiritual formation, so this tracks well. My entire doctoral dissertation was basically the fruit of pregnancy & babies plus reading Julian of Norwich for the first time. I am not exaggerating.
Herbert McCabe, God, Christ, and Us ed. Brian Davies (London: Continuum, 2003), 17-18.
Few people portray this better than Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings. The littleness of the hobbits is actually part of their mission into Mordor. The temptation is to use the ring and become big, to reject the reality of how they are created and the goodness in their littleness.
I was struck by what Herbert McCabe said, that all sin results from an anxiety to "make something of ourselves, to construct a self-flattering image of ourselves that we can worship, to believe in ourselves—our fantasy selves." Wow, have I wrestled with this in my own life! The Western world puts such a premium on "achievement" that it breeds an existential fear of "littleness" of "meekness" of humble obscurity. To be forgotten about is the worst of all possible outcomes. I really need to do some more serious discernment about how these notions have affected my spiritual life. I will definitely be picking up a copy of McCabe's book and Nouwen's "Following Jesus."
This is so lovely! Thank you! Which translation of Julian do you read/ prefer?