Showings

Overview

About two hundred pages, Julian of Norwich’s Showings, the earliest surviving book in English by a woman. In May 1373, at thirty years old and near death from serious illness, Julian received sixteen visions of the crucified Christ and of God’s love. She wrote a short account soon afterward, and after some twenty years of sustained reflection as an anchoress permanently enclosed in Norwich, composed a much longer, considerably more theologically developed version.

The showings include Julian’s vision of all creation as a thing the size of a hazelnut held safely in God’s hand, the parable of the lord and the servant, her repeated assurance that all shall be well, and her extended meditation on Christ as mother. The considerable gap between her original visionary experience and her fuller written reflection gives the text a distinctive quality, visionary experience patiently tested and refined through decades of sustained solitary contemplation.

What happens

The sixteen visions. In May 1373, while near death from serious illness at the age of thirty, Julian receives sixteen distinct visions of the crucified Christ and of God’s love, an intense visionary experience occurring at a moment of genuine physical crisis and proximity to death.

The short text. Julian writes a short account of her visions soon after receiving them, recording her initial understanding of what she has witnessed while the experience remains comparatively fresh, a text considerably less theologically developed than her later, fuller reflection.

Twenty years as an anchoress. Julian spends roughly twenty years living as an anchoress, permanently enclosed in a small cell attached to a church in Norwich, a life of sustained solitary contemplation during which she continues reflecting on the meaning and implications of her original visionary experience.

The vision of the hazelnut. Among her showings, Julian describes seeing all creation as a small thing the size of a hazelnut resting safely in God’s hand, understanding through this image that everything exists only because God loves it and actively sustains it in continued being.

The parable of the lord and the servant. Julian relates an extended parable in which a faithful servant falls into a ditch while hastening to fulfill his lord’s will, and the lord regards him not with anger but with compassion, reframing the relationship between human sin and divine judgment through this distinctive narrative.

The long text and Christ as mother. After her twenty years of reflection, Julian composes a much longer written account, including her repeated assurance that all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well, and her extended, theologically original meditation on Christ as mother, nurturing believers into spiritual life.

How to read it

Read the considerable gap between Julian’s original 1373 visions and her much longer text completed some twenty years later as central to understanding the work; this is not raw mystical transcript but patiently developed theology, visionary experience tested and refined against decades of sustained solitary contemplation.

Pay close attention to how the vision of all creation as a hazelnut held in God’s hand condenses cosmic vulnerability and divine protective care into a single, strikingly domestic and accessible image, worth considering as representative of Julian’s broader theological method throughout the showings.

Notice how the parable of the lord and the servant reframes conventional expectations about divine judgment of human sin; the lord’s compassion rather than anger toward the fallen servant offers a theological account of divine response that differs meaningfully from more punitive contemporary theological frameworks.

Consider Julian’s famous assurance that all shall be well as a genuinely daring theological claim rather than simple comfort; she offers this assurance without minimizing sin or suffering’s actual reality, holding together divine goodness and honest acknowledgment of genuine present pain rather than resolving this tension too easily.

Read this text alongside Augustine’s Confessions to compare how two major Christian mystical and theological writers, separated by nearly a millennium and writing from considerably different social positions, each combined sustained personal reflection with genuine theological originality in addressing questions of divine love, human sin and ultimate redemption.

Questions it raises

• Does the considerable twenty-year gap between Julian’s original visions and her fuller written reflection strengthen the text’s theological authority, representing patiently tested understanding, or does this gap raise questions about how much her later interpretation shaped or transformed the original visionary experience?
• How does Julian’s parable of the lord and the servant, offering compassion rather than anger as the divine response to human failing, compare to more conventional medieval theological accounts of sin and judgment? Does this distinctive theological move represent genuine originality or draw on existing but less prominent theological currents?
• What does Julian’s extended meditation on Christ as mother accomplish theologically that more conventional paternal divine imagery could not achieve? Does this maternal imagery meaningfully expand how divine love can be understood, or does it risk simply substituting one gendered metaphor for another?
• How should a reader weigh Julian’s famous assurance that all shall be well against the genuine suffering and sin she does not minimize elsewhere in the text? Does she successfully hold these two claims together, or does the tension between ultimate assurance and present pain remain genuinely unresolved?
• Given that this is the earliest surviving book in English by a woman, what does Julian’s specific position as an anchoress, permanently enclosed and largely separate from broader ecclesial and academic theological institutions, suggest about how she was able to develop such theologically original ideas outside more conventional scholastic channels?
• What does Julian’s vision of creation as a small hazelnut held safely in God’s hand suggest about the relationship between divine transcendence and intimate care? Does rendering cosmic scale through such a small, domestic image successfully convey both God’s power and God’s closeness simultaneously?