Matrix: Julian of Norwich should be more famous
Could seeing God in a new way change the world?
This question almost lies at the heart of Lauren Groff’s new novel, Matrix. Groff’s book follows the life of Marie de France, a woman who lived and wrote in the 12th century. Essentially nothing is known of Marie other than her writing. In Matrix, Groff extrapolates, portraying Marie as the half-sister of the King (illegitimate and born of rape), the unrequited lover of the queen, Eleanor of Aquitainem, and, because of her ugliness and unfeminity, barred from marriage and banished from the court. Eleanor sends the heartbroken Marie to a forgotten and decaying abbey in England, and after being once more rejected by the queen, Marie turns all her will towards making the abbey a place of wealth, safety, and power. All the while, Marie has visions from the Virgin Mary which she wields to achieve her ambitions. And after decades of serving as abbess, the abbey becomes all that Marie dreamed. Hundreds of nuns live within the walls and labyrinth surrounding the abbey where they grow rich from their work as scribes. Marie herself becomes a woman to be loved and feared, spreading her influence and reputation as far as Rome.
At the end of the novel, after Marie’s death, her visions of the Virgin are burned by one of her subordinates because of their ‘blasphemous’ contents. Groff asks the question, what would have happened if Marie’s visions had survived? What if the world was able to read visions of the Virgin Mary and Eve kissing instead of in bitter enmity? What if the world saw God not as the Father but as a woman or as a hen giving birth to all of creation? Would we still be making a hell out of earth, burning and stoking fires which will ultimately devour ourselves? Could seeing God in a new way change the world?
This ending frustrates me, but I’m going to try not to just complain about Matrix. Instead, I’ll focus on the work of a different woman from the 14th century, Julian of Norwich, who was essentially the mystic that Matrix wishes could have existed. As she lay on the brink of death, Julian received a series of visions from God. They are simultaneously more provocative and more orthodox than the fictional visions of Marie of France. Marie believes (or at least Groff believes) she is being heretical by considering and valuing the delights of the body. On the contrary, Julian writes that “[God] does not despise what he has made, nor does he disdain to serve us in the simplest natural functions of our body.” Seeing God as a mother hen (which draws on a quote from Jesus himself) is nowhere near as radical as Julian who writes, “And so I saw that God rejoices that he is our Father, and God rejoices that he is our Mother, and God rejoices that he is our true spouse, and that our soul is his beloved wife.” Further, she writes that Christ, the Wisdom of God, is our Divine Mother and sees the inner life of the Trinity in intimate and familial terms.
Julian’s visions and subsequent writing of Revelations of Divine Love reimagines God. Reimagining not in a way that breaks away from the past, but reimagining the promises and nature of God which had been neglected. Julian’s is not a new revelation, but a recollection of the words of John: God is Love.
“And from the time that it was revealed, I desired many times to know in what was our Lord’s meaning. And fifteen years after and more, I was answered in spiritual understanding, and it was said: What, do you wish to know your Lord’s meaning in this thing? Know it well, love was his meaning. Who reveals it to you? Love. What did he reveal to you? Love. Why does he reveal it to you? For love.”
In Matrix, Groff presents Marie as a counterfactual, suggesting, at least hoping, that the world could have been different if we had allowed a woman to hold power and see God. However, Julian of Norwich actually does exist and her visions did not topple the church. Julian is embraced by the church, having feast days in the Anglican, Lutheran, and Catholic traditions. It is to our detriment that she is not better known and cherished, but she was not silenced and you can read Revelations of Divine Love right now, for free.
Unfortunately then, the answer to Groff’s hypothetical question is a resounding no. A woman did see God in clear and insightful ways and was able to spread her writings across the planet and centuries, yet the world is still this world, still fallen, still broken.
Fittingly, I think Matrix gives a clear answer as to why Julian’s visions couldn’t change the world. “Greatness is not the same as goodness.” Groff writes this, but at the same time she cannot look away from the greatness that is in Marie, to the goodness that is in the other nuns. Ultimately, Marie and Matrix are transfixed by power. As is all the world. The New York Times quips that greatness may not be the same as goodness, “but it does make for a more compelling story line.” And we are drawn, again and again, away from quiet goodness to the compelling plots of power. Just as Matrix is, envisioning a world where women hold power, but unable to imagine a world which isn’t controlled by power and ambition.
It cannot see what Julian saw:
It is Godlike to love.
It is Godlike to create and it is also Godlike to rest.
Caring for sparrows is Godlike.
It is Godlike to be in poverty and powerless.
And for now, there is still time for us to pay attention to Julian’s visions. Revelations of Divine Love is unburned, waiting for us to pick up and take notice of. We still have time to see and see again God as Love. We can see God as not merely awe inspiring acts of power, but gracious acts of generosity. With this vision of God, we can have an incredible hope, that even when, or especially when, we are at our weakest God is near to us. Power, politics, and violence cannot be the last word. And it is in and through this vision of God that I will echo Julian: “It is true that sin is the cause of all this pain, but all will be well, and every kind of thing will be well.”
