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MOTHERLY LORD, LORDLY MOTHER(1)
Bridai mysticism, while not exactly conspicuous by its absence in Julian's Showings, is rare. She occasionally calls Christ a spouse, but she prefers the word "mother." Her focus on maternal imagery, however, is in no way exclusive. She also uses paternal, fraternal, and other images, very often in consecutive sentences, or even in the same sentence:
And thus I saw that god enjoyeth that he is our fader, and god enjoyeth that he is our moder, and god enjoyeth that he is our very spouse, and our soule his lovyd wyfe. And Crist enjoyeth þat he is our broder, and Jhesu enioyeth that he is our savyour. Theyse be v hye joyes, as I vnderstonde, in whych he wylle that we enioye, hym praysyng, (hym) thankyng, hym lovyng, hym endlessly blessyng, alle that shall be savyd (Showings 546).(2)
This article will first examine the fluidity of Julian's imagery, the way in which she combines masculine and feminine symbols to present a God who is both a motherly lord and a lordly mother, and suggest that it implies a relationship to God that is profoundly Trinitarian rather than superficially Christocentric.
The implications of Julian's androgynous God-talk will then be explored for modern attempts to arrive at gender-free God-talk. Julian offers an existential and operational approach which is solidly Biblical and commensurate with process theology, rather than with the Platonic and Aristotelian, essentialist language of traditional theology. Finally, Julian's spirituality inspires a model of the spiritual path other than that of heterosexual union.
FLUIDITY OF IMAGES
Julian's lack of interest in fixed, gender-specific titles begins, perhaps not accidentally, with her own name. Margery Kempe, who would have had no reason to conceal Julian's real name, matter-of-factly calls her Dame Jelyan, and so she has, apparently by her own wish, remained.(3) It is no surprise that she consistently uses the female gender in the case of Mary, calling her "oure moder," but she feels no contradiction in moving instantly to Christ as "oure very moder":
Thus oure lady is oure moder, in whome we be all beclosyd and of hyr borne in Crist, for she that is moder of oure savyoure is mother of all þat ben savyd in our sauyour; and oure...