Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Progressive Christian
All Things Shall Be Well?

All Things Shall Be Well?

Last updated on: July 3, 2018 at 6:50 am by Vance Morgan

All Things Shall Be Well? 2018-07-03T06:50:16-04:00 Vance Morgan

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

I don’t know when I first heard this well-known saying; it regularly pops up in various places. A teaching colleague commented on it in her lecture a few semesters ago on Julian of Norwich, the medieval Christian mystic to whom the saying is attributed. T. S. Eliot includes it in “Little Gidding,” the last poem in Four Quartets.

My friend Marsue says “all shall be well” on occasion, and Jeanne says that her boss uses the phrase once in a while. Most recently, I came across it early this morning in Glass Houses, Louise Penney’s latest installment in her Inspector Gamache mystery series. Penney’s characters seem capable of quoting T. S. Eliot, Julian of Norwich, and Shakespeare at the drop of a hat—would that we all were so literate.

All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

I’m not buying it. Despite its lovely sentiment, Julian’s claim has always struck me as platitudinous, the kind of thing one says in response to tragic events or difficult circumstances when perhaps silence would be the best response, in the same way that the people I grew up with used to quote another overused (and mistranslated) platitude from Romans: “All things work together for good for those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose.” All shall be well? Really?

All shall be well when an infantile, unqualified, narcissistic former television reality show star is President of the United States?

All shall be well when many people in our country seem to have little problem with little children being separated from their parents and held in cages?

All shall be well when thousands of young people, whose only fault is that their parents brought them illegally to the United States when they were infants or toddlers, now face uncertainty and the possibility of being forced to leave the only country they’ve ever called home?

Need I continue?

It’s telling that Julian of Norwich had to repeat “all shall be well” three times in an attempt to convince herself and us that it is true. Because it often sounds less like a truth and more like whistling in the dark as we try to convince ourselves that everything isn’t going to hell in a handbasket.

But perhaps there is reason to understand Julian’s platitude differently—two examples of such reasons have come to my attention in the last two days. Louise Penney is my favorite mystery author (and I’ve read a LOT of mysteries) for a number of reasons; not the least of these is her remarkable transparency and honesty in the “Author’s Notes” at the end of each of her books. At the end of A Great Reckoning, the previous book (published last year) to Glass Houses in her series, Penney revealed to her readers that her husband was suffering from progressive dementia.

Acknowledgements in previous books consistently established the love and closeness between Penney and her husband; at the time of A Great Reckoning’s publication, his dementia had progressed to the point that he could no longer speak, walk, or remember. Penney wrote of his courage, good humor, and continuing love (as well as hers for him), thanking dozens of people for making it possible for her to continue to write under extraordinarily difficult circumstances. Jeanne and I wondered whether she would be able to write going forward at all in such a difficult situation.

This morning, in the “Author’s Notes” to Glass Houses (going first to such notes in every book is one of my reading habits), I read that Penney’s husband died. She had been called back early from a book tour because he was failing; he died a few weeks later, “peacefully, at home, surrounded, as he was in life, by love.” Glass Houses was written while her husband was failing and after he died. Penney shares that “writing became my safe harbor, my escape in the dark hours of the morning.” I am only half way through the book, but expect to finish it today or tomorrow—it is that good. Humane, insightful, beautifully crafted with characters who become the reader’s friends over twelve installments in the series—it is clear that in the midst of pain and sorrow, Julian of Norwich’s claim that “all shall be well” at least occasionally rang true for Louise Penney.

Last semester, I had a very different sort of glimpse into how, despite all immediate appearances, all things might be well. A freshman student in one of my classes dropped by during office hours. Lizzy had been sick and missed class earlier in the week; on Thursday after class she asked if she could stop by during office hours and ask a question or two about the text assigned for the class she missed. I said “Of course!” Then she mentioned that in one of her other classes, her first assignment was to interview one of her professors. “Can I interview you?” she asked—“Of course!” I said once again.

During her subsequent visit to my office, after working with Lizzy on one of the texts assigned for the day she was sick that had confused her, the time came for her to interview me. I’ve done this sort of thing before and expected her to ask questions like “Why (or How) did you become a professor?” and “Do you like teaching at Providence College?” all the time knowing that what she really wanted to ask was “Why do you have a ponytail?” and “Why do you have all sorts of penguin pictures and paraphernalia all over your office?” Instead, Lizzy opened to a new page of her notebook and said “I have one question to ask you. What do you think is the importance and value of a liberal arts education?”

Wow. Let’s say I’ve thought about this just a tiny bit over the past many years. I used to be the director of the large, team-taught interdisciplinary Development of Western Civilization Program that Lizzie is now my student in, and used to sell the importance of the program to faculty, administrators, prospective students, and anyone else who might listen by spinning out answers to this very question of various lengths.

“How long do you have?’ I asked Lizzie. In response to her slightly worried look, I said “I’ll give you my short answer. I believe that the value of a liberal arts education is that it provides the opportunity to identify, then learn to use, the tools of life-time learning. In my opinion, the success of an education has little to do with how much you remember or have memorized by the time you graduate. It has far more to do with whether you have become convinced that learning is a lifetime process, one that does not just happen in a classroom or for a grade.”

As I spoke, I saw a small smile spread across Lizzie’s face; she became comfortable in my office for the first time since she had arrived. She has not yet declared a major (and doesn’t need to until her fourth semester at the college), but I would not be surprised if she has already experienced some pressure from her parents and/or others to declare a major in something practical that will guarantee a good paycheck when she graduates in May 2021.

Hearing early on in her college experience from one of her professors, someone whom she does not yet really know but who definitely looks like he’s been around the block a few times, that she is in the beginning stages of an process that is more about how to live a life than about how to make a living seemed to surprise her, but also put her at ease a bit. This is going to be okay. I can do this. All manner of things shall be well after all. And I was reminded once again of the privilege of opening such doors to young people—and I even get paid to do it.

Julian of Norwich’s statement is not a guarantee that everything will all work out for the best in the end—because for many, perhaps most, people, it won’t. But it does remind each of us that we are surrounded, even in the darkest of places and most dire of circumstances, by hope that can be found and peace that is available. It is the privilege and responsibility of each of us to find ways in which we can help create a world in which “all shall be well”—no matter what is happening around us.

belief

books

Christianity

Development of Western Civilization

Development of Western Civilization

Previous Post

July 1, 2018

Prayer for People Who Don't Believe in God

Next Post

July 4, 2018 Happy Independence Day!

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abortion Advent AI Angels Artificial intelligence atheism attention baptism Baptists beauty belief Benedictines Bible bicycling Big Bird books Bovina Camaldoli hermitage Canada Catholicism cats certainty change Christianity Christmas Collegeville Covid-19 creativity Development of Western Civilization dogs doubt Easter Enneagram Epiphany Episcopal ethics Eucharist evil extroverts Facebook faith family fear flowers forgiveness freedom friends God goodness grace happiness heaven hell history Holy Spirit Holy Week hope human nature humility humor idolatry incarnation introverts irreverence Islam Jeanne Jesus Joe Biden joy Judaism justice Kamala Harris knowledge Lent listen literature liturgy love Marsue Memorial Day miracles movies music mystery mythology NPR Old Testament optimism paradox peace Penguins philosophy piano podcast politics power prayer Protestantism Providence College Religion Rhode Island sabbatical sacrament science seeing silence Simone Weil Socrates soul sports St. John's College stories suffering tattoo teaching technology television theology thinking time tolerance transcendence travel trees trust truth Uncategorized Vermont wisdom wonder writing

Select a Month May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz