I called this newsletter ‘the anchorite’ because I have always liked the idea. I joked with a friend, a long time ago, that it must be nice to live a peaceful and contemplative life in a cupboard where men aren’t. Think Julian of Norwich; her Revelations of Divine Love is the earliest surviving English-language book to be written by a woman, and it was written in seclusion, walled-off from the world in a cell adjacent to a chapel. It’s nice to think that this newsletter counts as writing, because I am low-key in anguish about revising my own manuscript, which is proving about as difficult as you might expect under pandemic conditions.
(I know my erstwhile Latin teacher reads this newsletter, so Andrew, this one’s for you: ‘anchorite’ is rooted in Greek ἀναχωρητής, ‘one who has retired from the world.’ Not, as far as I can tell, anything to do with a ship’s anchor, though I like the idea of something steadfast — something fixed in place.)
Julian of Norwich is considered, these days, a significant Christian theologian. Her particular spirituality, however, was a little more fraught in its day. Like Margery Kempe, a mystic famous for emoting near-violently and near-constantly over her irrepressible love of Christ, Julian’s expression and exploration of faith landed squarely outside the norms of her age, which were premised almost completely on the authority of the institution of the church. This was pre-Reformation: sermons were handed down in Latin, to a lay-population unlikely to be able to read for themselves. The divine was mediated through priests and sacraments, which sat comfortably at the heart of the medieval parish community, and where this approach was challenged (hi, John Wyclif!) it was treated as heresy. Meanwhile, Julian wrote in vernacular Middle English, recounting her own unique and personal experience of God.
I’ve never believed in God. Even if I did believe in God, I’m under no delusions about how contemporary church institutions (institutions, not people) would treat me, queer and transgender and disinclined to be quiet about either thing. But I am interested in belief, the same way I am interested in people. I like the idea of God, of one sort or another; it comforts me when people believe in things. I wrote one of my final-year undergrad dissertations about unorthodox forms of medieval devotion, and more strictly about medieval saints’ lives; it touched on anchorites and mystics as forms of devotional practice which matched the cult of saints for unruliness in the face of institutions. I came to the idea after reading extracts from the Golden Legend in second year, and being stricken by the willingness of the martyrs it depicted to die for a God they sincerely believed would welcome them.
Saints were superhuman in their endurance and their feats of devotional courage; they were worshipped in their own right, and so sat uneasily within the didactic mission of the medieval church. You’re not supposed to want to die for God, you see. You’re supposed to hear about some arbitrary imagined figure dying for God, in a land that isn’t yours, and feel appropriately inspired to do better day-to-day. That’s a lot for any given short-form story to accomplish, when it’s also trying to hold your attention early on Sunday morning.
It stresses me out constantly that almost anything can become a form of social control, if the institutions underpinning your life try hard enough. I like saints’ lives. I think they’re neat. I struggled to write that dissertation in part because I thought they were neat, and because it made me sad to think that these weird, impassioned stories could be twisted into something institutionalised and conformist. I get a similar feeling almost any time a politician quotes from a poem.
I think that’s why I like the idea of the anchorite. Life is more complicated than lifelong self-isolation, most of the time, but whenever I’m compelled to participate in an institution I don’t remotely trust, it is reassuring to think: wouldn’t it be great to opt out. I could wrap myself up in my anchorhold flat, become beloved by my neighbours for my wisdoms, write out my revelations without trying to engage with the industry behind publication. (This is not me trying to dunk on publishing. @ publishing, hello, I love you, I can’t wait for you to buy into my stupid book.) And here, now, compelled to isolation by extraordinary circumstances, it’s reassuring to think of it as a choice. I’m home because I want to be home. I’m writing to you because I want to be writing to you. I am choosing to believe that my writing to you matters, in all the confusion of the world outside.
I will continue to be here for as long as I can. All shall be well, et cetera.
W