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I've shared here how last summer Jana and I were able to visit Julian of Norwich's church, St. Julian's Church in Norwich. During that visit, I picked up a copy of Revelations of Divine Love in Middle English, with the hope that I'd read it through. But a year has passed, and I haven't done it. And so, I thought I'd publicly commit myself to the task, using Fridays to work through the eighty-six chapters of Revelations of Divine Love, highlighting a line or passage from each chapter in the Middle English along with an accompanying translation into modern English.
And to be clear, there is no real reason to share Julian's Middle English other than whimsy on my part.
To start, a little background about the text we call Revelations of Divine Love.
We don't know much about Julian's life prior to her becoming an anchoress. Anchoritism was a distinctive practice of medieval Christianity, where the anchorite, often a woman, would have a cell built that was attached to an exterior wall of a church. The anchoress lived enclosed in her cell for the rest of her days. A window made in the church wall, called a "squint" or "hagioscope," allowed the anchoress to see the altar and participate in the Mass from her cell. Another window in the cell opened to the outside. At this window, the anchoress could receive visitors. It was common for people to seek out an anchoress for prayer and spiritual counsel. We know Julian engaged in this practice because we have a firsthand account from Margery Kempe, who made a pilgrimage to Norwich to visit with "Dame Julian."
What eventually became Revelations of Divine Love comes from two different texts, the Short Text and the Long Text. Julian fell ill in 1373 and experienced a series of sixteen visions she called "showings." We believe she wrote down a brief summary of these showings—the Short Text—shortly after her illness and prior to her enclosure. After her enclosure, Julian returned to her showings and expanded upon them, reflecting on their deeper meanings. This produced what is called the Long Text, which we know as Revelations of Divine Love, consisting of eighty-six chapters and originally written in Middle English.
In Chapter One Julian takes a quick walk through her sixteen showings, the outline of all that is to follow. Here are the opening sentences of Revelations of Divine Love which describe the first two visions:
This is a Revelation of love that Jesus Christ, our endless blisse, made in sixteen Sheweings or Revelations particular. Off the which, the first is of His pretious coroning with thornys; and therewith was comprehended and specifyed the Trinite with the incarnation, and unite betwix God and man soule, with many faire sheweings of endless wisedome and teacheing of love, in which all the sheweings that follow be grounded and onyd. The second is the discolloureing of His faire face in tokenyng of His deareworthy passion.
Translation from Fr. John-Julian:
This is a revelation of love that Jesus Christ, our endless joy, made in sixteen showings or revelations, in detail, of which
The first is concerning his precious crowning with thorns; and therewith was included and described in detail the Trinity with the Incarnation and the unity between God and man's soul, with many beautiful showings of endless wisdom and teachings of love in which all the showings that follow are based and united.
The second showing is the discoloring of His fair face in symbolizing His dearworthy passion.
As you can see from the first two showings—the crowning of thorns and the discolored face of Jesus—Julian’s revelations focus upon what she calls Christ’s “dearworthy passion.” “Dearworthy” is a Middle English word describing something of “dear worth,” as in “precious” or “valued.” As Julian will reveal in Chapters 2 and 3, as she lay dying due to her illness her priest gave her a crucifix to gaze at. As she did so, the “showings” came to her. Thus, much of Revelations of Divine Love is taken up with meditating upon the blood and agony of Jesus and what his passion reveals about God’s love and the human predicament.
I bring all this up at the start because this very medieval aspect of Julian’s spirituality, her focus upon Christ’s “dearworthy passion,” sits in tension with many “spiritual but not religious” appropriations of her revelations. To be sure, there is an optimism in Julian that stands in stark contrast with much within medieval Christianity. But at the same time, Julian's focus upon Christ’s death, agony, and blood contrasts with progressive Christian takes on Julian. For many progressive Christians, the passion of Christ is an obscene scandal.
For Julian, in all its bloody agony, the passion is dearworthy.
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Specifically, Jesus’ authority to forgive sins.
In my soon-to-be-released book, The Book of Love, I share a story from college. I was in my Gospel of Luke class, and we encountered one of those stories where Jesus forgives a man’s sins. The arrogation of authority alarms the Jewish leaders. Who does Jesus think he is?
As we discussed the story in class, I raised my hand to ask a question: “I thought blood was necessary to forgive sins. But Jesus was forgiving people by fiat. He just declared it so, and it was so. What gives?”
My comment about blood being necessary to forgive sins comes, as you know, from Hebrews 9:22: “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” So if that’s true, what’s going on with Jesus forgiving sins just by saying a word? Is blood necessary or not?
What I’m wondering here is whether the category of high-handed sin in Numbers 15 helps clarify some of what is happening in Jesus’ ministry. Specifically, think about Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners. Think about Jesus going to the house of Zacchaeus. Think about Jesus’ mission to seek and save those in Israel who were lost. Who were these lost people? Many of them would have been high-handed sinners, according to Numbers 15, those who had been “cut off” from the community.
As I described in the recent series, such sinners would have been cut off from the temple cult, deprived of any sacrificial remedy for their guilt. The provocation of Jesus’ ministry, therefore, was his going to these high-handed sinners in order to restore them to community. But as we reflected on in the last series, this restoration could not be accomplished through the Levitical system or the temple cult. Restoration, akin here to a resurrection from the dead, could only be accomplished by a direct act of God.
And that is precisely what Jesus does. Jesus assumes the authority to restore the high-handed sinner, an authority the Jewish leaders rightly note only God possesses. And relevant to my question in my college class, this forgiveness does not involve blood, because it is a restoration happening “outside the camp,” beyond the imagination and purview of the sacrificial system.
I have not comprehensively stress-tested this idea across Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but I am floating it as a hypothesis that might clarify, more precisely, what was so controversial and provocative about Jesus’ actions and ministry. In his restoration of high-handed sinners, he was doing something only God could do.
rydra_wongunshaved_mouse_feedMy friends, I ask you to consider a simple hypothetical:
Maybe we’re the assholes?
This meme did the rounds last year after Pixar’s Elio crashed and burned and someone at Disney had gotten into the hard liquor and had some feelings they needed to express. And while I do believe that 90% of the time creators blaming the audience for the failure of their project is the mark of a talentless hack so high off their own farts that they genuinely believe that the only way anyone could dislike their output is if there was something morally wrong with them…
…you know what? I gotta give them this one. And I can say that, because I am actually one of the two people who saw Elio (Micro-Mouse is the other one). Elio is not a perfect film and I probably won’t watch it again. But it was charming, well animated, sincere and, yes, not a retread or rehash or cynical nostalgia bait cash grab and we all just left it to die on the road like a leper.
It’s one thing for Disney to complain that we didn’t give them a participation trophy for Strange World or Wish. When we said “we want original animated films”, the rider “…that aren’t absolute bobbins” should have been taken as read.
But with Elio, they showed up. They gave us what we said we wanted. Aaaaaand it turns out we were a bunch of lying hoors because we instead gave a billions dollars to this:
Then again, this year saw the hugely succesful release of Hoppers, which was not merely good like Elio but genuinely excellent with a truly original premise, animation that actually innovates and shakes up the old Pixar house style and some great comedy. Well, I say “original”. Clearly they stole wholesale from Don’t Trust Fish.
But it doesn’t matter! Because the next Hoppers might end up like Elio. We can’t be trusted, and once you’ve proven you can’t be trusted no one will ever deal with you because they know you’ll never negotiate in good faith and now somehow fucking Iran has the world’s economy by the goddamn short-hairs.
I mean, that’s how we get Zootopia 2.
Okay, the movie begins with a recap of what happened “be-fur”. This is a warning that the movie knows what puns are and has ideas of when to use them that are both radical and maximalist.
We begin our story a week after Nick has graduated from police academy and been partnered with Judy Hopps. With both Bellweather and Lionheart now in jail, the new mayor is a horse named Brian Windancer voiced by Patrick Warburton and the whole city is gearing up for it’s centennial celebration. At ZPD HQ, Chief Bogo tries to assign Nick and Judy to traffic duty only to discover they’ve gone rogue to bust up both a smuggling ring and and the previous movie’s worldbuilding all to hell. And it all starts with one little comedic bit.
So, here’s the deal. Nick and Judy have gone undercover as a married couple, complete with baby played by Nick’s old partner in crime Finnick wearing rabbit ears. They’re doing this to trick a shady ant-eater into signing Finnick’s cast because…doesn’t matter. The point is, the ant-eater sees them impersonating a married couple with a baby and doesn’t seem to think there’s anything weird about that. Which, ha, cute bit. Little red meat for the shippers. But also…what the FUCK? Because this scene means that it would be possible for Nick and Judy to have a child together which would mean that ANY two species in Zootopia can hybridise in which case there should be hybrids all over the city on every street corner. This place should be like an episode of the fucking Wuzzles!
Which implies that different animals can have babies in this world but for some reason don’t and holy shit we’re back in Strange World territory.
Judy and Nick pursue the ant-eater in a car chase which causes the kind of property damage that gets City Hall right up the police chief’s ass. In the ant-eater’s van, Judy finds a patch of snake skin which is odd because reptiles in Zootopia are restricted to a ghetto in the swamp and snakes are banned outright.
So we learn a little about the history of Zootopia. The various climate zones were built by Ebenezer Lynxley a hundred years ago and the Lynxleys have basically been the city’s artistocracy ever since. I have questions about this.
A lot of digital ink was spilled on the racism metaphor in Zootopia and how well it did or did not work. I was happy to roll with it. Sure, it’s not a perfect one to one fit but such things never are. If a metaphor is too similar to the thing it’s referencing it stops being metaphor and just becomes…the thing. What I do take issue with is when a metaphor is self-contradicting. In the first movie predators were depicted as a distrusted underclass. Now we find out that apparently they’ve been running the city the whole time? Whatever, minor nitpick.
After wrecking the city with the renegade ways, Chief Bogo hauls Nick and Judy in and assigns them to mandatory partner training, saying they need to learn to work together as a team or he’ll be forced to split them up. This is bullshit by the way, their problem wasn’t a lack of teamwork, the problem is that they’re a couple of loose cannons who play by their own rules.
Anyway, Judy learns that the last time there was a snake in Zootopia, said snake attacked a maid in the employ of the Lynxley family and tried to steal the journal documenting the plans for the weather walls that create Zootopia’s climate zones. This journal is going to be on display at the centennial banquet at the Lynxley manor and Judy uses movie logic to intuit that the snake is going to try and steal the journal.
She bullies Nick into crashing the party and, while schmoozing, Judy bumps into Pawbert Lynxley, the failson of the Lynxley family who alone among them seems not to be a total prick. Suddenly, the gala is thrown into chaos when the snake appears, abducts family patriarch Milton Lynxley and forces him to unlock the journal. Nick and Judy follow in hot pursuit and order the snake not to hurt Milton and the snake tells them in a shocked voice that snakes never hurt anyone. So, this is Gary deSnake. and I can’t fucking stand him.
This character is animated diabetes, shooting right past “nice” to full on “Purity Sue”. And I can’t stand the vocal performance either, nails on a chalkboard. Blech.
Okay, a lot of stuff happens really, really quickly here. Chief Bogo accidentally gets bitten by Gary. Milton Lynxley orders Judy to shoot the snake but she refuses. A fire starts and the upshot of it all is that Nick and Judy are framed for attacking Chief Bogo and being in cahoots with the snake and they both have to go on the run. I know, that’s a lot, trust me, it’s just as rushed when you’re watching the thing.
So Nick and Judy are rescued by the polar bear enforcers of Mr Big just in case you forgot that they’re bent cops in bed with the mob. Mr Big offers to give them new identities and smuggle them out of Zootopia but Judy (much to Nick’s chagrin) insists and staying and solving this thing.
They hook up with Nibbles Maplestick, beaver and conspiracy theorist podcaster (which is a WEIRD choice for a morally good character in a movie made in the 2020s). Nibbles is also a big swing and a miss for me.
It feels like they’re going for another Olaf with this one, bubbly enthusiasm intercut with deadpan snark but you need a Josh Gad to make that work, and even then it doesn’t always. Bubbles takes them to Marsh Market where the reptiles hide out and introduces them to a lizard voiced by Danny Trejo named Jésus (he’s a Jesus Christ lizard I am ANGRY that I just got that) a character whose Disney wiki entry was written by someone’s very white grandmother on her first trip to Cancun.
Hey-Zeus tells our heroes that Zootopia used to have a reptile district but that after the snake attack on the Lynxley’s maid, the area was absorbed into Tundra Town. Tundra town is going to expand again, this time into Marsh Market, which will drive the remaining reptiles out for good. They show him the journal (which Judy managed to steal from the Lynxley’s Manor) and Hey-Zeus tells them that only a pit viper could read the journal which is weird, right?
Okay, so with Chief Bogo in hospital being after being bitten by Gary, the ZPD is directly under the control of Mayor Winddancer who’s in the Lynxley’s pocket so every cop in town is now hunting Nick and Judy down. They raid Marsh Market and Nick and Judy have to flee. In the chaos, Gary appears again and absconds with the journal and Judy drags Nick through a “red” tunnel which is a kind of public transportation where you’re shunted through water pipes at great speed. This means that, unless you’re an aquatic mammal, you will drown. So, Zootopia essentially built a train system that would kill 99% of its citizens if they used it.
The snake gets away and Nick and Judy barely escape with their lives and Nick is quite rightly pissed at his partner for always dragging him into danger without considering his feelings. Some Deus Ex Machina goats point them towards a mountain retreat where snakes used to hang out (snakes famously loving freezing Alpine conditions) and Nick and Judy start to climb. While climbing they have an argument that results in the recording pen of “I really am just a dumb bunny” fame getting smashed at the base of the mountain.
They reach the mountain retreat which turns out to be Gary’s base of operations (which is reeeeeal convenient) and Judy and Nick learn that the climate walls were actually designed by Gary’s grandmother, whose contribution was erased and stolen by the Lynxley’s. This is of course a reference to Ada Lovelace, the first computer programmer, who was actually a snake.
This leads to the best scene in the whole movie where Judy wants to expose the conspiracy and Nick counters that he doesn’t want to get murdered by the deep state.
And I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Ginnifer Goodwin can just break my heart like an egg and she doesn’t even need to try.
Her delivery of “I…I think we really are different” is just perfect. So understated, so real. No notes.
Anyway, a LOT of shit suddenly happens really fast. The fuzz (who are literally fuzzy) raid the chalet and it starts to break apart. Nick gets arrested but Judy gets rescued by Gary and Pawbert, who is actually working in cahoots with him.
Gary and Pawbert explain to Judy that Gary’s grandmother hid evidence that she was actually the inventor of the climate walls in her old home in what is now the Lynxley’s estate in Tundra Town, buried under a mile of snow. Using the journal they discover its location and hatch a plan to turn off the climate controls in Tundra Town which will allow them to recover the evidence.
Meanwhile, Nick is in jail and re-assessing his priorities (big house will do that to you) and decides that Judy is the most important thing in his life. He escapes with the help of Nibbles (who is also in jail for some reason) and they bust out along with around a hundred of Zootopia’s most brutal and hardened criminals. I’m sure it’ll be fine.
At the climate walls, Judy and Gary work to turn on the heat but Judy suddenly realises that we’re into the final act and the twist villain hasn’t been revealed yet…
Pawbert turns heel, jabs Judy with a syringe of Gary’s venom and throws Gary outside to die in the cold and reveals that he’s doing all this just to earn his family’s love which I’m sure will work out great for him.
Nick arrives and Pawbert tries to kill him. But Gary is able to use Judy’s body heat to warm himself up, gets the anti-venom from Nick and saves Judy. So our gang is all together and Pawbert flees to the Lynxley manor to explain to his family what he’s been doing only for Nipples to chew through his door and announce:
And I know what you’re going to say. “Mouse, both “threesome” and “foursome” have non-sexual usages”.
Yeah. But do you think that’s what they meant? With this movie? And knowing this movie’s fanbase?
Don’t you sit there and lie to me. Don’t you lie to my damned face.
Don’t you dare.
Anyway, Mayor Wind-dancer decides to switch sides and beats up the Lynxleys which allows our heroes to chase Pawbert back to the old snake family home. They overpower him find the evidence and clear their names and the movie ends with Reptile Town re-opening, our heroes reunited and their name cleared and Gary’s family finally returning home.
***
It’s not terrible. Definitely more Frozen 2 than Ralph Breaks the Internet as canon sequels go. There’s some interesting stuff here in how it expands on the world of the first movie. But the central mystery is kinda weak and confusingly told, the returning characters aren’t quite as good, the new characters are pretty obnoxious and the script is just not as funny. None of this means it’s a bad movie. But it is a markedly lesser one.
Animation: 17/20
I’m knocking a point off from the last Zootopia and you can tell me whether you think my reason is fair or not. I get mild “AI ick” off this film and it’s not because I think Disney used AI to make it, it’s because Disney’s modern house style has been such a massive ingredient in the trough that Image creation LLMs have been sucking up. That’s not Disney’s fault, obviously, they got ripped off like the rest of us. BUT…it is a warning sign that they are long past due for a shakeup in the look of their films. Zootopia doesn’t look noticeably different from Tangled, a movie that came out sixteen years ago.
Leads: 16/20
In my review of Zootopia I gave this category a perfect score and Nick and Judy are still probably my favourite element in this movie. Goodwin and Bateman are both perfect for these characters and yeah, I still care about them and their relationship (whatever it is). But they’re still mired in a noticeably weaker production.
Villain: 15/20
I really don’t know about Pawbert. On the one hand, it’s another damn twist villain who was seemingly harmless and friendly for most of the runtime so we never actually get to really see him be a villain. And, if you wanted to get all chin-strokey about it, you could even argue that having a predator character from an evil family turn out to be evil himself deeply undercuts the message of the original film. But on the other hand…
The fact that the Zootopia series is a crime drama (weird to think, I know, but it is) gives them cover here. Crime stories do traditionally involve a villain being unmasked so I think a twist villain is more forgivable here. And also, Pawbert does make a thematically interesting counterpoint to both Nick and Judy, an animal who not only does not want to transcend the expectations placed on his species but instead falls to darkness trying to meet those expectations. That’s good stuff. And, I’ll admit, there is something rather unsettling about his desperate, clingy, nice-guy brand of villainy. So, ultimately, I think this villain works. Of course, it doesn’t matter what I think as Pawbert has been embraced by a vast swathe of the internet as the best thing to come out of this movie. Hell, he has whole subreddits and discord servers dedicated to him.
And you know why, don’t you?
Yes. That’s right.
People just really like Pawbert and thinks he’s neat.
Supporting Characters: 05/20
I hate the snake and I hate the beaver. Maybe that’s some repressed Jungian stuff, or maybe they just bug the piss outta me.
Music: 11/20
Shakira is back with her sexy, sexy dancing tigers. Like pretty much everything in this movie the score is a step down from the original but not uncharming in its own right.
FINAL SCORE: 64%
NEXT UPDATE: 07 May 2026
NEXT TIME: I’m sorry everyone. I don’t think you’re real…
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