A creature indeed

book 1.6- Margery's reaction to Pieta

"What aileth thee woman? Why farest thus with thyself? We knew him as well as thou."

This quote resonated with me the most after the readings. To me, it sounds ALMOST like a hint of jealousy. Not jealous that she has visions, but jealous of her relationship with God that she claims. It's fair to say that most people in this time were fearful of standing out, everyone is on edge, just one moment away from saying the wrong thing that will get you accused of a heinous crime. People were afraid, and to ease their minds, they had to weed out people that were different from them.

 I think Margery is in some ways, lucky. If it were anyone else having these visions, they would likely be accused of heresy. However, because of her status and continual acceptance of the Church's word, she was able to just slip by. The other church-goers can see the bigger picture of this. They see that Margery is (annoyingly) different. They want to know, why her? What makes her think she is so special that not only she gets to see visions from God but that she isn't persecuted for having these. Her having these visions almost gives her a sense of authority and right. She has been "chosen" as the one or one of the few to see these visions. So when she cries out in the church, what makes her experience different from everyone else.

As they said  "we know hm as well as thou", there were men and women that dedicated their lives to learning the life of God and they don't all see these Godly visions. So does her seeing visions suddenly make her more knowledgable or higher in some way? Through the eyes of everyone else, she shouldn't have the privilege of seeing God when she only knows him as well as everyone else.

Margery: A Crybaby? Or A Savage?

Margery's life seems to be very strange to me as she is nothing like Julian or Hildegard. She was raised middle class, didn't learn to ready, and clearly loved sex. She reminds me loosely of Mary Magdalene but not as a prostitute. Margery never became an anchoress either. She was just a plain woman, for the most part who had a vision of God some time after giving birth to her own child. Which is understandable for the time and ibuprofen or morphine hasn't been invented yet so I can relate to her almost losing her mind. I also found it interesting that she found her own way of devoting herself to God through prayer and tears. This isn't a discussion question but why? Is it because she thought her sins kept her from doing so? She is no mere woman for she also had a business or two (though they failed), and "wrote" her own book. She gave birth to 14 children and tried to hold a vow of chastity (though her husband was a dick about it). Margery is a special mystic in her own right though she took a different path compared to the other mystics we have learned so far. 

Chatting with Jesus and rally

Margery was going insane trying to throw herself out a window, and biting at her own wrists. Then John hired keepers to lock her up, Margery was chained up in that room for eight months. And boom, Jesus shows up chats her up and a miracle happens she is no longer insane. Then John believes that she is not crazy any more, and she gets to leave the room. Then she decides to get big into clothes and brewing, which is where I got a little confused with her journey. I felt that if a miracle happens to you by chatting with Jesus that suddenly makes you not insane, you don't decide to change up your look or start brewing beer. Unless for some reason Jesus decided to tell you to change up your look and start a brewing company, I highly doubt that but I have never had a vision. But anyways she did this while having a crazy amount of kids and surviving which is like a miracle in itself. I would think you would devote the rest of your life or give some time to the church or doing some religious stuff. But it took both of her businesses failing and Jesus himself to come down and tell her to devote herself to service. I just think that it shouldn't take Jesus telling you straight up go to church and devote some of your time to it, especially since he gave you multiple miracles already. Also you'd think that if you became tight with Jesus and God, which you are able to talk to already, by devoting your time to the church that more miracles would come your way. 

The tears must keep flowing...

The Differences

With the extreme differences in their lives and revelations how were they similar leading them both to be classified as mystics?

"Ye are no good wife"

How did the Christian faith impact Margery?

After Margery turned her back to God “forsaken her Christendom, her faith and deny her God…”(384) why do you think she decided to go back to the Christian faith? How do you think this decision impacted her later in life.

“daughter, why hast thou forsaken me, and I forsook never thee?”(385)

Pup... yup

This song seemed relevant to the disarray that Margery, and probably Julian, felt when experiencing the visits/visions from God. Get rid of the lyric that says "...or the drugs that I'm taking" and replace it with something about ecstasy and, presto change-o, the song is even more relevant to the reading.

Lyrics: https://genius.com/Pup-bloody-mary-kate-and-ashley-lyrics