Jesus through Medieval Eyes with Grace Hamman

Grace Hamman is a scholar of medieval literature. She leverages her extensive reading to help us see unique and powerful images of Jesus from the medieval period. I enjoyed this conversation talking about her book, Jesus Through Medieval Eyes.

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Transcript

Welcome to the more to the story. Podcast, I'm so glad that you have come along. We have a great show today and exciting new book that I'm excited to share with you. I think it could be something that could be useful for people, particularly people who are wanting to change up their devotional life a little bit, but may in our preachers, who are looking to accentuate things in different way. So I'm looking forward to telling you about it in just a second. But first, I want you to note this.

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podcast, comes to you from Wesley Biblical Seminary, where we are developing trusted leaders for faithful churches. We do that through a host of programs, lay initiatives that people can participate in in addition to bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees. We have just added a course of study for the global Methodist church, and we have more than

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So that's something that comes if you sign for my email list. And also there's several other things happening courses that are available on my website. One is

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Andy Miller III: a study of the afterlife, 5 sessions like thinking about heaven and hell and various things. I think we might even talk about that today in today's podcast but then, we have a few other things to the study of the book of Jude that's available. There's 6 sessions there where we walk through the 25 verses. And this little book that's incredibly powerful for our time. So you can find out about that at my website, Andy Miller, the third

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Andy Miller III: dot com.

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Andy Miller III: Okay. I am glad to welcome into podcast Dr. Grace Hamman, who is a scholar of medieval literature. She's a writer she's a podcaster. You can find a link to her podcast in our show notes, and she has just come out with a book called Jesus through Medieval Eyes, published by Zondervin grace, welcome to the podcast thank you so much for having me, Andy. I'm really happy to be here.

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Andy Miller III: Well, I was really intrigued when I saw this book has come out, and it's and we're recording this on November eighth, and the book just came out a week before this. So I'm excited that it's around now it your your bio identifies you as an independent scholar of middle English contemplative writing and poetry help us understand what that even is.

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grace hamman: Yes, this is a good question. So middle English is the part of English that comes before early modern English, which is like Shakespeare, that whole era, some of the greatest English poetry, comes from that time, George Herbert. So I studied a period before that which is, folks like Jeffrey Chaucer, who wrote the Canterbury Tales. Maybe some folks remember reading that in high school.

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grace hamman: school or college. And so my specialty was poetry and contemplative writing, which is like the mystics, basically, people like Julian of Norwich, who wrote

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grace hamman: her beautiful text, the showings poets like

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grace hamman: William Langland, who wrote Piers Plowman all kinds of interesting people. And so that is where my my background is especially in. And then I in the book I expand into a lot of other different kinds of medieval writers and artists. But that's really my backbone and my, the area that I really love. So

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Andy Miller III: so if we didn't necessarily like your own research before, this book wasn't necessarily centered on looking at how people view Jesus is that kind of like something that is an after effect to your own research.

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grace hamman: Yes, so I got into it.

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grace hamman: this, this. These different representations of Christ, especially through one of the chapters, is about Jesus as a mother, which sounds really shocking to us initially. But it's actually this deeply scriptural image that monks and contemplative writers were writing on extensively in the Middle Ages. But I had encountered this image via the writings of Julian of Norwich, who I just mentioned, who writes this

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grace hamman: just, exquisite theological work, about the love of God and the love of Jesus, and she has these visions of the cross, and part of her teaching is on this idea of Jesus as a mother, and how he

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grace hamman: Like his cry over Jerusalem. How I long to gather you under my wings! And so this idea of Christ gathering us up and caring for us and tending to us, and nursing us. And all this different, really interesting imagery. So that was my kind of entry way into all these other medieval images. So I went. Oh, that's such a cool, interesting idea that it that I've never noticed in Scripture, but that these medieval writers were picking up on

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grace hamman: and then after that, II really started getting into these other representations artworks. And it just exploded. It was so fun.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah, I oh, it's so interesting. And and one day I'll just encourage people as you get a chance to see this book. Ii encourage people who are presenting on Biblical themes to think about going to another generation hundreds of years before it's and you might get a kind of a fresh wind fresh language. Describe your own spiritual journey what you see in Scripture and grace. I love it.

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Andy Miller III: How in the book, just from a kind of like a kind of structural standpoint, how you end each book, each chapter, with these own meditations and reflections that people can use. So I've got found it really encouraging, like I, you know. Let me, before we get

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Andy Miller III: well, let me just get

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Andy Miller III: setting it all up. You had an interesting moment, maybe, in a doctoral seminar reading the Canterbury Tales which I mean, I'm sure, like, okay, I already know this probably worked. I mean, like you said most people would read that decades before they got into that sort of seminar. But tell us about that moment with the professor that you had, and and the challenge that came. And maybe

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grace hamman: okay, so that was such a funny realization for me. So I grew up in a Christian home, really steeped in Scripture, like I had read the Bible on my own many times and as I was in these in this doctoral seminar we were reading the Parsons tale together, which is part of the Canterbury Tales, and it's really less of a exciting pilgrimage tale, and more of this, like dry, long moral treatise. And

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grace hamman: Chaucer's parson, who's the teller of the this tale is telling about medieval men's clothing and condemning the the current fashion, and it's very colorful language about men showing off their private parts and their butts in a very obvious way in these very tight

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grace hamman: cropped jackets. And so the person is describing this. It's very colorful like the

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grace hamman: the whole class. We're all trying very hard not to laugh, because this is so dramatic. The person then turns and and and basically says to his audience, like, Compare this to the modesty of Jesus and his disciples, and my professor, this wonderfully crusty old man who is also read his Bible many times by this point. He's, he says, what Jesus is he talking about? Where in Scripture does it talk about Christ's

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grace hamman: personal modesty and clothing. I've I don't. I've I've never thought of that. And I thought. Oh, that's so funny! I

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grace hamman: I've never that didn't strike up raise any thoughts in me at all, I because I had been taking for granted a a version of Jesus that cared a lot about what I wore as as a young woman growing up, that where there was a high emphasis on personal modesty, and not that modesty is not a bad thing. I think it can be a very good thing. But

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grace hamman: That I realized I had a cultural

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grace hamman: expectation of Jesus, where I had totally conflated him with some of these dialogues and conversations over modesty going on in my own present time. And it was so funny that it took

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grace hamman: Chaucer writing about sexy men's jackets, and my professor for me to even begin to realize that. So there's this wonderful freedom in coming to these texts where you go. Oh, their expectations are so different than mine, and they not only give me new insight into truths about Christ's character, into aspects of who He is.

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grace hamman: but they also highlight ways in which I have been reading things onto him, good or bad, that really are coming from my own

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grace hamman: time and place and context.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah, I recognize that culture that you'd describe really? Well, because it was my E. Evangelical 19 nineties Wwj. Promised ring, too, you know, like all that sort of thing like

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Andy Miller III: it's it's it's funny like the way I describe it. Now. It's just such a past tense reality. And there, I'll I'll say, like there are things from that culture that my own children who are teenagers, young teenagers! Where I'm like. Oh, man! A little! A little dash of that might not be so bad, you know. It's pivoted a little bit, but still, like one of things, a book that came out in that period.

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Andy Miller III: was, I felt, fancy's the Jesus. I never knew highlights to say. And and and you hit this too. I mean, that's part of the the. The task of this book is to look at all all the various ways that we look at Jesus, and then you're trying to challenge us, I think.

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Andy Miller III: to go back a couple of centuries, and or maybe more than just a couple, and think through other ways to view Jesus.

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grace hamman: That's right. That's right. For me. This this book was such a project of humility in like a really good way like that can sound like such a like a oh, I got really humbled by this, but I mean it in such a good way, where it was both a an ongoing sort of

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grace hamman: task of self knowledge where I was going. Wow! Oh, there's an assumption that I had made without realizing that there's another one. There's another one. Because I was looking at these assumptions that people 700 years ago we're making, which is just not the same kinds of things that I was thinking so. It was really revelatory in that way. And then it it was also really beautiful, because what they were focusing on is different than what I was focusing on. And I think every

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grace hamman: so Cs. Lewis has this wonderful

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grace hamman: preface to the works of Saint Athanatius, where he talks about how we're all so grounded in our cultures. And we we live and breathe in this. you know, sort of see assumptions, and if we read the works of the past, they actually can sort of blow this clean sea breeze, as he calls it, through our minds, and help us to see some of the ways

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grace hamman: that we have contained him according to our cultural mores, our own personal desires, and then also give us some new language. New vocabulary, you know, paradoxically new and ancient concepts for knowing him a little more. And so that really has been. That was really this book for me.

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Andy Miller III: Oh, I love it! I that preface is such a powerful preface. Is it like I? Honestly, I probably have never heard of preface referred to more than that way. Have to read it. It's so good.

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Andy Miller III: and and he taught it. There's a it's a re it. And as you, as a person say in literature, it's really that preface is a piece on how to read. Why, we read why, we read old books and read books more than once. III love, I just. I think there's something really powerful. I love the image of the seabreeze as well.

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Andy Miller III: I wanna I'm curious. The first first one of the first chapters you have is talking about Jesus, the judge. And I imagine that that's where people see medieval literature going like, oh, you can that we see you have. You talk about the the doom paintings, these type of things. So tell us what surprised you as you studied the way that the medieval world looked at Jesus, the judge.

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grace hamman: Yeah, this was a chapter that I was kind of dreading writing, to be honest, because it's for exactly the reasons you mentioned. You go. Well, that feels very like, well.

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grace hamman: old-fashioned in an unhelpful way, like, Okay, wow. This is kind of scary. I think sometimes when we think of Jesus, the judge. We think of some people, you know, sort of screaming in your face about how you're going to hell or whatever. And so it it comes up a lot of baggage. And so I approached this and began looking at the the poetry and the paintings, and

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grace hamman: around this idea of especially some of the imagery and revelations about the the pierced one coming through the clouds, ascending. Everyone will see him, everyone will see him, everyone will look him in his face. And so this was an idea that was, extremely popular in especially earlier medieval art, and then also in later as well. But

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grace hamman: where in every church, really, they would have these massive paintings inside called in English it was called zoom paintings, for for, like our modern doomsday, and doom is just a older form of a word for judgment. So it's a judgment. And and so

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grace hamman: you you have all these paintings everywhere, and they're at the center of parish life they're at in every, not just in the big sort of cathedrals that we associate with artwork and carvings, but in little tiny parish churches as wall paintings. And so they were everywhere. And II began to ask, okay, so

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grace hamman: you know, why is it so important that these are at the center of community right now. And these images of Jesus and all the dead rising from the grave. And what's funny about a doom painting is that we are in the doom painting? Because it's everyone at the consummation of history. So it's not just. It's not abstract, it's actually

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grace hamman: and what I began to wonder is if this was calling us to to look at one another right now, and to think about

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grace hamman: neighborliness and the ways in which we relate to each other, since it's at the heart of community in the parish church, and we're all there, too. So it's not just a a future sort of almost abstract moment a Judgment day. But actually, hey, what is what is

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grace hamman: God calling us into right now in being neighbors to one another. Cause so much of the Scripture of judgment is also wrapped around our neighborliness to one another, and and what we do when faced with people in need. And and people who,

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grace hamman: you know. are not clothed are thirsty are hungry. These are all

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grace hamman: wrapped up in this traditional Judgment Day imagery. So? Not just a a fear of oh, no fear of hell! But actually, what do I owe my fellow human beings, as all of us images of God facing

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grace hamman: Jesus. And so it was interesting. So I had to wrestle with some of some fear around that image and go into that into the chapter.

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grace hamman: But also I began to realize that that

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grace hamman: in these images you have both mercy and justice, and they're inex inricable from one another. They are embodied in Christ, and that was a really beautiful realization where I think for a long time II thought about them as a sort of opposite to each other. Right! You either have justice or you have mercy, but when you think of them as

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grace hamman: totally and perfectly combined in in the figure united in in Christ himself. Then you have to kind of start thinking about that differently, not as an either. Or but

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grace hamman: okay, what does it mean to think of Jesus Himself as justice? Jesus Himself is mercy. So that was that journey of that chapter. And there's it's kind of complicated. There's a lot more there. But it was a good chapter for my personal formation.

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Andy Miller III: Well, and I love that Jesus is at the center of this. And I've just recently put out this series on the afterlife and think it's called heaven and other destinations. But the idea that I'm trying to convey through, that is, to get people to think about resurrection, think about judgment, and to. I love the concept like. And this was really helpful to me, and to read this in your book, that this was

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Andy Miller III: these type of paintings were a centering

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Andy Miller III: reality for communities. So W. What they're seeing like. And then I don't know. We growing up in a similar time. It's similar to the modesty comments like, Okay, well, we don't. We don't really wanna focus on that. Like we, you give a story of like kind of like the sidewalk creature type of person. And

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Andy Miller III: but yet there's something to this like. If if this is reality, and what I've said to lately is like in many churches, we'll recite the Apostles Creed from thence, judge living in the dead. If we, if like churches that sing a Gloria pottery, II didn't grow up in a liturgical tradition. I'm now often participating in those type of environments where we and II tried to tell people.

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Andy Miller III: You all know this is crazy, right? What we're saying without end. Amen! Amen. I mean. But this is it. Maybe the medieval riders have this in a more dramatic way that could remind it's like almost jarring.

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Andy Miller III: You put them in a position of seeing these bodies. And you have some of these pictures, these pit pictures, paintings. In your book. II really think it's there's one that stood out to me, and I had never heard of it. And so this is I love, I love, learn new things. But there's this poem called Christ. The third was, is that what you call it? Christ? 3. I'm Andy Miller. I can't. So I see that's okay. So. But there's this.

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Andy Miller III: this great line, and I this is a short enough for me to be able to read. But it says this this phrase at at in a doom painting they bear their breast horde before the child of God.

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grace hamman: Right like, tell us about this this poem. What's going on in it? Yeah. So this this poem was part of a set of poems about the life of Christ re going from the Nativity all the way to Judgment Day. So quite quite the big stretch.

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grace hamman: and it was written in old English, which is even earlier than than what I specialize in. And it it really when you look at it in text. It looks almost like German or something. It's very different from modern English. So in my text, it's all translation. But, the it has this amazing sequence that is, really inspired by

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grace hamman: Matthew 25, and by revelation, and also by some of the throne room imagery in Isaiah. So the the Biblical I mean the the poet is taking up all these scriptural images and rewriting them into his own vernacular language and and in a very high, you know, poetic way. So this is around the same time as like Beowulf, if anybody, if any of your listeners have

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grace hamman: it's a really cool poem. It's really wild. It's yeah, it's very, very

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grace hamman: imagistic and concrete feeling. And so that image of bearing your breast horde, and everything that that has that you've held inside of you. Everything that has been hidden is now coming to the light.

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And how

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grace hamman: this is all. Something that

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grace hamman: you're right. You mentioned we? It's something that we can kind of sidestep over. But to to pay attention to. It is really important for us, and not not out of, not only out of a fear of like. Well, I want to. I don't want to go to hell, or I don't, or I really want to go to heaven, but actually out of where we are in our lives, right at the moment, and being formed as people following Christ and learning to be more like Christ. And so this idea of

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grace hamman: I'm seeking justice, not because I'm afraid of hell, but because my injustice creates little hells for and so that relates that kind of idea of neighborliness. Again, where it's alright, we're in this body together. And what are we called to as we are become as we are taking up our crosses and following Christ. Becoming more like him, and

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Andy Miller III: Matthew 25. Emphasis, too, is so focused on the way that we engage our neighbors, and like. But yet that passage, it comes within the eschatological discourse like this is a really intense passage. Yes, and so I think the mistake that we can make is that then we just focus on like.

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grace hamman: I'm really afraid of hell or and and the funny thing is that hell is is you know, it's not even a focal point of this chapter, because the focal point is Jesus, where?

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grace hamman: we are a figuring out all that stuff is important, but it's all peripheral, even in the paintings. It's peripheral and so you are a

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grace hamman: saying, Well, what does this mean for my life right now, and not just in a fear of hell or desire of heaven way, but in a way of formation, and and who I am becoming in community and and so and how I'm becoming a neighbor in this context. So it's it would. Yeah, that's

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Andy Miller III: again, we're friends. We're talking here in case you're just coming in here with Jesus through medieval eyes. Grace Hammond. And oh, that's your name right? I said it wrong. We're we're first coming that coming on. So I wanna make sure I get it right now. You might see me. Of course you like. Look at, probably.

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Andy Miller III: a man man white man wanting to talk. You probably know what chapter I want to talk about.

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grace hamman: I want to talk about the night chapter. I love this chapter. Call stereotype me all you want, but I loved it now. Time to get to the lover. I like that one, too. I just want to say publicly, say, I love the chapter about Jesus, the Lover. But this night chapter was really inspiring. II enjoyed it. I enjoyed this, this imagery that I most of it. I never even thought of.

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grace hamman: Yeah, it's such a way to go for it.

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Andy Miller III: No, I'll let you go ahead. Was this a hard one for you to get to? Was this? Well, I mean, you talked about the Jesus's mother kind of being your intro into this, but you knew you had to cover cover other themes.

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grace hamman: Medieval people writing about Jesus. A night is that night's work

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grace hamman: real. So you know, you were talking about an actual subsection of society. And so I went into a little apprehensive, because, as a medievalist.

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grace hamman: what I'm thinking about with knighthood is like the Crusades, things that really went south, that we're still sort of reaping the problems of hundreds and hundreds of years later. And this sort of like a sort of supercharged

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grace hamman: masculinity. And so I was like, Okay, how am I? What's a what's the gift here? And and turns out there was a ton of gifts, and I just was needed to pay closer attention. But I began to look at this poem called Pierce Plowman, which is a William Langley's, one of my favorite middle English authors, and he writes a an allegory, and

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grace hamman: this allegory is of basically Holy Week. The end of Piers Plumman is an allegory of Holy Week, and so he's writing from went from Palm Sunday through to the harrowing of hell which you mentioned is in the creeds. But again, a thing that a lot of us, especially us Protestants, don't think about very much and so it's he writes this, and he he writes Jesus as a knight.

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grace hamman: And now Jesus is not just a knight like a knight in shining armor. This social role of power in the Middle Ages of the ruling classes. But he's actually a knight who is dressed as a plowman. And so this was actually a picture of incarnation because you have

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grace hamman: the in, you know, in medieval England, like no night is gonna dress as a plowman like that's totally degrading. That's huge social class difference? You know, they would have looked down on ploughman

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grace hamman: plowman would have been poor, and, you know, needed nightly protection. That's what the night. So, therefore, but in in Langland's amazing portrait his Jesus, his Christ knight dresses as a ploughman, and his barefoot, and joust without weapons against the enemy. And so it becomes this

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grace hamman: amazing paradoxical picture of courage and of the beauty of courage and Christ's loving protection, and fighting for for us in a in a way that is

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grace hamman: totally unexpected. Totally surprising you. He's not engaging in in violence, but he's actually destroying violence, and so it ends up. It was just astoundingly beautiful. And yeah, it was a really fun chapter that I really loved writing.

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Andy Miller III: II study the nineteenth Century Holiness movement. And I particularly particularly like the Salvation Army. And in that tradition there's a lot of imagery connected to warfare. But off, obviously, that's a name. Yeah, that's right. And and

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Andy Miller III: it ends up often, though having this slant, that is, is reversing

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Andy Miller III: the warfare like that, the warfare comes as a result of producing peace. So like, that's a similar image. And another nineteenth century figure, or I'll kind of turn on century fe Henry Clay Morrison. Interestingly, he was a founder of Asbury Theological Seminary, and was well known voice within the holiness movement. He he also III find

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Andy Miller III: that like that tradition picked up on the harrowing of hell often. Oh, interesting. Yeah. So III you alluded to it like this idea of the Jesus. II prefer to say the descent to the realm of the dead, but it's and I know. Sadly John Wesley pulled out these words in the Methodist tradition. So we don't say he descended to hell in many Methodist context, but it's there in the apostle period. So John Wesley's

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Andy Miller III: but still what what I love, what you. Some of these poems that you brought in was that this is what Henry Clay Morrison did is that he kind of

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Andy Miller III: created a scene of what it might have looked like that. What could it? What could have happened? What was the interaction like with Satan? Now we don't know that from Scripture we do know that it happened, but we don't have any more details. So is that something that was new to you, that the night image was prominent there.

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grace hamman: Yes, so that's a that was part of the the night imagery, was they? They liked medieval folks often connected it to the descent into hell. Because they, you know, that's a scary thing. And they saw that as this, like example of

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grace hamman: courage and endurance and fortitude beyond what we could have expected. Where? It's just this beautiful fulfillment of longing.

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grace hamman: And so, yeah, they write that in Piers Plowman he writes this wonderful passage that I include in the book where it's taking the perspective of the of the devils in how they see this light in the distance. They're like, what is that that is not good for us? And the light gets closer and closer, and they're like, what is it? And it's Christ harrowing hell and

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grace hamman: descending into into death, and it's and breaking down the gates, and that that, of course, is classic scriptural imagery of

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grace hamman: the gates parting and and crumbling in in this work of salvation. And so it's very stirring and exciting. Like. You can picture it like you said you can picture in your head like a movie and so it's it's a really fun one.

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Andy Miller III: Well, and it fits well with movies. And I think

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Andy Miller III: III hope that this current generation might even recover this doctrine. I was a doctrine of Jesus, descent to the dead. Because it it it speaks to the kind of vibrant, strong, dramatic way that things happen, picked up on this in the line which in the wardrobe, and at the end, you know he comes in, and he he comes to all the places where the White Witch has made people into

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Andy Miller III: stone, and he breathes on them so like this could really be. This is I'm tempted to read it. I have the page open, but I'm afraid I'll miss pronunciate. I wouldn't pronounce it so. But it's really it's really dramatic.

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Andy Miller III: Anything else you want to say about the heritage of help. But I have another judge another. oh, I don't. I don't think I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm not sure that's what I'm Gonna do. I'm I'm not sure if you're Gonna be. Able to do. It.

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Andy Miller III: Iii think that that's what's going on there now, chronologically, because it's after he comes back from the dead. And so he's bringing the souls with him, which is just the classic medieval image of sort of this.

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Andy Miller III: bringing us souls into redemption. So yes, and and you know you think about the resurrection hymn of Charles Wesley? Can it connects to some of these ideas where he says, so are we now where Christ has led, following our triumphant head. So that that image, I think, is is catching on to these similar ideas like, sorry show. My my

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Andy Miller III: my Cronk doesn't already a nerd them here. Right, he truly flies with the with the girls on the back.

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Andy Miller III: Totally. Well, while I'm talking about the things like that. I love to that. You picked up the themes from Tolkien and and in in this period, about nights, and I would have never thought that. Here's here's my experience with Lord of the rings in in. Well, some of it is, I just know it's also filled with imagery, and I feel like it's all so deep

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Andy Miller III: beyond, like my experiences. It's just like a part of the world, and I'm always so emotional by watching it, reading it, thinking through. But you kind of connect, if you think to me that he was trying to particularly like in the the return of the king.

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Andy Miller III: emphasizing, emphasizing the role of the knight in Jesus night.

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grace hamman: Yes, yeah, I think that's what's really fun about reading medieval literature in particular. If you are a Tolkien or a Lewis fan is that you really are like.

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grace hamman: This is where all these these are coming from. Like how exciting! You read! You know you read

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grace hamman: these these ancient poems, and and you're like, Oh, my gosh! I know this idea. I've seen it before. It's in the Lord of the Rings, or the chronicles of Narnia, or the great divorce. And so that's a really fun bonus about reading all this stuff.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah, I love that connection. And and so then, like, at the end of that, these chapters, like you're able to like, walk people through devotional practices

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Andy Miller III: to think about these themes. Tell me, pop out like, what led you to do that? I mean, that's probably not something you did in graduate school. No, it's not so part of the great gift of these texts

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grace hamman: is, not just sort of having head knowledge about them, even though that is a great gift that I don't wanna ever downgrade, but actually learning how to read in such a way that your heart is open to them. And that can be tricky for us in reading historical text, because often we're working really hard to understand what's going on.

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grace hamman: Because the context or the language is foreign to us. And so it was really important to me that I could help folks reading it who weren't medievalists and didn't have this background to encounter it, not only with their head, but with their heart to and to have space for these new writers and artists

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grace hamman: to to sink in and give them that room. And so that was why I included these scriptural passages and little practices optional, of course, but at the end, so that if people wanted to. They could just sit with the idea for a little longer. And you know, see what happens in their own hearts and minds. Listening to these folks of the past.

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Andy Miller III: Yes, thank you for doing that, and I'm tempted to go through and take another 3 h, or go through every chapter, and then you could just tell. But no, nobody would have to buy the book. So I'm gonna tell. Just mentioned the various other titles the ways that medieval folks saw

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Andy Miller III: Jesus. So you also have a chapter on the Lover thinking about the nuptial metaphor. The word, the mother. Then you have a chapter called the good Medieval Christian, the Wounded God. And and some of those things you could. Okay, that that kind of connects like the wounded God like you think about that, maybe. But still, I think I wanted to encourage folks to check this out. Great grace. Is there one of those? Maybe one of those chapters, or one kind

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Andy Miller III: emphasis that you like to talk about now just to highlight the folks I know we won't be able get to all of them. But, Alan, just give you a chance to tell about another another chapter there.

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grace hamman: Oh, oh, gosh! That's a well, I would say that 2 of the chapters

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grace hamman: that were

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grace hamman: really good for me to wrestle with personally. One was the good medieval Christian, which is kind of the least appealing initially, because it's not as strong of an image center point. But it really made me think about the the ways in which I have put Jesus in a box of my own expectations. Watching medieval people do that in that chapter, and even becoming more

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grace hamman: less judgmental of their of how they do that, because, realizing how deeply it is ingrained in all of us to do that and so that was a good a good exercise for me, but I would say the wounded God chapter in which I talk about imagery of the Crucifixion

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grace hamman: was very powerful for me personally to write to. Just really. You know, when we think of medieval art, of, or older art of the crucifixion, it's often very bloody and very gruesome to look at, and that's true in the in the literature as well. They're very into that aspect. So it's

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grace hamman: off putting for us to kind of go. Well, why would they do that? What's going on there? Especially again in our in Protestant contacts? Often we don't even have Christ's body on the cross when we look at the cross. So what's this body and blood centric stuff

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grace hamman: doing? What's going on? And and that was a very

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grace hamman: powerful meditation for me as I thought about. Okay.

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grace hamman: These medieval folks are asking me to take really seriously the fact that God

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grace hamman: God's Son suffered on the cross, and that this was real, and with me in my suffering. And so that was

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grace hamman: a very profound

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grace hamman: point of meditation that I haven't stopped thinking about since writing that chapter. So.

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Andy Miller III: and Julian Norrich comes up quite a bit in that chapter that'd be really helpful

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Andy Miller III: to to think of them kind of the the raw way these images are shared. And so.

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Andy Miller III: yeah, this is this is really helpful, Grace. Thank you so much for this book. II find it really? Encouraging, challenging at the same time. It. I'm curious. If you had in in the new happens in New Earth at the restoration of all things, you'll have a chance to talk with some. Wh. Who? Who are you going to be in line to see first of these authors that you've been studying.

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grace hamman: Oh, it has to be Julian, just because she's like she she even the chapters that she's not appearing in. She has been such a teacher for me on a personal level. My husband always lovingly makes fun of me because I call these people my friends, and I really feel like they are my friends, I mean, they're with me in the body. So it is real in one sense. But

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grace hamman: this site, this idea that she has been my my mentor in a lot of ways. And so I just teaching me so much about the nature of Christ's love and the character of God. And so I,

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grace hamman: I'd have to say, Julian of Norwich, for sure.

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Andy Miller III: Gotcha. Well, the title of my podcast is more to the story, the name of my podcast I guess I should say and the id behind that is, I want to get deeper to tell, hear about

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Andy Miller III: how people are developing thoughts and ideas and what's happening? In the things that they're interested in. There's also theological reason that I want to think about more than just

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Andy Miller III: being saved and being forgiven. But experiencing sanctifying grace in this life. There's the third reason is, II enjoy asking people, is there more? This story of Grayson's normally told. I imagine you'll be doing a lot of podcast interviews, conversations around this time and talking a lot about what you study. But what? What is there? Is there more this story of grace.

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grace hamman: more to the story of the book? Oh, yeah, my own life. Oh, yes.

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grace hamman: So I. Yeah. Okay, here's some, some more to the story background things that actually go into this arts in the texture of it. Which is that? I'm a mom of 3 kids.

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grace hamman: And so I am always writing out of this double life of being a mom of very young, like fit throwing, you know.

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grace hamman: barely potty, trained children who are wonderful and and so such gifts, and also combining this love of medieval literature, and they actually have fed each other in a really beautiful way, and I'm also a podcaster and a very, very amateur gardener, which yes, yes, which is my

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grace hamman: sort of fun thing that I sometimes

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grace hamman: don't do a very good job on, but it is a fun way to experiment and see what's happening, and, you know, try to bring some beauty into the world. So

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grace hamman: my platform, yeah, yeah, it's it's called old books with grace, and it is my sort of my reflects my deep desire. Sometimes these things like old books, whether they're theology, novels, poetry, they get stuck in academic spaces, which I'm very thankful for those spaces. But

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grace hamman: A lot of people find them then, hard to access and hard to think about without some guidance. And so old books with Grace come on to talk about their books and their research of the past. So,

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grace hamman: recently, I had a George Mcdonald episode. Who's the, you know, amazing Presbyterian minister and novelist in the nineteenth century who influenced Lewis and Tolkien or I had a Louisa May Alcott recently. So

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grace hamman: I think coming up is some early Christian poetry. So there's all kinds of stuff. It's not really pigeon holes. It's all over the place. And that's my

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grace hamman: project of. Just let's let's make spaces outside of the Academy to to read beautiful old things together that are challenging, but worth it.

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Andy Miller III: Yes, oh, I love it well, Grace, thanks so much for this book and thanks for coming up. Podcast II hope that this is something that people can use. So I want to encourage people to check out the show notes and find out more about the opportunity we have to learn from the saints. Learn from people who've gone ahead of us from 700 years ago, Jesus, through medieval eyes. Thanks, Grace, thank you so much.