All Shall Be Well

May 8

A little over a year ago – on May 8, 2024 – I came out and shared some of my experience as a gay/queer Christian pursuing celibacy in a context of broader solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community (regardless of faith or theological convictions).¹ I wanted to pick a date that would have a deeper personal significance to mark this big moment and so I decided on May 8, which is the feast day of Julian of Norwich in some Christian traditions.

Julian was an anchoress – a religious ascetic who lived a life of seclusion in a cell attached to St. Julian’s Church in Norwich. (The Church was likely named after an earlier St. Julian with St. Julian of Norwich either taking the name of the church or perhaps serendipitously happening to also be named Julian).

Anchoresses and anchorites were given the death rites of the church before being walled up in a newly constructed cell attached to the sanctuary. In this way, Anchoresses and anchorites could still participate in the mass, meet with visitors, offer spiritual guidance, intercede in prayer, read the scriptures, and write theological works. They became a sort of living embodiment of the saints in heaven who make up the “cloud of witnesses” to the life of the church in the world.

For many Side B people, the examples of anchorites, hermits, monks, nuns, (and other believers who have pursued celibacy) feel particularly resonant with our experiences of church community. These saints point to the same promises that we find in scripture regarding the future telos of human beings – “for in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.” (Mt. 22:30 • NET)

I had read some of Julian (and had also read the desert fathers and mothers) during my months of discernment before coming out, and I had heard settings of Julian’s writings in the works of contemporary composers for several years so this made May 8 feel like a particularly meaningful date to pick. I continue to resonate with the heritage of contemplative Christian practice that these writings represent.²

Two of Julian’s showings have persisted in the broader Christian imagination as striking depictions of Christ’s love – the image of the hazelnut and the statement “all shall be well.”

For Julian, the hazelnut was an image of the entire cosmos, with Christ holding the whole of creation as the object of His love and care as one might hold a hazelnut in the palm of a hand:

“And in this [Christ] showed me something small, no bigger than a hazelnut, lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed to me, and it was as round as a ball. I looked at it with the eye of my understanding and thought: What can this be? I was amazed that it could last, for I thought that because of its littleness it would suddenly have fallen into nothing. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and always will, because God loves it; and thus everything has being through the love of God.

In this little thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it, the second is that God loves it, the third is that God preserves it. But what did I see in it? It is that God is the Creator and the protector and the lover. For until I am substantially united to him, I can never have perfect rest or true happiness, until, that is, I am so attached to him that there can be no created thing between my God and me.

This little thing which is created seemed to me as if it could have fallen into nothing because of its littleness. We need to have knowledge of this, so that we may delight in despising as nothing everything created, so as to love and have uncreated God.³ For this is the reason why our hearts and souls are not in perfect ease, because here we seek rest in this thing which is so little, in which there is no rest, and we do not know our God who is almighty, all wise and all good, for he is true rest.”⁴

Later in the The Showings we read her famous statement. Far from a bland platitude, the dictum “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well” is a reassurance impressed upon Julian in the context of theodicy – Julian looks at the sin and suffering of the world and asks Jesus how it could be permitted to persist. In Julian’s understanding, Christ doesn’t deny or directly explain the brokenness of the world, but he asserts His power and sovereignty in redeeming the world and bringing abundant life:

“It seems to me that this pain is something for a time, for it purges and makes us know ourselves and ask for mercy; for the Passion of our Lord is comfort to us against all this, and that is his blessed will. And because of the tender love which our good Lord has for all who will be saved, he comforts readily and sweetly, meaning this: It is true that sin is the cause of all this pain, but all will be well, and every kind of thing will be well.”⁵

When We Fail to Believe that All Shall Be Well

I came out a year ago as an outworking of (first) my faith and (second) my social convictions. In that time I’ve experienced the blessings of deepened personal relationships, lessened anxiety, greater openness & opportunity to encourage the people around me, and a longer time horizon in which to plan and hope for the future.

At the same time, I have been grieved by the continued insistence of the evangelical church in disbelieving the promise of Christ that all shall be well. This past year was another reminder that too many Christians in our churches and communities have been shaped by the lie that personal and institutional power is the path to flourishing (by coercion or force if necessary). They believe the deceit that “[Trump/Power/Mammon] alone can fix it.” To reiterate the earlier quotation from Julian:

“For this is the reason why our hearts and souls are not in perfect ease, because here we seek rest in this thing which is so little, in which there is no rest, and we do not know our God who is almighty, all wise and all good, for he is true rest.”

At this point in our shared experience of Donald Trump and of the hijacking of conservative Evangelicalism by the MAGA movement, there is no possibility of ignorance or excuses. The man is exactly as corrupting and unrepentant as he has shown himself to be time and time again. He blasphemes the gospel of Christ and makes a mockery of the Christian witness.⁶ He treats human beings as disposable objects – his response to the things that are good, moral, and beautiful in the world is to degrade, to abuse, and to rape.

Christians who centrally affirm the holiness and dignity of the imago dei cannot align themselves with Mammon. This land itself will vomit us out if we dare try.

In the end, there are too many people injured and bleeding out for us to spend any more time assessing what has gone wrong with MAGA evangelicals. The goal cannot be to focus even more time and energy on the failures of Trump, MAGA, Republicans, or conservative Evangelical Christians.⁷ Evangelicals stood idly by as their congregations embraced MAGA, and the burden of proof now lies with conservative Christians to demonstrate by their actions that they are serious about Christ’s teachings.

“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but does not have works? Can this kind of faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, keep warm and eat well,” but you do not give them what the body needs, what good is it? So also faith, if it does not have works, is dead being by itself. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith without works and I will show you faith by my works. You believe that God is one; well and good. Even the demons believe that—and tremble with fear.” (James 2:14-19 • NET)

Whatever happens to Evangelicalism in the future – whether it continues to fuel American fascism or it falls by the wayside, all shall be well. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the Word of the Lord endures forever; importantly, the Word of the Lord is far too good and far too grand to be constrained to something as small as the modern American Evangelical movement.

For the Word was at the birth of the beginning
It made the heavens and the earth and set them spinning
And for several million years
It’s endured all our forums and fine ideas


It’s been rough but it appears to be winning!

There are people who doubt it and shout it out loud
Oh they bellow and they bluster ’til they muster up a crowd
They can fashion a rebuttal that’s as subtle as a sword
But they’re never gonna scuttle the Word of the Lord

Leonard Bernstein – The Word of the Lord

We are the witnesses to demonic instances of dehumanization that are plain to see and to reckon with for those who have ears to hear. Christ who did not permit for the proclamation of the kingdom of heaven to come to those who had hardened their hearts against the Lord. Rather, he prioritized the healing of those that the world deemed unclean, dining with sinners and tax collectors. As a sheep before its shearers is silent, I have nothing to say to those committing (or idly permitting!) hatred and violence towards minorities in the United States.

I am done having measured conversations with the people who have held the proverbial gun to my head – who have looked the other way as my community died during the AIDS epidemic and as we have died in the decades since. They decided that discipleship looked like waging a culture war, (casualties be damned). They covered their eyes, stopped up their ears, and seared their consciences as we lost Matthew Shepard, Nex Benedict, Sam Nordquist, and so many others. These are not long-forgotten events. Nex Benedict and Sam Nordquist died in February of 2024 and 2025, respectively. Nex had been relentlessly bullied at school and died at age 16; Sam was only 24 when he was kidnapped, tortured for months, and killed. He was sexually assaulted, he was degraded, his captors forced a 7- and a 12-year-old to harm him; he was murdered.

When I read the headlines in the news about Nex Benedict and Sam Nordquist and then hear Evangelicals continue to fixate on their neighbors genitals, wring their hands over “cultural degeneracy”, and manufacture new victim complexes out of thin air, it is impossible not to view Evangelicalism as a death cult.

For years I have heard Evangelicals berate other Christians for failing to properly order matters of primary or secondary or tertiary importance. But when I say “Queer people can’t encounter Jesus if they’re dead”, they fall strangely silent. Evangelicals can continue asking their questions and shouting their exhortations, but I’m the one who has to mourn the deaths of my friends.

The current administration has (illegally!) defunded PEPFAR (some estimates project there will be an additional 16 million AIDS-related deaths by 2040), has shuttered divisions of NIH, FDA, and CDC, has taken extrajudicial action to kidnap and traffic graduate students and professors to black sites, and has brazenly defied federal court orders.⁸

The current administration pardoned those 1,500 insurrectionists who intended to murder the Vice President and the Speaker of the House as they violently attempted to stop a presidential election. They brought their crosses and bibles; in their debauchery of violence they thought that they could invoke the name of the Holy Creator in their prayers, chanting, sadism, destruction, and (attempted) murder.

“God made us the boss
God gave us the cross
We turned it into a sword
To spread the word of the Lord
We use His holy decrees
To do whatever we please
And it was good!
And it was good!
And it was goddamn good!

This is the world that I live in and these are the headlines that I’m reading. And yet as I talk with those around me I am made to feel as though I am delusional or shrill or unkind for not plastering on a smile and turning my eyes from the blatant, orgiastic, fascistic violence of an Evangelicalism ensnared by MAGA. I will not be made to disbelieve what I have seen with my own eyes.

Let them listen who have ears to hear.

In previous years I might have mustered enough concern to pretend that I am most grieved for the state of the church in all of this. I might have said that I was worried for the Evangelical movement’s ability to witness to those outside of its walls. But that is no longer true. These days I am most concerned for the safety of the millions of people who are going to be crushed under the worship of power and violence that the church has baptized.

I will be spending my time bandaging the wounded and gathering with the believers thrown out of their homes and churches.

The work that God is doing in the United States is not primarily happening in the evangelical church and God does not need the evangelical church to make all things well. It’s continuity is immaterial to the power, the sovereignty, and the will of God. The Holy Spirit will be powerful and effective to accomplish His purposes with or without the money, power, influence, violence, and sex scandals of the evangelical church.

Where is Christ Making All Things Well?

A number of theologians and scholars of religion have written on the topic of the ever-present triumphalism of an Evangelical church married to the American Empire – a triumphalism that has destroyed the capacity for lament, for repentance, and for the work of humility which is necessary for spiritual renewal. It’s a perverted sort of spiritual bypassing blown up to continent-spanning proportions.

The Christian communities that are speaking to our present moment (and that have had the greatest impact on my discipleship as a follower of Christ) have chosen to counter-balance our contemporary triumphalism with cruciformity. They rightly return emphasis to the radically dignifying, sacrificial, and pain-embracing commands of Christ, exhorting believers to be obedient to the Lord’s teachings:

“Now as Jesus was starting out on his way, someone ran up to him, fell on his knees, and said, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.’” The man said to him, “Teacher, I have wholeheartedly obeyed all these laws since my youth.” As Jesus looked at him, he felt love for him and said, “You lack one thing. Go, sell whatever you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” But at this statement, the man looked sad and went away sorrowful, for he was very rich.” (Mk. 10:17-22 • NET)

Scripture is clear, insistent, and sobering in its continual assertion that the ethic of Christ’s kingdom and power is one of death, sacrifice, and cruciformity.⁹ Even from the earliest moment of Mary’s rejoicing in the Magnificat, the scriptures are forceful and unambiguous in proclaiming the sovereign power of the almighty in bringing radical truth, justice, and love into the world through Christ’s sacrificial kingdom:

My soul doth magnify the Lord,

And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.

For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name.

And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation.

He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.

He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.

He hath helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy;

As he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever. (Lk. 1:46-55 • KJV)

To risk repeating it again, these are sobering words to read as people claiming to speak on God's behalf while living in the most powerful and wealthy country in the history of humanity. Growing up, my parents (rightly!) reminded me time and time again that it is always better to meekly and fearfully humble oneself before the Lord in obedience than to have the hand of the almighty come against you to bring humility (or humiliation).

To sum up, then – cruciform, sacrificial love is the place where Christ is making all things well. And furthermore, there are grave moral and spiritual dangers that can befall those who place themselves in opposition to the Creator and his work in the world.

To end with a final image from Julian’s Showings, I want to reflect on Christ’s own joy, bliss, and delight in his suffering on our behalf and His commitment to remain in and among us through whatever suffering comes our way:

“Then our Lord put a question to me: ‘Are you well satisfied that I suffered for you?’ ‘Yes, good Lord,’ I said; ‘all my thanks to you, good Lord, blessed may you be!’ ‘If you are satisfied,’ our Lord said, ‘I am satisfied. It is a joy and a bliss and an endless delight to me that ever I suffered my Passion for you, for if I could suffer more, I would.’

…

What I am describing now is so great a joy to Jesus that he counts as nothing his labour and his bitter sufferings and his cruel and shameful death. And in these words: ‘If I could suffer more, I would suffer more,’ I saw truly that if he could die as often as once for every man who is to be saved, he had done it. And when he had done it, he would count it all as nothing for love, for everything seems only little to him in comparison with his love. And that he plainly said to me, gravely saying this: ‘If I could suffer more.’ He did not say: ‘If it were necessary to suffer more,’ but: ‘If I could suffer more’; for although it might not be necessary, if he could suffer more he would suffer more. This deed and this work for our salvation were as well done as he could devise it. It was done as honourably as Christ could do it, and in this I saw complete joy in Christ; but his joy would not have been complete if the deed could have been done any better than it was. And in these three sayings: It is a joy, a bliss and an endless delight to me, there were shown to me three heavens, and in this way. By ‘joy’ I understood that the Father was pleased, by ‘bliss’ that the Son was honoured, and by ‘endless delight’ the Holy Spirit. The Father is pleased, the Son is honoured, the Holy Spirit takes delight.”¹⁰

Coda

A few days before my one-year anniversary of being out, I had the joy of premiering a solo piano work that I had started in 2018 and left unfinished for many years. After hearing Bach’s Johannespassion in London in 2016, I fell in love with the chorale Durch dein Gefängnis, Gottes Sohn which appears in the oratorio:

“Through your imprisonment, Son of God,

must our freedom come.

Your prison is the throne of grace,

the refuge of all believers.

If you had not accepted slavery,

our slavery would have been eternal.”

While the words are meaningful, I was primarily taken with the tune and harmonization, and during my last semester at Whitworth I started writing one variation per week on the chorale to slowly accumulate a 22-minute set. Many of the variations needed to be re-worked and the whole set deserved a more substantial coda, but after several attempts I abandoned work on the project.

In the years that followed, the variation set felt embarrassingly sincere and somewhat too bright for where I found myself emotionally. It was not until I had come out and been accepted to study at UGA that I felt that I should return to revise and complete the piece. Six years later, I was a very different person and a very different composer than I had been in 2018. I felt as though I was returning to complete someone else’s work but I was able to bring a new perspective that the original material (and author) had lacked.

The work needed a new title, and I finally settled on Transfigurations. I hesitated to use the title for a number of reasons. First, there is an unfortunately large body of very saccharine contemporary classical music that holds a Christian religious influence and is the worse for it. These works give an impression of Christian faith that is too shallow and sterile to be meaningful to listeners. I have worked very hard and very consciously to hone a compositional craft separate from simplistic religious themes so that my work can be received with interest and with resonant personal meaning for my listeners.

Second, I’ve experienced the sting of Christians who will gladly claim me or my gifts or my work but who are distant and uncomfortable when I invite them into the full nuance of my Queerness, my life, and my discipleship. This is one example among many of the history of creative Queer Christians who have contributed to the life and beauty of their church communities while also experiencing chronic rejection and disgust from their siblings in Christ. I no longer permit my music to be co-opted by thoughtless Christians who refuse to take the time and energy to make their hearts right before the Lord.

In spite of these risks of misunderstanding, Transfigurations is still the most appropriate title for this piece. It does indeed allude to the transfiguration of Jesus on Mount Tabor, but I imbue it with further meaning. Since leaving Spokane, living in the South, and coming out as Queer, I have been substantially transfigured in a direction that (as stated above) allows me to live into my future telos as a single person in union with Christ in the new heaven and Earth. I have been transfigured in that my spiritual life has dramatically changed (for the better) as I have been able to honestly reconcile my Queerness with my faith. The piece itself has been transfigured by the last six years of my life experience, and the work is a reflection of this process of transfiguration, taking the opening theme and slowly spinning it like a glass polyhedron, refracting innumerable hues and aspects of light in all directions.

Transfigurations is a work that I wrote and that I perform primarily for myself as a testament to God’s faithfulness in and through my Queerness. Because of this, it has felt important to save it for those who have the ears to hear it in the proper place and context and posture.

Watch an abridged performance of Transfigurations:

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