I went under a sheet in the middle of Franklin Street in Chicago on a hot summer day, lying on my back and tucking the white cotton loosely around and under my legs, torso, head. Now five others and I were in submission to those around us, at their mercy.

They were merciful: Joyce sat cross-legged by my head, made sure I was OK and provided water for me to drink. Jenn moved from one shroud to another to gently spray water on our hair and faces. Nida and other Palestinian women laid large, laminated images over us: Each bore a name, photo and description of a Palestinian killed by Israeli forces in Gaza.

The women dipped their hands in red paint and left drips like blood on our shrouds and on the huge “Stop the genocide in Gaza” banner on which we lay.

The chanting of names had begun — names of children, men, women who had been killed. Each was followed by a communal response, alternating “May God have mercy” with its Arabic equivalent, “Ya Rab irham.”

Police lined up behind the gathering and intoned their own bullhorned liturgy about clearing the street. They took a long time to move in, seeming hesitant to break up our lament.

The cloud of witnesses around us eventually moved to the sidewalks, but the protest carried on. Several more folks joined us under the extra sheets we brought. Even those of us who were shrouded joined in singing “Cease-fire now” — many stanzas, until our leader’s voice grew hoarse.

Under my sheet in chosen helplessness, I felt a buoyant freedom. This was a new-to-me way of being with Jesus.

Over the past few years, I have steeped myself in the writings of Julian of Norwich, a medieval mystic who speaks uncannily into our time and into the questions of my heart. Julian cherished scripture, especially the Gospels, at a time when being found with a copy of the Wycliffe translation in one’s home could lead to execution. Her writings are redolent of the Bible but never cite chapter and verse.

She wrote and taught about the expansiveness of God’s love for humans at a time when the established church warned that dying with just one sin unconfessed could send a person to hell. She lived through not just the bubonic plague but also the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 and the subsequent vicious crackdown on those seeking to abolish serfdom.

She didn’t speak directly about the political situation, but her writings reveal a tender God who ignores human hierarchies and treats servants as guests of honor.

As I read Julian and wrote meditations on her insights, I also learned digital painting and drawing so that I could accompany each quotation with a botanical image. This work drew me into a discipline of stillness as I considered each vein, each stem, each petal.

Reading Julian, writing about her and creating art prepared me for taking risks in public protest for Gaza. In the weeks before our die-in, those of us who wanted to participate or support read essays by Mohandas Gandhi and Shelley Douglass, discussed the nonviolent ethic of love and did an exercise that provoked lively discussion about nonviolent resistance.

We read the Beatitudes and prayed. We invested time and imagination in an action plan that made sense to us — and then when we met with the Palestinian logistics group a few days before the die-in, they proposed a different site, and it was an excellent idea, and we said yes.

Because, as Julian reminds me, I am always at home in God — whether in my favorite chair in my condo, stretched out under a sheet on asphalt or sitting in a cold jail cell.

God does not forget the least of us. Jesus, my Prince of Peace, chooses to serve me rather than stand on regal privilege. Jesus is present and weeps with the suffering people of Gaza.

Jesus makes a home in me, and in us together, as we stand — or lie down — with our siblings who are being starved, oppressed, bombed in their tents.

Let’s welcome Jesus, as he welcomes us, into the work of peace, the work of mending the world. He is our home, and we are his.

Ruth Goring is an author-illustrator who makes books for children and adults. Her newest is Dearworthy: Little Meditations on the Revelations of Julian of Norwich (Anamchara Books, 2024). She contributed illustrations of seven psalms for The Peace Table: A Storybook Bible (Shine, 2023). She attends Living Water Community Church, a Mennonite congregation, and organizes for a free Palestine with Mennonite Action Chicago, also known as Chicago Christians for Ceasefire.