O orzchis Ecclesia armis divinis praecincta et hyazintho ornata, tu es caldemia stigmatum loifolum et eubs scientarum. O, o, tu es etiam crizanta in alto sono et es chorzta gemma. Church immeasurable, protected by divine armour, and decorated with hyacinth, you are the perfume of the wounds of the peoples and the city of all kinds of knowledge. Oh you are also adorned in deep music, a gleaming gemstone. Hildegard of Bingen (Translation by Barbara Newman)
I lay my hand upon the soil and it rises to meet my palm I lay my hand upon the altar and it beats with the heart of God. O vision! veriditas is the green holiness of growing things and the river is alive with liturgy and the stones are weeping in ecstasy I place the sapphire on my tongue a cure for my weakened sight I chew the fennel seed and I cook the spelt and I heal I heal, by God, I heal! and when I heal myself somehow all else is whole. (Original poem for Hildegard, originally published in last year's September ebook.)
Over the weekend the church calendar gave us the feast day of my favorite saint: Hildegard of Bingen.
Anyone familiar with Hildegard knows that there is no way I can fully explain her and her remarkable life in a short devotional. But here’s a quick attempt:
Hildegard was a Benedictine abbess in what is now the Rhineland of Germany back in the 1100s and has since been canonized as a saint by the Catholic church as recently as 2010. The reason her fame has endured—both within the church as well as without—is because of her incredible range of skills, talents, and passions. Aside from running an abbey, she was also a composer, a writer, an artist, a mystic, an inventor of languages, and a skilled medical practitioner—including a vast knowledge of herbs and herbalism—all in the deeply uncharitable time of the Middle Ages. She had a very unusual, colorful view of theology, and was remarkably gifted.
Hildegard is one of those unusual saints—like Francis of Assissi—who resonates beyond faith, strikes at a different chord in the human story. Christians love her, but so do those of other faiths, and even those who claim no faith. She was deeply devout and intensely focused on Christ, but that devotion translated into art and craft. She poured her soul into creation because of her love for the Creator, something that people centuries later still love her for, and seek to follow in her footsteps.
And on a personal note, I love that Hildegard’s story, unusual among female saints, is not one of pain in a world deeply unkind to women. So many female saints suffered horrible iniquities at the hands of their families, governments, and angry suitors. It can be difficult to read those accounts of violence and martyrdom.
But instead, Hildegard’s tale is a story of wild and holy visions, music sung in an unknown tongue, and the riotous color of creation. A story both sacred and strange, just like so many of our lives happen to be.
Discussion Question
What is the most unusual thing that you do as a devotional to God? Something no one has given you “permission” to dedicate to Him, but that you feel His pleasure when you do it? (This could be any skill, activity, hobby, passion…first thing that pops into your head!)
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Most unusual thing as devotion to God: It's really hard to say. I don't do a lot out of the ordinary nor do I have numerous skills, though what skills I do have I try to put at the disposal of God. The things that have given me the most satisfaction--which I like to think is a divine satisfaction in some way--are little things done for the benefit of others.
I always think back on a social function at my Church in Virginia where I was really struggling to get out of my head, and at the end of an anxious evening of socializing, I helped clean up by mopping the floor. There were people around doing their thing but I just remember at the end of this thing it's just me and the mop and I could put all my energy and focus into it. That's my high water mark. I want to get back to that. For some reason I can't get that same satisfaction mopping my own floor. It has to be someone else's floor.
Recently I've been aware of my moments in the wee hours, rocking my sleepless one-year-old, as moments of devotion, to her and to God.