“I have exalted humankind

With the vocation of creation.

I call humankind to the same norm.”

Here is one stanza of the greater works of Hildegard von Bingen, a twelfth century German abbess, expressing the divine word as she came to know it in her heart. She read in the story of creation as found in the bible and the story of creation found in daily living the great end of humankind – to allow the spirit and fire that animates and illuminates our deepest longing and our deepest knowing to be set free and to become composers one and all.

If we stop asking literal questions about evolution when we look at the first chapters of the bible, we find there a beautiful and true symphony that describes the meaning of creation from a metaphorical first day to our time in the present. It is written: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the waters. And God said, “Let there be…”

All of a sudden something came to pass, and a great possibility was born – where before mostly absence or more likely chaos defined the universe – a presence that had the power to mold and to multiply acted on the known sphere. In science and in religion we might call this the First Cause. This great cause, this organizing principle, began a cascade that created life out of what had been at one time merely swirling gases that had no being, no other being, and no love. Unique elements without which we would cease to matter and we would cease.

The creative spirit that we have come to know in the story has the power, as do we, to fashion out of the chaos that pre-exists in the world and would seem to lead via the forces of entropy to the absence of life instead to its very opposite – to molding and multiplying – to creativity and life teaming from our motions and emotions. All of us may not be painters or musicians, like Hildegard, but we all create order and beauty out of the dissonant chords and pictures that make up our lives. All of us may not have children, and yet our actions have the power to make or unmake fertile possibilities for the next generation.

And God said, “Let there be… Or, some beautiful moment before which we could exist happened and light and life and love… all the possibilities of creation were where once before they were not.

Have you ever had an idea that was so powerful that you both hoped and feared sharing it? On some days we have the soul of an artist and trusting that all mistakes lead somewhere we open ourselves to helping that idea find a home in the world. Other days we repress that idea, that yearning, that possibility and so it remains in the realm of non-being for another pregnant moment and never again will it come to life in the unique union that our individual life brings to it now. There are times when this repression makes sense, if it is a false-creation, one that chokes off the possibility of further creation and therefore life. But all too often, we repress who we are deep down and our unique song to share with the world whether out of fear, out of shame, out of the forces of oppression, or something else. This can lead to a kind of spiritual sickness as it did with Hildegard von Bingen.

Hildegard was born in the year 1098. At the time and place in which she lived, the world was waiting for a woman of courage to mold and multiply the disorder into a place that included the respect to listen to the voices of women. People of the time were not accustomed to listening to the feminine form of wisdom and so for forty-two years she repressed her gifts until finally this spiritual sickness in the culture and in her heart manifested as a physical illness. Hildegard was often confined to bed and the number of days she would have left seemed to grow shorter all the time.

The gift of her being was not allowed “to be” according to the authorities of the day. In this way, her mind, her body, and her life were slowly being returned to the watery chaos, the disorder of disease, the that which existed before creation was a possibility. This illness became a catalyst for Hildegard, and she could no longer deny that the ideas, the visions, the creations forming inside of her needed to be expressed on the outside or she would die. She heard the voice of the divine telling her, “Put your pen to paper and write what you see, write what you are hearing and write what you are being told.” Finally, she gained the courage in the face of death to claim her birthright to begin to create. As soon as she did, she became well, and lived forty more years.

Here is how she describes her spiritual awakening:

“When I was 42 years and 7 months old, a burning light of tremendous brightness coming from Heaven poured into my entire mind. Like a flame that does not burn but enkindles, it inflamed my entire heart and my entire breast, just like the sun that warms an object with its rays. All of a sudden, I was able to taste of understanding …”

Hildegard went on to write ten books, seventy poems, and painted thirty-six “illuminations.” She wrote hymns and one of the first known operas. She was also a budding scientist and engaged her nuns in the creation of a healing herbal garden. There was much pregnant in creation that burst forth when she finally gained the courage to share her words, her music, and her healing ways.

I think many of us have struggled with this kind of spiritual sickness at one time or another. We feel unqualified. We doubt whether we have the mettle to be artists in a world or in a life where the chaos before us in the form of grief, of illness, of doubt, of repression, of isolation and division, could be ordered into something of meaning, of beauty, or of worth to share.

But Hildegard teaches us all that the greatest commandment in the bible resides in the very first story. We often hear of loving God and loving our neighbor as the greatest commands, but maybe the most important commandment is three simple words found in the story of creation: Let There Be!

Yes, here we find three simple words that encompass every possibility. And yet, the story of repressing deep yearnings is a story we hear over and over.

I heard it from the mouth of a high school student who was told that he could not be Christian and be gay, who for years tried to squash his sexuality… By the time he visited my office he was ready to give up one or the other, and came in search of counsel as to which part of himself he should deny… He asked, “Can you be a person of faith and be gay? Do I need to change who I am?” The church where I served before hosted the LGBTQ+ Alliance of Morris County, and teachers in the area knew that group and that my office could provide a sanctuary for such questions.

My counsel was for him to listen carefully not only to what he had been told was true, but to his inner light about what is loving and just and holy… I asked him to consider whether a God of love would not have him be both and express the fullness of who he is.

He came deep in emotional and spiritual crisis… I needed to take seriously these questions tearing him apart. He left hopeful, ready perhaps, or readying himself to face what seemed like a mountain – his family, his church, and his community were not supportive. But I knew that, at least, he had a teacher who had brought him that day, who was in his corner.

At the end of his visit, we stayed in touch via email. At first, his letters were very tentative about what God and faith would look like if all love between peoples was honored. Eventually, they grew more bold sharing the adventures of his heart as he explored relationships and the unfolding of his call to live out faith in a new way. I rejoiced when I received word from him a few years after we had first met. He was leading a Christian campus ministry, openly dating a man, and excited about his path.

I lived this story of repressing a part of myself when I took my first steps towards the ministry during my chaplaincy internship. As a cancer survivor, I was always so careful not to touch and pray with my patients or congregants using my left arm and hand where the tumor had been located. Partly because I can’t fully extend the fingers in this hand because of surgery and other harsh treatments. But mostly because I saw this arm as a source of weakness and illness. Then one day in a hospital in Boston, I met a woman who happened to have the same rare form of cancer. It was actually the first time I met someone who had the same form of cancer. And, for the first time, it felt somehow appropriate to touch her shoulder with that very imperfect arm as we prayed together. I did just that. At once, I could feel that through this arm flowed many of my experiences of overcoming fear and pain, of gaining wisdom, of finding healing even if it doesn’t include perfection. A gift of my ministry long held captive was at once released.

At the dawn of a New Year, I hope that you’ll consider what longing you might be suppressing or what ways you might be holding back the fullness of who you are. We are here on earth to express the impulse of creation to fulfill itself through our minds and hearts and hands. We are here to set it free… again, and again, and again.

Isn’t that what we hope for the children and youth who are with us each Sunday participating in our Learning Community? We wish them to gain the freedom and tools to create the masterpieces and minor pieces that make up a life well lived. And, when we gather here in our sanctuary at the end of a loved one’s life and tell their story, isn’t that what we are celebrating – the ways their unique gifts unfolded in creative and loving gestures that touched us all.

It is my hope that all of us learn how to heed that fiery spirit or that still small voice when it arrives in our hearts. Each one of us can be creators and co-creators and give permission to others to mold and multiply the best that resides in them. When we do, we might just find as did Hildegard, that our song, our work of art, or our labor of love moves with a destiny like “a feather on the breath of God.”

Yes, let there be! Let there be light and love and music, scientists and symphonies… Let there be… children and young adults who grow up unrestricted as to whom they should love or who they can be… Let there be… the experience of an enkindling fire in the hearts of people that calls all of us forth… mathematicians and mystics, lovers and loners, dancers and doctors, environmentalists and entertainers, technicians and teachers… Let there be ordinary heroes and extraordinary healers… Let there be in all our hearts an indwelling and bursting forth of creation… Let there be all we are now and all we can ever become. Oh, yes, let there be!

References:

Hildegard of Bingen, Vision: The Life and Music of Hildegard von Bingen

June Boyce-Tillmand, The Creative Spirit: Harmonious Living With Hildegard of Bingen

Matthew Fox, Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen

Topics: Creation