Feast Day of Hildegarde of Bingen

Today is the feast day of Hildegard of Bingen. I forgot, and now the day is almost over, the feast day of one of my favorite medieval mystics. In so many ways, that seems a metaphor for my modern life: I get essential stuff done, while sometimes forgetting aspects of what's important to me--so far, the forgettings have not been earth shattering, but my forgetting bothers me nonetheless.


Hildegard is one of those medieval women that makes me feel like an utter failure. We all face constraints of various kinds, and the life of Hildegard shows what could be accomplished, even during a time where women did not have full rights and agency. She was an Abbess, and because being in charge of one cloistered community isn't enough, she founded another. She wrote music, and more of her music survives than almost any other medieval composer. She was an early naturalist, writing down her observations about the natural world and her theories about how the natural world heals us. She wrote to kings, emperors and popes to encourage them to pursue peace and justice. She wrote poems and a morality play and along the way, a multitude of theological meditations.

She did all of these things, in addition to keeping her community running smoothly. Yes, I'm thinking about Hildegard as an administrator, a woman who could be efficient and artistic at the same time. It’s no wonder that I find her inspiring.

And it's no wonder that I feel like I don't measure up. During these times when I feel like I'm accomplishing NOTHING as an artist, it's easy to convince myself that I've peaked, as much as I was going to peak. It's easy to sink into a spiral of self-pity and despair: "I should have worked harder on this project, I should have followed through on this contact, I should have taken this job, I should have moved to that place." On and on I can go in this way.

I often wonder if those medieval mystics in charge of abbeys and monasteries chafed at those responsibilities. Did they wish they had more time for contemplation? And not the contemplation of how to keep everyone fed and clothed? Did they have a creative masterpiece that they never quite finished because people kept interrupting them?

And yet the sum of their days shows what can be accomplished even in small snippets of time. So let us use this feast day to recalibrate our efforts and commit to what's important.