{"id":10047,"date":"2014-02-16T23:25:44","date_gmt":"2014-02-17T05:25:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/?p=10047"},"modified":"2014-02-16T23:25:44","modified_gmt":"2014-02-17T05:25:44","slug":"hildegards-lessons-for-aging-well","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/holyrover\/2014\/02\/16\/hildegards-lessons-for-aging-well\/","title":{"rendered":"Hildegard's Lessons for Aging Well"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Mural
Mural of Hildegard from the Benedictine Abbey of St. Hildegard near Bingen (Bob Sessions photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Are you up for one last post on Hildegard of Bingen? I wrote the following essay for\u00a0Next Avenue<\/a>, a website affiliated with the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Some of this will be familiar if you\u2019ve read my previous posts on Hildegard, but the lessons on aging at the end are new:<\/em><\/p>\n

From Meryl Streep to Sting to Dame Judi Dench, we have plenty of contemporary role models for aging well. But when I think of how I\u2019d like\u00a0my\u00a0next decades to unfold, I look a little further back in time for my mentor \u2014 nine centuries, to be precise.\u00a0Hildegard of Bingen<\/a>, one of history\u2019s most remarkable women, is my inspiration.\u00a0Writer, healer, mystic, composer, philosopher, poet and naturalist, Hildegard was a Renaissance woman before there even\u00a0was<\/em>\u00a0a Renaissance.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been fascinated by Hildegard since I accidentally stumbled across her music in my 30s. The more I learned about her wealth of talents, the more intrigued I became. And I am not alone in my enthusiasm: Hildegard has as diverse a fan club as any celebrity. Musicians love her ethereal chants; health enthusiasts take inspiration from her writings on diet and healing; environmentalists appreciate her passion for the natural world; feminists hail her as a foremother; and in 2012, Pope Benedict XVI named her a\u00a0Doctor of the Church, an honor bestowed on only a handful of female saints.<\/p>\n

Walking in St. Hildegard\u2019s Shoes<\/strong><\/p>\n

This past November I had the chance to follow \u201cthe Hildegard trail\u201d in Bingen, Germany, an adventure sparked by my son\u2019s decision to spend a semester studying in Leuven, Belgium. (Luckily my son didn\u2019t take offense when I told him I\u2019d be visiting Hildegard first.)<\/p>\n

Clearly much has changed in 900 years, but as I journeyed down the\u00a0Rhine River<\/a>, I suspected Hildegard had probably been as awed by this lush, dramatic landscape as I was.\u00a0The 65-km stretch of river between Koblenz and Bingen \u2014 a UNESCO World Heritage Site \u2014 is bordered by high bluffs and steeply terraced vineyards, with hilltops punctuated with medieval castles. As we cruised down-river, I understood how Hildegard\u2019s deep appreciation for the natural world and her transcendental music were influenced by this landscape.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0Bingen<\/a>,\u00a0a tidy German town of 25,000, I was relieved to learn I wouldn\u2019t have to rely on my rusty high school German. The Hildegard tour is well marked and translated. The town isn\u2019t as inundated with pilgrims as Lourdes or Rome, but it hosts a steady stream of international Hildegard fans.<\/p>\n

My first stop was the\u00a0Museum am Strom<\/a>,\u00a0whose exhibits detail Hildegard\u2019s entry into religious life at the age of 14 (at a monastery in Disibodenberg), her election as an abbess at 38, and her decision to found a new abbey in Bingen 14 years later, which she did despite strong opposition from the monks who wished to keep her and her nuns at Disibodenberg. A year later she published\u00a0Scivias<\/em>, a theological treatise on her prophetic visions.<\/p>\n

I felt her spirit even more strongly in\u00a0St. Hildegard Abbey<\/a>, located on a high hill across the river from Bingen and home to a community of 55 Benedictine nuns. The imposing stone church was built long after Hildegard\u2019s time, but it\u2019s full of murals depicting scenes from her life.<\/p>\n

\"Mural
Mural of Hildegard in Bingen (Bob Sessions photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As I wandered, I was struck with a realization that had previously escaped me: In an era when most people didn\u2019t make it to 50, Hildegard actually become more productive with each passing decade. In spite of being a woman in a male-dominated period, lacking a formal education and suffering from chronic health problems (including exhaustion, fever and pain), Hildegard had a multitasking career that would make a modern CEO envious. She composed music for her nuns to sing, wrote texts on theology and medicinal herbs, advised political leaders, went on preaching tours and, at 67, founded an abbey across the river when her own community had grown to capacity. At age 80 she was still crossing the Rhine twice a week to oversee it.<\/p>\n

My favorite moment of the trip came late one afternoon as I stood on the bank of the Rhine and imagined how the scene might have looked in Hildegard\u2019s day. I could picture her striding purposefully down to the water, hitching up her robes before climbing into a boat, probably dictating orders to her assistant.\u00a0I watched as her dinghy moved across the water, her figure gradually growing smaller in the distance. And just before she reached the shore\u2014I know this sounds strange, but Hildegard of all people believed in the power of visions\u2014I swear she looked back at me and smiled.<\/p>\n

Hildegard\u2019s Lessons for Aging Well<\/strong><\/p>\n

During my visit, I thought about how she was a role model for positive aging, and came up with a list of five lessons we could learn from following in Hildegard\u2019s footsteps:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Ripening is important \u2014 for fruit\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0people.\u00a0<\/strong>Though she\u2019d had mystical visions since childhood, Hildegard didn\u2019t share her revelations with the world until she was 42. It then took her 10 years to write her first book about them. The takeaway: When you\u2019ve got something truly important to share, there\u2019s value in waiting for the perfect moment, when you have the wisdom and maturity to present it well.<\/li>\n
  2. Your greatest weakness\u00a0can become your greatest strength.\u00a0<\/strong>Hildegard suffered poor health her entire life, but it didn\u2019t deter her from passionately pursuing her goals. In fact, her own frailties arguably sparked her interest in healing. She also knew how to use her illness for leverage, as when she took to her bed until her superiors granted her request to found her own abbey.<\/li>\n
  3. Inner harmony provides the wellspring for outer strength.\u00a0<\/strong>Hildegard was deeply spiritual\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>intensely practical, a rare combination in any era. Nourished by prayer and ritual, she found expression in a steady outpouring of creative works.<\/li>\n
  4. Speak the truth as you know it.\u00a0<\/strong>While she had a deep respect for authority and the traditions of her church, she wasn\u2019t afraid to bend the rules when necessary or speak up for what she thought was right. In fact, reading the sharply worded letters she sent to princes and bishops can almost make one feel sorry for the recipients.<\/li>\n
  5. Joy should be the foundation of your life.<\/strong>\u00a0A key concept in Hildegard\u2019s writings is\u00a0viriditas<\/em>, the word she used to describe the mysterious divine vitality that fills the world. She nurtured it wherever she found it, giving what I think is one of the best pieces of advice I\u2019ve ever heard: \u201cBe not lax in celebrating.\u201d I can picture those choruses of angels in her visions echoing the commandment, circling round and round in an endless dance of bliss.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Are you up for one last post on Hildegard of Bingen? I wrote the following essay for\u00a0Next Avenue, a website affiliated with the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Some of this will be familiar if you\u2019ve read my previous posts on Hildegard, but the lessons on aging at the end are new: From Meryl Streep to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2582,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,62],"tags":[177,828],"class_list":["post-10047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aging-spirituality","category-hildegard-of-bingen","tag-aging-lessons","tag-hildegard-of-bingen"],"yoast_head":"\nHildegard's Lessons for Aging Well<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Are you up for one last post on Hildegard of Bingen? 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