Sep 17 2019 Colossians 3: 14-17 Hildegard of Bingen

With gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.

Hildegard was a 12th century mystic, poet, composer, and doctor. She was raised in a monastery, and eventually came to lead a convent, and preached her way throughout Europe. She wrote plays, music and poetry, describing her visions. She was a staunch advocate of social justice, believing the downtrodden deserved to be freed, that every human should have the opportunity to develop and use their God-given gifts, and to realize their potential. She has been considered one of the most important female characters of her time.

One of her plays, “The Play of Virtues”, is set to music, or at least most of it. It is story where human virtues sing their parts, but human vices cannot sing and are relegated to speaking only. Music has always had a large role in my faith, so this setting – goodness sings and evil cannot – strikes me as brilliant.

In my years of choir, I’ve sung many pieces of Hildegard’s music. The melodies are very distinct, and didn’t seem musical, to my western ears. But they definitely grew me. The lyrics struck me as either very rooted in this world and its beauty, or other-worldly, visionary, poetic, and much harder for me to understand. But there was something about the music and lyrics that stuck with me. They were haunting, not in a scary sense, but more I found myself thinking about the words, or humming the tunes throughout the week. Hildegard believed music had the power to heal the human body, a concept that the modern-day neuroscientist Oliver Sacks studied. 

This morning, I’m thinking about music, about singing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude to God. There is something deeply moving about music. My bound-up logical overthinking brain is let loose in song. I don’t over-think, sometimes I don’t think at all. Things come out when I sing that needed release, things I couldn’t verbalize if I had to, but I can sing them. 

I’m also thinking about how I can be transported by song. It’s similar to the lightbulb phenomenon, where we can remember where we were during times of trial – remember where we were when we heard about 9/11. On a happier note, with a particular song, I am seemingly transported back to a meaningful time that song was played, or sung. Not just a memory, but I’m lost in that previous time, and it can take a moment to resituate myself here and now. Songs my dad played on the organ at home, music I’ve sung at meaningful funerals, hymns sung at my ordination. Music memories are different than words or images or events, in my brain. They transport, heal, connect. When I worship, music is an integral part.

I was told once by a musician that they thought I could write music. Today, I wonder why they said that, if they were right, and what song is trying to come out.