DAY 10

Image by Nicholas Raymond

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A GREETING
I will praise the name of God with a song;
I will magnify God with thanksgiving.
(Psalm 69:30)

A READING
My soul [magnifies] your greatness, O God,
  and my spirit rejoices in you, my Saviour.
For you have looked with favour
upon your lowly servant,
and from this day forward
all generations will call me blessed.
For you, the Almighty, have done great things for me,
and holy is your Name.
Your mercy reaches from age to age
for those who fear you.
You have shown strength with your arm;
you have scattered the proud in their conceit;
you have deposed the mighty from their thrones
and raised the lowly to high places. 
You have filled the hungry with good things,
while you have sent the rich away empty.
(Luke 1:46-53)

MUSIC


A MEDITATIVE VERSE
And as sure as the sun rises in the morning,
God will come,
and will return to us like the rains of winter,
like the rains of spring that water the earth.'
(Hosea 6:3)

A SONG LYRIC
Now they spring forth in fullest green! Because of you, the heavens give dew to the grass, The whole Earth rejoices; Abundance of grain comes from Earth's womb And on its stalks and branches the birds nest. And, because of you, nourishment is given to the human family And great rejoicing to those gathered round the table.
- from Hildegard of Bingen's Book by Divine Works with Letters and Songs. Edited by Matthew Fox

VERSE OF THE DAY
The human spirit is the lamp of God, searching every inmost part.
(Proverbs 20:27)

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Image by Sathish J

On the last of these ten days of reflecting on Hildegard, we return to her passion for Mary, the 'greenest branch,' the "Viridissima Virga" (Greenest Virgin) of today's song title.

The Magnificat was a favourite text of Hildegard's and in its song, she hears the intention Mary expresses in ‘magnifying’ God with the meaning of ‘to enlarge.’ “My soul enlarges God.”

Hildegard believes that when Mary says ‘my soul magnifies God,’ she is speaking of the creativity of God. And from her 12th century abbey on the banks of the Rhine in Germany, Hildegard might ask us today,
 “How does each of us in our own solemn bodies enlarge the creativity of God, in our own lives and in our loves and in our work?’

Mary's desire, her conviction that her soul enlarges the God within her, finds a comparison in Hildegard’s greening. A few months from now, Jesus, the Green Man, arrives in a birth that (as we tell it) is surrounded by creatures and nature.

Hildegard of Bingen lived exactly half way in time between those events and our lives today. How much are we ready to embody her wisdom, greening our loves as much as our lives, so that all created life may flourish?

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Scripture passages are taken from The Inclusive Bible.

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Today marks the end of the LC† Radiant Earth, Sacred Calling devotional project. As always, thank you for participating and for sharing the project with others. Peace be with you. See you in Advent!

Prayers are extended to National Bishop Larry Kochendorfer as he is installed in Winnipeg tomorrow!

†

LC† Radiant Earth, Sacred Calling is a devotional series of Lutherans Connect, supported by the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and the Centre for Spirituality and Media at Martin Luther University College. To receive the devotions by email, write to lutheransconnect@gmail.com. The devotional pages are written and curated by Deacon Sherry Coman, with support and input from Pastor Steve Hoffard, Catherine Evenden and Henriette Thompson. Join us on Facebook. Lutherans Connect invites you to make a donation to the Ministry by going to this link on the website of the ELCIC Eastern Synod and selecting "Lutherans Connect Devotionals" under "Fund". Devotions are always freely offered, however your donations help support the ongoing work. 
Thank you and peace be with you!

DAY 9

Image by Annemieke Cloosterman

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A GREETING
My lips praise you because your faithful love
is better than life itself!
(Psalm 63:3)

A READING
The name of the first river is the Pishon. It flows around the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. That land’s gold is pure, and the land also has sweet-smelling resins and gemstones.
(Genesis 2:11-12)

MUSIC


A MEDITATIVE VERSE
From the north comes golden light,
the awesome splendor of God.
(Job 37:22)

A REFLECTION
In the beginning, the spirit of the Lord was carried over the waters and the waters overflowed the earth. The water remained without wavering, but by breathing the Spirit made it flow. These waters poured across the land and strengthened it, lest it break apart. And where the fiery power that flows in water penetrated the earth, the fire of the water transformed the earth into gold. Where the purity of the flooding water penetrated the earth, that purity transformed itself and the earth which it suffused into silver. Where the fluctuation of the water penetrated the earth, moved by the wind, it and the earth it transfused were changed into steel and iron. Therefore, iron and steel are stronger than other metals, just as the fluctuation of water moved by winds is stronger than that moved by calm breezes. And, just as the spirit of the Lord first made the waters flood, so it also vivified the human being and gave plants, trees, and stones their vitality.
- from Physica, by Hildegard of Bingen, 
found in Hildegard von Bingen's Physica: 
The Complete English Translation of Her Classic Work on Health and Healing

VERSE OF THE DAY
Even if you lie down among the sheepfolds,
there are wings of a dove covered with silver;
its pinions covered in precious gold.”
(Psalm 68:13)

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Image by Annemieke Cloosterman

Hildegard's book Physica describes in some three hundred pages the healing properties of plants and trees, species by species. She explains the divine properties in the elements, trees, stones, fish, birds, animals, reptiles and even metals. "[Gold's] nature is somewhat like the sun’s, and it is almost like the element air," she writes. "Steel... nearly represents the divinity of God."

It might be very hard for us to imagine gold and steel as having 'divine properties.' Hildegard's expansion of the Genesis story to show how metals were created is a beautiful piece of writing that even sounds biblical. Skilfully she shows us how divine energy from the sun and the sea forges metals in the earth that can be used for healing purposes.

In this way, Hildegard teaches us that what humankind makes with the earth's resources can have the power to give life, when used wisely and even prayerfully. Our contemporary skyscrapers, constructed as monuments to our desire for profit and gain, are closer to Solomon's Palace than to the healing properties Hildegard suggests in Physica. She even offers a recipe for how gold can be eaten in cake to fortify the body.

If divine energy is in all metals, how is God present in the cobalt that goes in our cell phones, mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where the industry depends upon child labour? How will we find God's presence in the strip mining that creates tailings of chemicals? What is the responsibility we have to the divine that is in our natural industries?

Hildegard believed that we all have the capacity to foster life. When we reflect on our lives, how much life have we fostered in Creation? How can God's love forge in us a new consciousness and care for it?

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Scripture passages are taken from The Common English Bible.

†

LC† Radiant Earth, Sacred Calling is a devotional series of Lutherans Connect, supported by the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and the Centre for Spirituality and Media at Martin Luther University College. To receive the devotions by email, write to lutheransconnect@gmail.com. The devotional pages are written and curated by Deacon Sherry Coman, with support and input from Pastor Steve Hoffard, Catherine Evenden and Henriette Thompson. Join us on Facebook. Lutherans Connect invites you to make a donation to the Ministry by going to this link on the website of the ELCIC Eastern Synod and selecting "Lutherans Connect Devotionals" under "Fund". Devotions are always freely offered, however your donations help support the ongoing work. 
Thank you and peace be with you!

DAY 8

Image by Bhaskaro Rao

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A GREETING
I meditate with my heart at night;
my spirit keeps searching
(Psalm 77:6)

A READING
When God began to create the heavens and the earth— the earth was without shape or form, it was dark over the deep sea, and God’s wind swept over the waters— God said, “Let there be light.” And so light appeared.
(Genesis 1:1-3)

MUSIC


A MEDITATIVE VERSE
God’s Spirit blows wherever it wishes. You hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from
or where it is going. It’s the same with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
(John 3:8)

A SONG LYRIC
Guard those enchained in evil’s prison,
and loose the bonds of those
whose saving freedom is
the forceful will of God.

O mighty course
that runs within and through
all in the heights, upon the earth,
and in the every depth—
you bind and gather all together.
- from "O ignis Spiritus Paracliti (Symphonia 28),"
by Hildegard of Bingen; translated by Nathaniel M. Campbell

VERSE OF THE DAY
The Companion, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name,
will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I told you.
(John 14:26)

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The "Holy Spirit hole" in Saint Stephen's Cathedral,
Passau, Germany. Some Renaissance churches had a whole
in the ceiling to allow the Holy Spirit to descend at Pentecost.
Image by Eric.

The scriptural story is filled with references to Spirit in many forms. In Exodus we read of a 'divine spirit' in Moses which helps keep a direct relationship with God. There are spirits that are "stirred up" in situations and spirits that are "put" onto individuals. There are the Lord's Spirit and the Spirit of God, good spirits and evil spirits.

For Hildegard, however, there is only the Holy Spirit, a fiery energy that carries the divine will over Creation. It was present at the very beginning, when it brooded over the unseparated elements of the earth and seas, and it was there at the creation of Jesus within Mary. The Holy Spirit "runs within and through all in the heights, upon the earth, and in the every depth— you bind and gather all together." There is no separating the Holy Spirit from the Creative will of God.

In the era of Hildegard, the architecture of monasteries often included a tiny hole in the ceiing above the altar, known as the "Holy Spirit hole," through which it was believed that the Holy Spirit would descend at Pentecost. Believers hoped that a manifestation of God's presence would make itself known, transforming them with the same effect it had on the first followers of Jesus.

But Hildegard might say that the potential for transformation is already present in each of us. The Spirit does not descend into us, but stirs up what is already in our blood and bones, in our hearts and minds. The signs of our transformation are not a sudden capacity to be hearing in other languages, but how much we are ready to give of ourselves to God's work in the world.

How does the Holy Spirit stir change in you? What is waiting to be born anew?


†

Scripture passages are taken from The Common English BIble, with minor amendment.

†

LC† Radiant Earth, Sacred Calling is a devotional series of Lutherans Connect, supported by the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and the Centre for Spirituality and Media at Martin Luther University College. To receive the devotions by email, write to lutheransconnect@gmail.com. The devotional pages are written and curated by Deacon Sherry Coman, with support and input from Pastor Steve Hoffard, Catherine Evenden and Henriette Thompson. Join us on Facebook. Lutherans Connect invites you to make a donation to the Ministry by going to this link on the website of the ELCIC Eastern Synod and selecting "Lutherans Connect Devotionals" under "Fund". Devotions are always freely offered, however your donations help support the ongoing work. 
Thank you and peace be with you!

DAY 7

Image by Rab Lawrence

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A GREETING
As a deer longs for flowing streams,
so my soul longs for you, O God.
(Psalm 42:1)

A READING
These things I remember,
as I pour out my soul:
how I went with the throng
and led them in procession to the house of God,
with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving,
a multitude keeping festival.
(Psalm 42:4)

MUSIC


A MEDITATIVE VERSE
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When shall I come and behold the face of God?
(Psalm 42:2)

A LYRIC
The dove peered in
through the lattices of the window
where, before its face,
a balm exuded
from incandescent Maximum.
The heat of the sun burned
dazzling into the gloom:
whence a jewel sprang forth
in the building of the temple
of the purest loving heart.
- vv.1-2 from Columbia Aspexit, by Hildegard of Bingen,
performed in today's recording above.

VERSE OF THE DAY
And now bless the God of all,
who everywhere works great wonders,
who exalts our days from birth
and deals with us with mercy.
May God give us gladness of heart,
and may there be peace in our days.
(Sirach 50:22-23)

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Image by Matt Brown

In Columbia Aspexit, today's musical entry by Hildegard, the composer is drawing attention to the place in which we worship God and tell the story of Jesus. She conjures for us a saint-like priest named Maximum, based on a real figure who lived in the 4th century, and echoing a figure named Simon that appears toward the end of the book of Sirach. In the ideal priest, she imagines a direct mirroring of God's power and light. Her way of conveying this in her song lyrics is to make comparisons to wildlife and nature. The priest has a quality of divine energy so great that it is comparable with the majestic stag and the white dove. Allusions to both Sirach 50 and Psalm 42 appear throughout the song.

The upward and falling movement of the note sequences is familiar to us by now after a number of days of listening to Hildegard's music. But in this particular song, they also reflect the nature of the Creation life referenced. The downward stretches are associated with the dove swooping and water flowing. The upward movements accompanying the lyrics about the swiftly moving 'hart.' Hildegard paints images that connect both God and the creatures of everyday life on the Rhineland, while also including the biblical images already mentioned.

Hildegard loved worship -- which is why she spent so much of her time dedicated to worship arts. Her music is as dense with biblical motifs as other forms of medieval art, such as stained glass windows and tapestries. Some of the verses talk about how the sun drenches the stone walls of the monastery, setting them in a blaze of light. For Hildegard, the sun's warmth and powerful presence are the source of all life that God has created.

How much do we integrate and think about Creation in our own worship gatherings? Even after the Season of Creation passes, how might we continue to weave the natural world into our rituals of loving and praising God, so that the created world is never far from our hearts?

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Scripture passages are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition.

†

LC† Radiant Earth, Sacred Calling is a devotional series of Lutherans Connect, supported by the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and the Centre for Spirituality and Media at Martin Luther University College. To receive the devotions by email, write to lutheransconnect@gmail.com. The devotional pages are written and curated by Deacon Sherry Coman, with support and input from Pastor Steve Hoffard, Catherine Evenden and Henriette Thompson. Join us on Facebook. Lutherans Connect invites you to make a donation to the Ministry by going to this link on the website of the ELCIC Eastern Synod and selecting "Lutherans Connect Devotionals" under "Fund". Devotions are always freely offered, however your donations help support the ongoing work. 
Thank you and peace be with you!

DAY 6

Image by Rennett Stowe

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A GREETING
I will sing to the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praise to my God while I have being.
(Psalm 104:33)

A READING
You are clothed with honor and majesty,
wrapped in light as with a garment.
You stretch out the heavens like a tent;
you set the beams of your chambers on the waters;
you make the clouds your chariot;
you ride on the wings of the wind;
you make the winds your messengers,
fire and flame your ministers.
You set the earth on its foundations,
so that it shall never be shaken.
(Psalm 104:1a-5)

MUSIC


A MEDITATIVE VERSE
When you send forth your spirit, they are created,
and you renew the face of the ground.
(Psalm 104:30)

A REFLECTION
We are here to contribute to the ongoing evolution of the universe and participate in the wonder of it all which also means discovering more and more about creation, about the ongoing birthing or genesis around us, all 13.8 billion years of it and even all two trillion galaxies of space encircling it. In Hildegard’s vision, cosmogenesis becomes our common work, our common service to God and to the world.
- from "Hildegard on Our Work as Cosmic and Sacramental Work,"
a blog essay by Matthew Fox, found on Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox

VERSE OF THE DAY
For with you is the fountain of life;
in your light we see light.
(Psalm 36:9)

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"Cultivating the Cosmic Tree,"
Image designed by Hildegard of Bingen

On Day 3, we reflected on Hildegard's fascination with the 'circle' and included on that day one of her illuminations that take on a mandala-like form. Today, we dive deeper into the meaning of these drawings and how much they express a cosmic Christianity that her numerous visionary encounters with God were revealing to her.

Today's video features visually one such vision, "Cultivating the Cosmic Tree." 'Cultivating' is intentionally in the present tense, as a recognition of how much Creation continues to be generating and regenerating itself. It is natural for species to go through cycles of extinction and iterative evolution, a kind of 'comeback' in a different form. However, in our own time we are escalating the extinction part of the cycle, in many cases with no real reason to believe that what is being lost will return -- in any form. Hildegard believed that it was esesential to understand the inextricably interconnected nature of all created life. This mandala visually represents the four elements, the winds, and the turn of the seasons, amid a turning wheel of a garden of trees, populated by human figures. The figures are a part of the cycle and do not dominate it, but intermingle with it.

Hildegard began creating these visual works in 1135 at the age of 32 while living with her community at Disibodenberg. This was a monastery that also had a community of men, with whom the women shared space for decades until Hildegard pleaded for and received funding for a new abbey for women at Rupertsberg. It is possible that there were visual artists among the larger community who listened to her visions and created the images for her. (It is known that she did not make them herself, but commissioned them and designed them.)

While she was likely motivated by the intensity of her visions to try to represent what she saw visually, it is not clear why she chose this particular form. It is possible that as stained glass was starting to emerge in churches more regularly (this century would bring forth Chartres), she longed to combine her passionate attachment to the 'living light,' in the ways that stained glass allowed a reflection of light into space. Stained glass windows were not teaching windows yet in her time; rather, if they existed at all in monasteries, they would have been small blocks of mostly one or two colours. Perhaps she longed for something like a prayer icon with which to manifest the blinding light that often accompanied her visions.

Art helps us to make sense of the world around us and the world within ourselves. Sometimes we don't fully understand what has taken place within our spiritual journey until we share it, with friends or in a trusted community. Just as each work of art is unique unto itself, our created world contains an uncountable number of unique life forms. Each of these, believed Hildegard, reflects God's design for the cosmos, which is beyond us to fathom. How can we remind ourselves of the relatively small role we play in the cosmic order? How can we re-imagine ourselves into Hildegard's vision, in which we participate in these cycles of life as just one of millions of life forms, instead of believing we are the most important one?

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Scripture passages are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition.

Image by Rennett Stowe

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LC† Radiant Earth, Sacred Calling is a devotional series of Lutherans Connect, supported by the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and the Centre for Spirituality and Media at Martin Luther University College. To receive the devotions by email, write to lutheransconnect@gmail.com. The devotional pages are written and curated by Deacon Sherry Coman, with support and input from Pastor Steve Hoffard, Catherine Evenden and Henriette Thompson. Join us on Facebook. Lutherans Connect invites you to make a donation to the Ministry by going to this link on the website of the ELCIC Eastern Synod and selecting "Lutherans Connect Devotionals" under "Fund". Devotions are always freely offered, however your donations help support the ongoing work. 
Thank you and peace be with you!

DAY 5

Image by Robert J. Heath

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A GREETING
To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
(Psalm 25:1)

A READING
Wisdom teaches her children
and gives help to those who seek her.
Whoever loves her loves life,
and those who seek her from early morning are filled with joy.
Whoever holds her fast inherits glory,
and the Lord blesses the place she enters.
Those who serve her minister to the Holy One;
the Lord loves those who love her.
(Sirach 4:11-14)

MUSIC


A MEDITATIVE VERSE
Say to wisdom, “You are my sister”;
call understanding “friend."
(Proverbs 7:4)

A REFLECTION
Holy persons draw to themselves all that is earthly. . . .
The earth is at the same time mother,
She is mother of all that is natural,
mother of all that is human.
She is the mother of all,
for contained in her
are the seeds of all.
- Hildegard of Bingen, as translated and quoted in
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality, by Matthew Fox

VERSE OF THE DAY
Strength and dignity are her clothing,
and she laughs at the time to come.
(Proverbs 31:25)

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Image by Robert J. Heath

Wisdom in the books of the bible where she appears, is always positoned as female. This is partly because the ancient languages of the bible figure Wisdom with feminine forms. The same is also true in both Hebrew and Greek for "Holy Spirit," but years of translation into the masculine pronoun has made it more challenging in some contexts to adopt that form. And yet, biblically, Holy Spirit is as much female as Wisdom is.

The 'divine feminine' was of deep interest to Hildegard. She refers to Mary as the 'ground of all being,' a phrase that is more usually associated with God, thanks to Meister Eckhart's later use of the term. The divine feminine is linked in Celtic Christianity to the earth: "mother earth", and particularly the actual ground and soil and deep stratas of humus and rock and sediment beneath the ground's surface, are places of verdancy and growth. The ground can be likened to the 'womb,' in which darkness holds the breath of new life.

Many biblical books, including Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon, spend long verses extoling the presence and power of Wisdom. She is sometimes called 'Sophia' and linked with Jesus. She participates in the Word, is present at the dawn of Creation. Although not a historical figure, Wisdom is a biblical construction with profound presence and influence.

Hildegard wrote at length about Wisdom, whom she called Sapientia, not only in her books but in her music. For Hildegard, the persona of Wisdom is infused with deep compassion. She sometimes calls the figure Love, which feels closer to a creative generating manifestation of God's world to her. While it might come easily to imagine God's love as an essential aspect of God, how does it affect our prespectives on care for Creation to think of the earth as womb-like, ready always for new life? When we consider contemporary industries and activities like deep-sea mining, fracking and even just the paving over of topsoil with concrete, how are we challenged to make sure that the womb of the earth survives?


†

Scripture passages are taken from the Common English Bible.

†

LC† Radiant Earth, Sacred Calling is a devotional series of Lutherans Connect, supported by the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and the Centre for Spirituality and Media at Martin Luther University College. To receive the devotions by email, write to lutheransconnect@gmail.com. The devotional pages are written and curated by Deacon Sherry Coman, with support and input from Pastor Steve Hoffard, Catherine Evenden and Henriette Thompson. Join us on Facebook. Lutherans Connect invites you to make a donation to the Ministry by going to this link on the website of the ELCIC Eastern Synod and selecting "Lutherans Connect Devotionals" under "Fund". Devotions are always freely offered, however your donations help support the ongoing work. 
Thank you and peace be with you!

DAY 4

Image by May Wong

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A GREETING
Arise! Shine! Your light has come;
the Lord’s glory has shone upon you.
(Isaiah 60:1)

A READING
People don’t light a lamp and then put it in a closet or under a basket. Rather, they place the lamp on a lampstand so that those who enter the house can see the light. If your whole body is full of light—with no part darkened—then it will be as full of light as when a lamp shines brightly on you.”
(Luke 11:33;36)

MUSIC


A MEDITATIVE VERSE
God's radiance is like the sunlight,
with rays flashing from God's hand.
(Habakkuk 3:4)

A REFLECTION
There is no creation that does not have a radiance.
Be it greenness or seed, blossom or beauty, it could not be creation without it.
- Hildegard of Bingen, as quoted by Matthew Fox
in his book, Wrestling with the Prophets:
Essays on Creation Spirituality and Everyday Life

VERSE OF THE DAY
The shining sun looked down on everything,
and the Lord’s work is radiant with glory.
(Sirach 42:16)

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Image by May Wong

Hildegard's visions began when she was a child of four or five. It was because of these enigmatic encounters that her parents felt she would be better suited to life in a convent. Her visions were active engagements with God and other divine beings which, as she describes it, were manifest almost entirely in qualities of light.

Eventually, Hildegard would come to use the word 'radiance' to describe the spiritual kinship that was present in the perfect orb of light that accompanied her visions. It was through these experiences that she was able to make the connection between a personal encounter with God, and the "living light" that is in all created things. As we hear in the short reflection above, for Hildegard Creation is not Creation without radiance.

When we talk about the glory of God, we tend to make it otherworldly and something separate from ourselves. But Hildegard's radiance can be found in the simplest flower and in the shining of the sea.

Essential to her spirituality is the understanding that all created life must be able to thrive in its own natural rhythms and characteristics. When we distort the natural beauty of Creation, we rob it of its radiance. When we overfarm the land without ever giving it a break, when we hybridize species that were never meant to be combined, when we pollute our oceans and rivers and harvest more than nature can resupply, we lose touch with the radiance that is everywhere around us.

How can we change this? How can we challenge ourselves to resist the temptation to distort and exploit what has already been made perfect in its essence by God?

†

Scripture passages are taken from the Common English Bible.

†

LC† Radiant Earth, Sacred Calling is a devotional series of Lutherans Connect, supported by the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and the Centre for Spirituality and Media at Martin Luther University College. To receive the devotions by email, write to lutheransconnect@gmail.com. The devotional pages are written and curated by Deacon Sherry Coman, with support and input from Pastor Steve Hoffard, Catherine Evenden and Henriette Thompson. Join us on Facebook. Lutherans Connect invites you to make a donation to the Ministry by going to this link on the website of the ELCIC Eastern Synod and selecting "Lutherans Connect Devotionals" under "Fund". Devotions are always freely offered, however your donations help support the ongoing work. 
Thank you and peace be with you!

DAY 3

Image by Vanessa Sabino

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A GREETING
My mouth shall speak wisdom;
the meditation of my heart shall be understanding.
(Psalm 49:3)

A READING
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
It is God who sits above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers,
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain
and spreads them like a tent to live in.
(Isaiah 40:21-22)

MUSIC
This selection has been cued up to start with a bell and an extended drone. 
Singing begins at the 6 minute mark.


A MEDITATIVE VERSE
God has described a circle on the face of the waters,
at the boundary between light and darkness.
(Job 26:10)

A REFLECTION
All living creatures are, so to speak,
sparks from the radiation of God's brilliance,
and these sparks emerge from God like the rays of the sun.
- found in Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen
by Matthew Fox

VERSE OF THE DAY
Let your face shine upon your servant;
save me in your steadfast love.
(Psalm 31:16)

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"The True Trinity in the True Unity,"
original mandala art by Hildegard of Bingen

Today’s musical selection begins with the ‘drone’ mentioned on Day 1, the single tone that is played by an instrument and held in this case by human voice. Singers move in clockwise and counter-clockwise movements to arrive at a circular pattern enclosing a single figure.

The dance could almost be a dramatization of a Hildegard mandala drawing. Circles were a preoccupation of Hildegard for whom they represented eternal life and the continuous unfolding of God’s creativity. To illustrate her first book of writings, Scivias, Hildegard designed and oversaw the making of a series of mandalas that visually represented her understanding of the cosmos. In the image above, “the Trinity in the Unity,” the inner circles represent God (always associated with the light or the sun), the outer circles are the Holy Spirit and the figure of Jesus speaks for himself, standing within and unifying the circles that enclose him.

Hildegard’s fascination with circles expresses itself throughout Scivias (“Know the Ways”) where the spiritual journey is described as a continuous path we follow to take us wherever it leads. She lived in a time when labyrinths began appearing in churches and cathedrals. The idea of submitting to God’s path without questioning where it might lead was already a centuries-old Celtic practice, exemplified in the ‘oarless voyages’ often undertaken by monks in Ireland and Scotland to find out where they are meant to be.

Our natural world is filled with circles, from the construction of a spider’s web to the natural fissure of an Icelandic geyser to the orb that is the sun. Circles make community: when we gather in a circle, no one is hidden and no one has their back to another. Often we have our eyes focused on only what is directly ahead of us. How can the circles of the natural world encourage us always to be looking outward to the next person, and beyond them to all created life?

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Scripture passages are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition.

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LC† Radiant Earth, Sacred Calling is a devotional series of Lutherans Connect, supported by the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and the Centre for Spirituality and Media at Martin Luther University College. To receive the devotions by email, write to lutheransconnect@gmail.com. The devotional pages are written and curated by Deacon Sherry Coman, with support and input from Pastor Steve Hoffard, Catherine Evenden and Henriette Thompson. Join us on Facebook. Lutherans Connect invites you to make a donation to the Ministry by going to this link on the website of the ELCIC Eastern Synod and selecting "Lutherans Connect Devotionals" under "Fund". Devotions are always freely offered, however your donations help support the ongoing work. 
Thank you and peace be with you!

DAY 2

Image by Bob Wick

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A GREETING
O my strength, I watch for you,
for you, O God, are my stronghold.
(Psalm 59:9)

A READING
Those who make themselves as humble as this child
are the greatest in the kindom of heaven.
Whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me.
(Matthew 18:4-5)

MUSIC
This song was composed by Ola Gjeilo, with lyrics by Hildegard of Bingen (in Latin).
The song's meaning is discussed in the write-up below. The first ten seconds are silent.


A MEDITATIVE VERSE
That’s why my heart sings to you,
that’s why I can’t keep silent—
God, you are my God,
and I will thank you forever.
(Psalm 30:12)

A PRESCRIPTION FOR ILLNESS
If someone is overwhelmed by numbness, another person should take a bit of the earth from the right and left side of the bed where the sick person’s head is, and in the same way take earth from near the person’s right and left foot. While he is digging it he should say, “You, earth, are sleeping in this person, N.” And he should place the earth which had been taken from both sides of the patient’s head under his head, until it grows warm there. In a similar manner, he should place the other earth under his feet, so that it might receive heat from them. When the earth is placed under his head and feet, this should be said, “You, earth, grow and be useful in this person, N., so that he may receive your vital greenness, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who is the all-powerful, living God.” This should be done for three days.
- from Physica, by Hildegard of Bingen, 
found in Hildegard von Bingen's Physica: 
The Complete English Translation of Her Classic Work on Health and Healing. 

VERSE OF THE DAY
You show me the path to Life;
your presence fills me with joy,
and by your side I find enduring pleasure.
(Psalm 16:11)


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Image by Rob Russell

In today's music, Norwegian composer Ola Gjeilo has taken a well known song of Hildegard's, Ave Generosa, and re-set it, keeping the lyrics and composing his own melody that nonetheless blends in many of the musical themes of the original. The song is another anthem to Mary, whom Hildegard so deeply loved. The cadence of this song's lyrics, however, speak to Mary as if she had been a personal mentor to Hildegard. The song participates in a trilogy of three songs that speak of the love one has for a beloved child (such as Mary might sing to Jesus), the love one has for a spouse or partner, and the love one has for a cherished friend or mentor.

Hildegard was the tenth child in her family and therefore her father 'tithed' her to God by sending her to live in a convent. She was assigned to an anchorite (a nun who lives permanently in a cell) for five years, without going outside at all. At age 15 when she passed her novitiate and officially joined the community, she was soon put into leadership positions. Throughout this time, she was both isolated and brought into closer relationship with God.

Perhaps it is because she was forced to live in a cell for five years, or perhaps it was her Creation-centred Celtic roots that led the now-freer Hildegard outside into the lush Rhineland beyond the monastery, where she experienced a profound sense of affinity with God through all created life. In her botanical writings, she began writing about the divine energy that shimmered in grasses and leaves. She began to think of human beings as trees, and to reflect on the deep interconnectedness of all creatures under the surface of the earth. As we can see in today's reflection, she believed that the earth, or ground soil, could heal anything.

In a religion that would become focussed on heaven as an imagined place above the clouds, Hildegard's God was deep in the humus of Creation. To harm the earth was to harm God, because no being exists without God being a part of it. In our own lives and times, how much do we think about what lies under the ground beneath our feet? How much do we imagine it as a sacred place of beginnings and endings, in which all life forms come together?

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Scripture passages are taken from The Inclusive Bible.

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LC† Radiant Earth, Sacred Calling is a devotional series of Lutherans Connect, supported by the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and the Centre for Spirituality and Media at Martin Luther University College. To receive the devotions by email, write to lutheransconnect@gmail.com. The devotional pages are written and curated by Deacon Sherry Coman, with support and input from Pastor Steve Hoffard, Catherine Evenden and Henriette Thompson. Join us on Facebook. Lutherans Connect invites you to make a donation to the Ministry by going to this link on the website of the ELCIC Eastern Synod and selecting "Lutherans Connect Devotionals" under "Fund". Devotions are always freely offered, however your donations help support the ongoing work. 
Thank you and peace be with you!

DAY 1

"Emerald Forest," Killarney National Park, Ireland.
Image by Nicholas Raymond

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A GREETING
The earth and everything on it—
the world and all who live in it—
belong to you, O God.
(Psalm 24:1)

A READING
You set springs gushing in ravines,
running down between the mountains,
supplying water for wild animals
and attracting the thirsty wild donkeys;
the birds of the air make their nests by these waters
and sing among the branches.
From your palace you water the highlands
until the ground is sated by the fruit of your work;
you make fresh grass grow for cattle
and plants for us to cultivate
to get food from the soil—
wine to cheer our hearts, oil to make our faces shine,
and bread to sustain our life.
The trees of God drink their fill—
those cedars of Lebanon.
(Psalm 104:10-16)

MUSIC
Sung in Latin, the lyrics in English are found below.


A MEDITATIVE VERSE
I am an olive tree flourishing in God’s house,
for I trust in God’s love forever and ever.
(Psalm 52:8)

A SONG LYRIC
O blooming branch,
you stand upright in your nobility,
as breaks the dawn on high:
Rejoice now and be glad,
and deign to free us, frail and weakened,
from the wicked habits of our age;
stretch forth your hand
to lift us up aright.
- O Frondens Virga, by Hildegard of Bingen
translation by Alex Burns.

VERSE OF THE DAY
Happy are you when you find Wisdom,
She is a tree of life for those who embrace her, and all who hold fast to her.
(Proverbs 3:13a;18)

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Schloss Drachenburg on the River Rhein, Germany
Image by Arno Hoyer

To listen to the songs of Hlidegard of Bingen is to experience a continuous cascading ride up and down a single line of notes, often without a clear melody, and without a consistent rhythm. The twelfth-century plainchant seems to release the soul of the singer upward into a heavenly realm, while also holding the ‘drone’, a continuous tone that provides the anchoring musical sound, from which the song emerges. Like the first sound from a bagpipe player as they breathe into the instrument, the ‘drone’ expresses a beginning, a start to the musical experience. (Today’s music does not include a ‘drone’ but we will hear it in coming days.)

While the dusky sounds of medieval chant may feel a million miles away from where we live in twenty-first-century North America, Hildegard, who lived a full millenium ago, is more relevant now than ever. Hers is a spirituality and theology rooted deep in the earth. Hildegard was perhaps the first ecotheologian as we might term it now, whose cultural and spiritual Celtic roots were met by her training and vocation as a nun in the emergingly dominant ethos of Roman Christianity in Northern Europe. Therefore, in her words and in her compositions, her writings, her visual drawings, her botanical and medical writings (for she was prolifically expressive in all of these), the earth is never far from her heart and her mind.

This profound love of Creation infuses her theology. ‘O blooming branch,’ the song lyric says, addressing Mary. In her writings, Hildegard calls Jesus the ‘green man,’ and his mother 'the greenest branch.’ They weave through her creative and scientific writings, inextricably entwined with the natural world. To ‘green the soul’ is to bring oneself closer to the divine energy in all created life.

Over the next ten days, we will explore this 'greening,' the various facets of the spirituality of Hildegard, as we hold up our prayers also for our mother, the earth. How can Hildegard help us return to our deepest longings and affinities with our natural world? How will she inspire us into a more committed care of it?

Today is the feast day of Hildegard of Bingen, who died on this date in 1179.

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Scripture texts are taken from The Inclusive Bible.

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LC† Radiant Earth, Sacred Calling is a devotional series of Lutherans Connect, supported by the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and the Centre for Spirituality and Media at Martin Luther University College. To receive the devotions by email, write to lutheransconnect@gmail.com. The devotional pages are written and curated by Deacon Sherry Coman, with support and input from Pastor Steve Hoffard, Catherine Evenden and Henriette Thompson. Join us on Facebook. Lutherans Connect invites you to make a donation to the Ministry by going to this link on the website of the ELCIC Eastern Synod and selecting "Lutherans Connect Devotionals" under "Fund". Devotions are always freely offered, however your donations help support the ongoing work. 
Thank you and peace be with you!

WELCOME!

Image by Sherry Coman

LC† Radiant Earth, Sacred Calling

Join us from September 17 - 26th, 2025!

To mark the Season of Creation, Lutherans Connect will be offering a special ten-day devotional launching on September 17th, the feast day of Hildegard of Bingen. Hildegard was a 12th century physician, botanist, theologian, composer, visual artist and writer. Inspired by her wisdom (which blends both Celtic and high medieval Christian spirituality and practice), the devotional will reflect on how we can be working toward 'greening our souls,' and in turn enlivening the way we relate to the earth and to each other.

As usual, the daily offerings will include scripture, poetry, music and reflections. To receive the devotions by email (encouraged), please write to lutheransconnect@gmail.com. Devotions will also be posted daily to the Lutherans Connect Facebook page.

Blessings in the Season of Creation!

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