Awakening to Our Authority with Hildegard
O weak person, you who are both ashes of ashes and decaying of decaying, speak and write what you see and hear. But you are shy about speaking and simple in explaining and unskilled in writing those things. So speak and write those things not according to human speech or human inventiveness but according to the extent that you see and hear those things in the heavens above in the marvelousness of God. … Be like a listener who understands the words of his or her own teacher but explains them in one’s own way of speaking, willingly, plainly and instructively. So you too, O woman, speak those things which you see and hear. Write those things not according to yourself or by the standards of another person, but according to the will of the one knowing, the one who sees and arranges all things in the secrets of His own mysteries.
– Hidegard of Bingen, Scivias
In this era of celebrity pastors and Instagram influencers, we’re often cautioned: Avoid the allure of the limelight. It’s an important warning. In cultures that define leadership in terms of personal charisma or online followers, we need regular reminders to model our leadership after the humble Christ.
From Gregory the Great’s sixth century Book of Pastoral Rule to Henri Nouwen’s In the Name of Jesus, those in ministry have heard many cautions about ambition in Christian leadership. Pastor and author Dan White Jr. shared his story of battling this temptation while stepping into ministry in Subterranean: Why the Future of the Church is Rootedness:
The pastors of my youth were superstars to me. Listening to a booming voice, elevated on a stage … made it nearly impossible to resist this powerful dynamic. The idea of being in ministry appeared exhilarating. … We learn how the world works early on. Those that gather attention and stack up accomplishments are the envy of others. … I’m confessing: I want to make an impact and I want to measure that impact by external factors and voices.
He alludes to Alain de Botton’s concept of “status anxiety,” defined by Botton as “an anxiety about what others think of us; about whether we’re judged a success or a failure, a winner or a loser.” Yet if we think about status in terms of leadership, the concept becomes more multifaceted. When it comes to church leadership roles, some of us, as White confesses, are anxious at the thought of being denied status. On the other hand, some of us are anxious at the thought of being given it.
If we assume all potential leaders feel anxious about being denied status, we may do harm to those who have the latter kind of status anxiety. The kind of cautions to avoid the limelight that Dan, and many of his readers, needed have been strangely damaging for me and other church leaders I know.
Status Anxiety
Many leaders are naturally ambitious and confident. We need their leadership. And I’m glad when they become cognizant of their need for attention and admiration. I’m glad resources are available discussing the dark side of those personality traits and the way giving into those temptations can harm leaders and their congregations. But as an introverted woman and artist, cautions against seeking the limelight actually encouraged me toward my temptations and away from my calling. Warnings for status-seeking pastors to humble themselves and listen before speaking gave me good reason to stay comfortable and quiet, they encouraged my temptation to say no to God.
I’m from Australia, which tends to be a communal culture that discourages individuals from standing out from the crowd. We even have a name for this: “tall poppy syndrome.” According to leadership development expert Carol Vallone Mitchell, “‘Tall poppy’ is an Australian cultural term that refers to people who stand out for their high abilities, enviable qualities, and /or visible success. But standing out, in this case, isn’t viewed positively. In a society that prides itself on egalitarian principals, rising above the pack is considered antisocial and countercultural.”
I also come from a denominational background that discourages women from leadership. I’m naturally a helper and peacemaker, a deep feeler and thinker. I’m “gifted” at seeing my own inadequacies and sensing how I don’t measure up, and I’m particularly susceptible to being overwhelmed by the opinions of others and by my own emotions and instincts. All of these aspects of my personality, culture, and experience make me want to keep to myself, serve in the background, and avoid risk. But God still called me to lead.
When I was an associate pastor, my job felt doable. I coordinated volunteers, planned events, and led prayer groups—I had seen artistic, introverted women do these things before. But when I was invited to fill the lead pastor role, panic set in. I’d never seen someone like me preach, lead an elder’s meeting, or set church vision. I feared I would fail and take the whole church down with me.
When, despite my reservations, I accepted the role at God’s prompting, I decided it would be easiest to keep doing everything the way my former lead pastor had done things. I can pretend to be an extroverted, apostolic leader, I thought. I can just maintain his vision for the church.
But I felt conflicted. I wasn’t leading as myself—and I needed to, even if that came at the risk of being misunderstood and unsuccessful. I had done what Adam S. McHugh describes in Introverts and the Church: “I tried to beat and squeeze myself into a mold of leadership instead of becoming the kind of leader that God designed me to be.” Still, my holdups persisted. If I hadn't seen a leader like myself before, my congregants likely hadn’t either. Would they know what to do with a leader like me?
‘O Weak Person …’
Around that time, I read Scivias by the 12th-century abbess, artist, and visionary Hildegard of Bingen. Hildegard was born to a noble family in Mainz, Germany in 1098. At 8 years old she became a maid and apprentice to an anchoress. Hildegard began experiencing visions of light as a child, but it wasn’t until she was middle-age that she came to understand their significance. She illuminated the manuscript of Scivias with a self-portrait in which she is seated, writing, and “inflamed by a fiery light” reminiscent of the tongues of fire from Pentecost. Her friend Volmar looks on, eagerly awaiting what will be revealed. The words on that illuminated page tell her story:
Behold, in the forty-third year of my temporal journey, when I grasped at a heavenly vision with great fear and trembling attention, I saw the greatest brilliance. In it a voice from heaven was saying to me: ‘O weak person, you who are both ashes of ashes and decaying of decaying, speak and write what you see and hear. But you are shy about speaking and simple in explaining and unskilled in writing those things. So speak and write those things not according to human speech or human inventiveness but according to the extent that you see and hear those things in the heavens above in the marvelousness of God.
I had already come to respect Hildegard for her place among the saints and her polymath prolificacy. She founded abbeys for both men and women and was a gifted painter, composer, writer of theology, doctor of natural medicine, and advisor to bishops and kings. But I didn’t know about this great leader’s hesitations, fears, and insecurities. Her visions were controversial. Not only did she claim that they were from God but that her interpretations of them were from God as well. Later in this same passage, she shares that her concerns for how she would be received had made her physically ill for many years. Her fears were not unfounded; she generated controversy and opposition. Yet when she finally obeyed God’s call to write and speak, she called it her “awakening.”
I had often wondered if my doubt and fear meant I was not supposed to lead. It caused a crisis in me because, on the one hand, I felt the call of God into leadership, and on the other hand, I knew I was not adequate. This had stopped me from fully embracing my calling.
But Hildegard’s example reminded me of the possibility that I could feel desperately weak and still press in. God didn’t motivate Hildegard by telling her that she was stronger and more capable than she realized. According to Hildegard’s description of her awakening, God got her attention by beginning, “O weak person.”
‘I Will Help You Speak’
If God’s calling of the reluctant Hildegard sounds familiar, it should. It mirrors the type of calling experienced by biblical figures like Esther, Jeremiah, and Moses. Each of those leaders from Scripture hesitated when called. Their counting-the-cost moments weren’t necessarily bad; they were opportunities to take stock of how little they could do without God.
God doesn’t call reluctant leaders to press on alone. He calls us to partner with him in what he’s already doing. When Jeremiah was called to be God’s prophet, he shrank back, saying, “I do not know how to speak; I am too young” (Jer. 1:6). I can imagine him hoping God would respond with, “No, you’re old enough. You’re competent. You have many gifts. You can do this!” Instead, God took Jeremiah’s eyes off himself. Hetty Lalleman writes in her commentary on Jeremiah, “God does not rebuke Jeremiah (7), but simply dismisses his point as true but irrelevant. What mattered was not Jeremiah’s confidence (or lack of it), but God’s command.” God’s statements don’t begin, as Jeremiah might have preferred, with “you” but with “I”: “I am with you,” (v. 8), “I have put my words in your mouth,” (v. 9), “I appoint you over nations and kingdoms,” (v. 10).
Hildegard’s awakening to God’s call is similar to Jeremiah’s. She undoubtedly had great intellect and gifts. Her insight and sensitivity made her acutely aware of her own inadequacy. Perhaps it was a strength that she perceived how much the task required and how little she could live up to it. Perhaps that kind of humility was God’s reason for calling her. Instead of forcing her to set aside that intuition, he agrees with her—she’s not enough. But He is. God invites her to “Write those things not according to yourself or by the standards of another person, but according to the will of the one knowing, the one who sees and arranges all things in the secrets of His own mysteries.”
For those of us, like Jeremiah and Hildegard, who know our limitations and feel risks acutely, the Lord’s call is a moment to give our energies and gifts to him, small though they may seem, and to trust he will give us whatever we need to do the things he wants us to do. The words God spoke to Moses were also true of Hildegard, and they are certainly true of me and anyone he calls to leadership:
Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say (Ex. 4:11–12).
One final pattern in these stories of reluctant leaders is worth pointing out: God’s call and provision did not silence adversarial voices. Moses butted heads with the hard-hearted Pharaoh, Jeremiah faced a lifetime of rejection and was exiled from God’s people, and in the final year of her life, Hildegard’s superiors placed her under interdict, during which she was denied the Eucharist and music. But each persisted in God’s calling.
As I say yes to God’s calling, even when it leads to discomfort, I’m becoming accustomed to the discomfort. And as I follow him even into places where there is pushback (directly or indirectly) I have an invitation to ask him, with each challenge, “Who do you say I am? Remind me of your call once more.” It teaches me anew each time to trust that God knows me better than I know myself and has called me for a reason, to lead as the introverted woman and artist that I am.
The legacy of Hildegard outlived the words and work of many of her contemporaries. Her music is still sung, her words are still read, and her illuminations are still studied. What a possibility for all sorts of potential church leaders that someone so fruitful for God’s kingdom was, at one point, unable to imagine how God could use her!