My book, Good Burdens, arrives October 12, 2021. Good burdens are commitments that bind us together as communities and families for the better- responsibilities we take on that enrich every aspect of our well-being. Following is a discussion of the chapter, “Be Awake.” You can read my reflections on chapter one, “Be Here,” here.
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If you were a girl born in the 11th century that told your struggling middle-class parents you regularly heard and saw God, they’d probably give you away to a convent at the age of 8.
If you were Hildegard of Bingen, street name “Sibyl of the Rhine,” you’d end up becoming one of the most prolific writers of the age from within the walls of that convent, unanimously elected its magistra, a kind of medieval head professor, exchange a collection of 600 letters with some of the most powerful men in the world, invent your own language, write nine massive volumes of the most state of the art understanding of natural science and medicine, several hundred plays, songs, and poems, and be named Saint Hildegard after your passing.
300 years later, maybe you’d be called Joan of Arc, and end up being burned alive for heresy.
If it was 2021, maybe you’d get sent for therapy, medication, maybe an institution. Maybe head-patting, laissez-faire acceptance for being “creative”…
