Hannah More (1745-1833)

March is Women’s History Month or should I say Women’s Her-story Month.  The Tuesday and Friday posts this month will feature women who lead lives that could serve as models for us in our Christian walk. It was difficult to narrow the list for the few dates in March but I did try to find some women you may not know very well and women writers.  Enjoy!

Hannah More was an English author, poet, playwright, and philanthropist who lived in both the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

At the age of sixteen, Hannah composed a drama, “The Search After Happiness”, which was later published and widely read. She continued to write plays and poetry.

Around 1779, she felt God called her away from the stage and she increasingly turned to more distinctly Christian work. With Pastor John Newton, author of the hymn “Amazing Grace”, as her spiritual mentor, she went on to pen such works as “Sacred Dramas”, a satirical tale, “Florio”, and “Religion of the Fashionable World”. All of Hannah’s writings were infused with strong moral purpose. She wrote a series of popular essays encouraging Christian leaders to establish moral laws.

In 1787, dismayed at the depravity and poverty of mining towns, Hannah and her sister began establishing Sunday Schools in many area villages. She founded several schools and soon extended her charitable efforts for the education of the poor into all the surrounding country.

Within ten years she was supporting and administering over sixteen schools, teaching destitute children how to read, learn Christian morals, and acquire life-skills that they would keep with them forever. Hannah wrote many of the books used in the schools because she felt that Christian teaching should be the foundation of all education.

In 1795 she began a monthly journal while living in Bath called the “Cheap Repository”, consisting of short moral tales that she composed. This periodical attained a very large circulation and one of her most popular stories was “Shepherd of Salisbury Plain”, which went through many editions and was translated into several languages.

Her writing brought her much personal fame and financial success. She was able to save about $150,000 from her writings, one third of which she bequeathed for charitable purposes. Hannah More died in Clifton on September 7, 1833 at the age of eighty-eight.

Look at her quotes below.  Couldn’t this woman be speaking to us today?

Selected quotes:

Forgiveness is the economy of the heart... forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits.

Love never reasons, but profusely gives; it gives like a thoughtless prodigal its all, and then trembles least it has done to little.

Obstacles are those things you see when you take your eyes off the goal.

Procrastination should not be excused, but noticed.

Indecision – it is not so often caused by reflection as by the lack of it.

Who's the Boss? God is - Lectio Divina - March 7,2010

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,"
    declares the Lord. "As the heavens are higher than the earth,  so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55: 8-9

Lord, these two verses, every word, brings relief to my soul.

Thank you for not running the world on the condition of MY thoughts and MY ways.

Though You know at times, a part of me thinks I could do better or have doubted Your wisdom, I do know You know best.

Your ways shine the light so humans’ ways can follow.  We get lost. We wander. We make bad decisions. We let our ego rule. Thank heaven, Your ways exceed ours.

Your thoughts transcend us beyond our greatest imagination. 

I smile thinking of the movie “Bruce Almighty” and all the mistakes he makes when God leaves him in charge. We have messed the world up enough NOT really being in charge. What devastation would humankind do IF we did have Your power.

Lord,  humor me here. I hereby, hand you back the world. Please take along with that my thoughts and my ways.  Just take all of me. You are the boss and I sure am glad you are.

Perpetua and Felicity

March is Women’s History Month or should I say Women’s Her-story Month.  The Tuesday and Friday posts this month will feature women who lead lives that could serve as models for us in our Christian walk. It was difficult to narrow the list for the few dates in March but I did try to find some women you may not know very well and women writers.  Enjoy!

This coming Sunday many church we commemorate Perpetua and Felicity

Who?  That was my reaction.  I didn’t know anything about these two women!

No saints were more honored in the early Christian era than Perpetua and Felicity. The two women were arrested and imprisoned Carthage in 203 A.D. Perpetua was 22-year-old noblewoman with a son a few months old; Felicity a slave with a child not yet born. Their crime was defying Emperor’s prohibition of conversions to Christianity.

They were taken to prison where Felicity gave birth. Fellow Christians adopted her child.

At their trail, they bravely announced their belief in Christ – a certain death sentence.

Much of what we know about this story comes from a unique source - The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity  - a diary and first hand account of early martyrs, Perpetua herself wrote the middle chapter about her experience in prison and her impending martyrdom.  This account represents one of the earliest known pieces of Christian literature written by a woman.

In one section Perpetua tells about her visions that give her hope as she leaves her infant son and his future to God.  Imagine this young woman of considerable wealth and education, not allowing these bleak circumstances to defeat her. The prospect of torture and death could not break her spirit.  Perpetua refused repeated opportunities to deny she was a Christian and so hand in hand Perpetua and Felicity bravely faced martyrdom together. They were charged by wild animals and then beheaded. Observers noted she went joyfully as though on the way to heaven. The story is told that their faith led prison guards and others watching in the arena to Christ.

I have often wondered if I had the courage to die for my faith. These two women went against the norm, stood together facing death, and left their families including their children, for their belief.  They never denied Christ and kept their eyes and hearts on heaven. I am sure God honored them.

 

Selected quote:

When my father in his affection for me was trying to turn me from my purpose by arguments and thus weaken my faith, I said to him, ‘Do you see this vessel—waterpot or whatever it may be? Can it be called by any other name than what it is?’ ‘No,’ he replied. ‘So also I cannot call myself by any other name than what I am—a Christian.’”   Perpetua

Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179)

   March is Women’s History Month or should I say Women’s Her-story Month.  The Tuesday and Friday posts this month will feature women who led lives that could serve as models for us in our Christian walk. It was difficult to narrow the list for the few dates in March but I did try to find some women you may not know very well and women writers.  Enjoy!

      We start Women’s History Month featuring a remarkable woman from the Middle Ages.

   Hildegard of Bingen was born in 1098. The tenth child of a noble family, she was dedicated at birth to the church as was the custom of the day.

    At age eight she was sent to live with Jutta, an anchoress so she could get her religious education. An anchoress is like a religious recluse who spent most of her days in prayer in her tiny private cell.

    When Jutta died years later, Hildegard became prioress of the Benedictine convent.

     In 1141 Hildegard began to have vivid visions of God that blessed her with an understanding of the meaning of religious texts.

    Later she wrote, “It happened in the year 1141…when I was 42 years old that the heavens opened and a fiery light of the greatest brilliancy coming from the opened heaven poured into all my brain and kindled in my heart and my breast a flame… and suddenly I knew and understood the explanation of the Psalter, the Gospels and other Catholic books of the Old and New Testaments.”

       Her most famous writing is Scivias or Know the Ways of the Lord. It is a visionary guide to Christian doctrine covering everything from creation to marriage and is written not in ordinary language but in extraordinary images.
       Not only did she write down her visions and attend to the administration of the convent, she wrote plays, two biographies on saints, and composed music. She travelled to Paris to study medicine and completed a medical encyclopedia and handbook. She also delved into the use of plants and was an expert in pharmaceuticals. She even conducted four preaching tours throughout Europe.

   Hildegard of Bingen, through her many letters, took to task the German Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, but also the archbishop of Main. She wrote to such luminaries as King Henry II of England and his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine. She also corresponded with many individuals of low and high estate who wanted her advice or prayers. Many abbots and abbesses asked her for prayers and opinions on various matters even though she would also scold them.

     When Hildegard died in 1179, her sisters claimed that two streams of light appeared in the skies and crossed over the room in which she was dying. Her whole life was characterized by light. 

     A few years ago I had the opportunity to visit Germany and several locations where Hildegard lived and served. Several moments I knew she walked with me as I explored the ruins of her first monastery.  What a woman of achievement!

Selected Quotes:

A human being is a vessel that God has built for himself and filled with his inspiration so that his works are perfected in it.

God is not subject to such a thing as time.

Thus am I, a feather on the breath of God.

TAKE HEART - Lectio Divina - February 28, 2010

Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord. - Psalm 31:24

TAKE HEART

Lord I have prayed this verse many times. 

I concentrate on the being strong part.  The internal pep talk of “ You can do it! Just hang in there. It will get better. Your shoulders can take it. Don’t show others you are weak. Be strong.”

I focus on the ending of this verse about hope in the Lord. I cling to the lifeline of hope that You will save me. Well, in honesty, the small kernel of doubt often grows into a gigantic log of uncertainty as I wait and wait and wait.

In the middle of this verse, two words sit quietly like an undiscovered diamond. Take heart.

When I grow weak, I have Your heart, Lord. You offer it to me and say, “take heart.”

I can’t do it all by myself. I need to “take heart.”

When I waver and doubt grows, You tenderly hand over Your heart for courage to stay the course.

What a gift, Lord. You give me Your heart, a heart overflowing with immeasurable love, courage, and perseverance. Thank you Lord for Your heart and the gentle reminder of Your presence.

"To have your identity is the most beautiful thing there is."

  
     A Yahoo news story this week called “Argentine stolen at birth, now 32, learns identity”  caught my attention. Its message lingers in my mind.

     Argentine security forces kidnapped a pregnant woman 33 years ago. She gave birth in prison to a boy. The newborn was taken from her and soon after the mother disappeared. One of the military officers brought the baby home to his wife.

     Earlier this month the son and his birth father finally were reunited. The story is heartbreaking to read. 

     As I look at my own granddaughter I can’t imagine living in a society that disrespects human life, tears families apart, and imprisons people for standing up for freedom. Even though the democratic process is at times frustrating, I am so thankful for our country.

     But this story provokes another feeling within my heart when I read this quote from the newly found son:

"For the first time, I know who I was. Who I am," the young man said, still marveling at his new identity. To have your identity is the most beautiful thing there is."

Don’t we all go through life trying to discover who we really are? Like freedom, our identity is a fundamental aspect of our life journey. Who am I, at my deepest core, under all the masks and layers of ego and false self?

Wayne Muller in his book, “How Then Shall We Live?” writes, “We must take great care with how we name ourselves. When we take our name, we are declaring in some subtle, indescribably potent act the most intimate, sacred truth of who we believe ourselves to be. N. Scott Momaday in his autobiography The Names tells us ‘A man’s life proceeds from his name, in the way that a river proceeds from its source.’”

 A few years ago a psychologist told me upon hearing my life review that he thought I had outgrown the person I used to be and was evolving into a new stage. I was discerning if I should retire early to pursue other dreams.  What I saw as turmoil, he saw as transformation.

Digging deep to that core identity is hard inner work. When I did retire, I felt like a 14 year old again struggling to figure who I was since I no longer had a title, a job and all the trappings that accompany the false ways to answer the question of Who Am I.

But I do know who and whose I am – I am a Child of God. God is the source of the living stream that all life precedes. God adopts us as His children, even though we are apart from Him at birth, we will be reunited one day. He searches for us and waits for us with open arms as did the Argentinean father who finally found his son.

We are children of God and “to have your identity is the most beautiful thing there is.”

Subtle Signs of Spring – Hidden Hints of Hope

February is the longest month in the year. At least it seems that way in dreary cold snowbound Northwest Ohio. I really think we should lift this month out of winter and move it in between July and August – extending summer and shortening winter.

   I don’t mind the changes in seasons, but by this time of year, the weight of winter seems heavy and never ending. Sort of like some of the problems we have in life.

    Is there any hope?

    If I just focus on the bleak weather and lifeless trees, then that is all I see. But if I step back with unobstructed eyes, subtle changes become visible.

   The days grow notably longer and brighter. Someone said to me the other day he drove home after work without turning on his headlights. When winter began on December 21, we had only nine hours of light; two months later we have 11 hours of light. 

    

   Within two miles, I saw a deer, skunk, opossum, and raccoon while driving this week. The animals are awake and moving – another faint clue something is changing.

     I haven’t seen a robin yet or green buds on the trees, but spring is coming. At times my heart is heavy with concerns and I feel powerless and hopeless, yet when I step back with unobstructed eyes, just like the changes in seasons, subtle changes in my problems become visible.

   Spring is coming and even in the dead of winter, signs of new life stir.

   Take a moment to enjoy the music and scenes for the video segment called the First Signs of Spring, from one of my favorite movies, Bambi 2.

And listen to the words and music of Steven Curtis Chapman’s song Spring is Coming Soon. 

May God show you His hidden hints of hope no matter what you are facing. Spring is coming!