September 04, 2026

Not By Your Own Strength

I am a feather on the breath of God.

In 1175, an aging and chronically ill Hildegard of Bingen wrote to the monk Guibert of Gembloux, who had written to her eager for details about the nature of her visions. She was in her seventies, keenly aware of her own physical frailty and of the skepticism a woman claiming divine sight still faced within the Church. Instead of asserting her own power, she described herself as a feather lifted by wind she did not control, carried forward by something larger than her own strength. That is its own kind of courage: not denying weakness, but moving anyway, trusting the force that carries you.