God: The Center of Our Lives

"Forgetting about God leads to harmful and idle chatter such as: 'How can we know about God if we have never seen him? And why should we have any regard for him if we have never set eyes on him?' People who talk like that are no longer mindful of their creator, and their minds are in the darkness of unbelief. But God had created human beings to be full of light so that they could see the radiance of pure ether and hear the songs of angels. He had clothed them in such radiance that they shone with the splendor of it. But all this was lost when man disobeyed God's commandment and so caused nature to fall with him. Yet the natural elements retained a glimmering of their former pristine position, which human sin could not destroy completely. For which reason people should retain a glimmering of their knowledge of God. They should allow God to return to the centre of their lives, recognising that they owe their very existence to no one else save God alone, who is the creator of all."

(From A Reading from The Book of Life's Merits by Hildegard of Bingen,

in Celebrating the Saints, compiled by Robert Atwell

Canterbury Press, Norwich: 1998, pp. 325-326)