Eggs are everywhere these days….chocolate ones, fancy sugar ones, foiled covered ones, cheap,hollow plastic ones, hard boiled and brightly colored ones and especially the beautiful Ukrainian ones with the intricate designs. These eggs seem particularly impossible to me. The patience and the care of holding that fragile shell while all the time dipping and painting, creating such a work of art.

Hildegard of Bingen, a medieval mystic, was an artist, musician, poet and Benedictine sister and theologian. Some might say she was a woman ahead of her time.  Her artwork is intricate, her music sweet and seductive and her poetry is filled with visual images that continue to inspire 21st century people of all faith traditions. I love her work. Hildegard created beautiful mandalas in which she represented the universe as….you guessed it….. an egg. She used the egg to symbolize unity and interconnectedness, how the world invisibly works.  "God has arranged all things in the world in consideration of everything else." she wrote. Hildegard also saw the universe as organic and alive, like an egg….a symbol of a new creation, a new being.

So this week as you color Easter eggs or bite into a gooey Cadbury egg, I invite you to stop for just a moment. Aren’t these eggs we associate with Easter more than sugary confections? Eggs hold within them mystery, delight, beauty, surprise, and "invisible and eternal things" that have yet to unfold. "God gave to humankind the talent to create with all the world." says Hildegard.

Seems eggs are serious…..and beautiful business!