Today I would lobby hard that the church, and the world, remember a visionary woman who embraced the ephemeral with a zeal that would reverberate far past her all-too-short life: Saint Emily of the Dickinsons, Poet and Patron Saint of Those Stuck in the Middle.

Saint Emily was born the early part of the 19th Century in Amherst, Massachusetts, and by most accounts was a well-behaved, if slightly morose young woman. She was particularly troubled by the death she saw and experienced in the world; death that she felt a kindred spirit with, but also had great fear of.

Tapping into this energy felt early on in her life would, I believe, make her a most remarkable poet.

As a teen, revival sprung up in Amherst, and many of Saint Emily’s peers would publicly pledge their lives to a Jesus preached about with the Bible in one hand and fire in the other. Saint Emily was equally moved by this wave of zeal, though she couldn’t bring herself to make such a commitment. Years later she would describe her closeness to the Divine but noted that, “Some keep the Sabbath by going to church–I keep it, staying at Home.”

After a brief stint at a woman’s college (they called it a Seminary, and I guess it may have been because of the religious zeal there), Saint Dickinson left the life of the classroom for the learning of the home. She read feverishly, and Shakespeare, Jane Eyre, and other literary works provided needed breaks from domestic home life with her family.

She fell in love with words.

This love for words was seen most by others in the form of letters, especially to her dear sister-in-law Susan, with whom she exchanged hundreds of notes. These notes were playful, intimate, and honest, causing some to think that there was romance between Susan and Emily. But these ideas are mostly conjecture…and honestly, we need to stop assuming all deep affection is erotic.

People can love each other deeply without implication, Beloved.

Saint Emily’s life at home continued to root as her mother, with whom her relationship was a bit rocky, became effectively bedridden for almost 30 years. Dickinson took on the role of caretaker of both her mother and the homestead, essentially pulling back from the world and finding escape in books and in her own writing. Some of her poems were published locally, but she was still largely just writing to keep her own sanity…as many of us writers do.

Her young adult years were dotted by seclusion. She wrote, tended the family, and pressed flowers…keeping them pressed and shared with her family and friends along with letters and short poem snippets. This was basically the extent of her noteriety.

Her later adult years were dotted by loss. Her young nephew, her father by a sudden stroke (she would not even attend the funeral), her mother eventually, the disillusion of her brother’s marriage to Susan…it was all too much and cascaded over Saint Emily.

One day she simply fainted while baking for the family. Weeks of illness followed as she was in and out of consciousness, and eventually the foreboding shadows she had felt even as a young woman overtook her and she wrote her life’s final verse with a breath.

She died on this day in 1886 at the age of 55.

Though she wrote her whole life, during her breathing years she only had 10 pieces published. After her death, her sister found over 1,800 pieces of work.

Saint Emily has been in continual publication since 1890, and though much of her work has been revised and edited, original writings of hers are considered the authoritative pieces.

She truly was a hermitic mystic.

My favorite verse of Saint Emily’s is one that I use often, especially in ponderful moments in my life:

“I am out with lanterns
looking for myself.”

Saint Emily is a reminder for me, and should be for everyone, that so much more is going on with people than we may ever see, or ever know. In fact, so much more may be going on in our own hearts than we may ever reveal.

Truly, she is the patron saint of those stuck in the middle of what could be and what is.

-historical bits taken from publicly available sources

-icon found in Amherst, MA