As I pen this recommendation, I’m looking out my home office window to a world of green from the trees that stand tall to greet the day. Perhaps they will serve as inspiration for a book that calls readers to a deeper connection with nature. I suspect so.
I’m reminded of another recent review: Karen Armstrong’s “Sacred Nature: Restoring Our Ancient Bond with the Natural World,” which has a similar theme.
In John Philip Newell’s “Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul: Celtic Wisdom for Reawakening to What Our Souls Know and Healing the World,” Newell takes a deep dive into, specifically, Celtic Christianity and the wisdom it holds for viewing the world in a very sacred way, not just the world around us but wisdom that lies buried in our souls.
Celebrating Celtic Christianity
In this narrative, Newell introduces readers to some of Celtic Christianity’s leading practitioners, their lives of faith, and what lessons can be gleaned from their work.Students of history and theology may be familiar with the controversies surrounding Augustine of Hippo (354–430) and Pelagius (circa 360–circa 420), a monk from Wales. Newell is a champion for Pelagius, whose teachings were eventually banned; Pelagius was excommunicated, but continued with his vision to look beyond sin and affirm our sacredness with all of God’s creation. Pelagius saw the sacredness in wisdom, in nature, and in compassion.
The patron saint of Ireland, Brigid of Kildare, founded two monasteries, one for women and one for men. Heralded in legend as a goddess of spring and fertility, for Celtic Christianity, she is a reminder of the power of the sacred feminine. She was generous to a fault and possessed a strength about the interrelationship of all things; we need each other despite political, racial, or religious boundaries.
John Muir should not be a new name for readers. He’s been known as “John of the Mountains” and “Father of the National Parks.” He was born in Scotland but immigrated to America as a young boy, and grew to be a noted naturalist, author, and environmental philosopher. For Newell, it’s his passion about seeing the beauty and holiness of the wilderness, his awe and respect for God’s creation, and his burning desire to protect these gifts, that earns him a spot as a leader in the spirituality of Celtic Christianity.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955) was a French Jesuit priest, scientist, paleontologist, theologian, philosopher, and teacher. Chardin’s theories on the unfolding of the cosmos and the evolution of matter to humanity culminate in a reunion with Christ. There is much to be learned from his inspiration to see how science and faith tell a universal story that begins with sacredness.
George Fielden MacLeod (1895–1991) was a Scottish soldier and clergyman. He was well known and influential, but also tagged as one of the most unconventional Church of Scotland ministers of the 20th century. He was the founder of the Iona Community on the Island of Iona. Born of an aristocratic family, he believed that the spiritual was to be found in compassionate acts for others: The needs of humanity and the earth should be served. For Newell, MacLeod awakens in us the compassion of God.
What is particularly fascinating and insightful in Newell’s book is looking back historically, way back to the fifth and sixth centuries, when Roman Christianity and Celtic Christianity took divergent paths. Celtic Christianity had great ties to nature—earth, wind, fire, and water—and less on power and institutions. Rome won out and its organization and structure of Western Christianity, as we know it, has prevailed for centuries.
Newell, and many preceding him, believe there is much to be embodied by embracing the wisdom of Celtic Christianity, which teaches how to reconnect with the sacred: how to see the divine in all of creation and, most specifically, within each of us. It just needs to be reawakened.
For Newell, we are inherently spiritual creatures who intuitively know the sacred in earth and ourselves, but cultures, and even faiths, have made us forget, and learn to suppress this knowledge.
It is Newell’s hope that sharing the stories of Celtic leaders imbued in an ancient spiritual tradition will awaken our souls to the sacred all around us and within us.
There are many lessons within these pages. Readers will be inspired.
