In this Issue:

Sauls Nominated for Presiding Bishop

St. Martha's and Martha's Place: A commitment to service

Internationally known author and teacher Newell to be in Lexington

A conversation with the Bishop on his nomination for Presiding Bishop

Commentaries:

Reflection: Miss Della and the Palm Crosses

X-ercizing: Undone

From the Bishop: Anticipation of Easter

Diocesan Calendar

Past Issues

Internationally Known Teacher and Author to be in Lexington

By Kay Collier McLaughlin

J. Phillip Newell, foremost author and teacher in Celtic Spirituality, will be in Lexington the weekend of April 28-30, co-sponsored by Christ Church Cathedral, First Presbyterian Church and Lexington Theological Seminary. The Scotsman, who is Scholar in Spirituality at St. Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh, refers to his work on tour as a “wandering teacher ministry.” “My primary desire on coming to a new community for a few days is to try to offer who I am in relationship to this ministry, hearing the yearnings of the soul from different parts of the world. As I share what I am hearing, it often gives expression that people haven’t found, and links them profoundly with others.”

What Newell sees as he wanders the western world is a desire for new ways of seeing and living in relation to creation; new language to express the deep interior yearnings in words that resonate with the soul. During a speaking tour in Virginia as he spoke to his title Listening to the Heartbeat of God, an eighty-year-old woman wrote to him, “I knew it! I knew it! I knew it!” Exactly what is meant by the Celtic tradition, and why is it touching men and women today?

According to Newell, attention to the writings of early Irish, Welsh and Scottish Christian teachers, as well as observation of the poetry, prayers and art of Celtic cultures over the centuries point to distinctive characteristics of what he believes can be called a ‘tradition’ of spirituality. The first two major features of the Celtic tradition is the belief that what is deepest in us is the image of God. Sin has distorted and obscured that image, but it has not erased it. The second characteristic is a belief in the essential goodness of creation. Not only is creation viewed as a blessing, it is regarded as an expression of God.

Newell sees people responding to Celtic spirituality because it gives voice to something their own experiences have brought them to know at another level which is not taught. There is a “frightened reaction” at large in the world today rather than a new vision. “There must be a deeper sense of the oneness of life and the world community if we are to be one,” he says. “We have to change in very radical ways.” He sees the response to Celtic spirituality as “One strand of a hopeful new beginning.”

There are different responses across the age spectrum, Newell observes. However, these responses must be viewed from a different perspective than those with which the religious world has been familiar in the past. For many younger people, those old structures seem irrelevant, as they search for new ways of being in community, seeing the world and uttering from their souls. One of the features of this new time is not efforts to reproduce patterns of the past with break-off groups and new denominations. The old forms have been experiencing “seismic collapse” in the Church of England and the Church of Scotland, while there is a deep yearning for community and ritual which gives expression to commitment to the world across the generations. “This is an amazing point of transition,” says Newell. “It calls us all to be creative.”

How is the organized church responding to this recovery and development of material from the Celtic tradition?

“The question that is brought to the front is where truth is? What is ultimate authority?” says Newell. “The Western model of Christianity teaches that truth is external. The Celtic tradition teaches that truth is deep within the human soul. This is not individualism. Quite the contrary. The emphasis is on moving more deeply in relation to one’s own soul closer to common ground, not an isolated place. Truth is an infinite well, waiting to be drawn for today, in our own and other traditions.”

There are those who are suspicious of such a new vision, and “fine examples of men and women in leadership in different parts of the world who are wonderfully open to the new” as they are aware of the collapse of what they have had.

Newell points to Alan McDonald, Moderator of the Church of Scotland, where there is a “tremendous willingness to be alive to new birthings of Christianity, real passion for justice and peace issues.” He finds American Episcopalians to have a ‘great openness.” “There are many fine people taking on the responsibility of leadership, not abandoning a sinking ship, although there are those who would like us to leave.” While his work has been primarily in the western world, he has spent personal time in India, where he has experienced “very similar tensions to what we know in the west.” “We must explore the ground that many realize is essential for the life of humanity. Our concerns span the east and the west. They are as broad as the universe.

“We must identify fear as the driving force that separates us, and do as much as possible to speak to the truth, and to relieve people of their fears.”

Newell’s writings and teaching are shaped by “what I hear from the human soul all over” — a job that he endeavors to keep in balance with his “residential anchor” — his family. He recently took a four-month sabbatical in which he did not utter a word publicly, and loves to concentrate on his writing, particularly in the high desert of New Mexico, above Santa Fe. Back home in Edinburgh, he is “relatively free to be the anchor person for our younger sons are still at home.” And just as he teaches, he endeavors to establish a rhythm between the writing, teaching and family time. “There are blessings attached to each,” he concludes.

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