Plenary, 26 Jun 2002
Meeting date: Wednesday, June 26, 2002
Official Report
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Time for Reflection
To lead our time for reflection today, we welcome Dr Philip Newell, of the Church of Scotland, who is originally from Canada, as members will soon be able to tell.
Rev Dr J Philip Newell (Church of Scotland):
During my four years at the abbey on the isle of Iona, I became aware of a rich stream of spirituality that is part of our Scottish inheritance but that has often been neglected over the centuries. It is now enjoying a rebirth.
What has now come to be referred to as "Celtic spirituality" has two primary characteristics. The first is the belief that what is deepest in every human being is the image of God. To say that we are made in the sacred image is to say that the passion of God for what is just and right is part of the core of our being. It is to say that the longings of God for creativity and new beginnings, for beauty and love, are deep within the mystery of our souls. The path towards well-being, therefore, is not to become someone other than ourselves but to become truly ourselves. The spiritual path is not about becoming other than natural, but about becoming truly natural. We are sacred not because we are baptised, or because we have passed through some other religious ritual. Rather, we are sacred because we are born.
The second characteristic of Celtic spirituality is the belief in the essential goodness of creation. Not only is creation good, it is theophany—a showing of the mystery of God. To the question, "Where do we look for God?" the answer is, "Not away from life." It is not away from ourselves or our children or anything that has been born; rather, we look to the heart of all that God has expressed into being.
That leads the Celtic tradition to say, as one of its modern Scottish teachers, George MacLeod, used to like to say, that matter matters. What we do to matter is at the heart of our spirituality, whether that be the matter of our bodies, the matter of creation or the matter of the body politic and how we handle the resources of our nation and world, because at the heart of the material is the spiritual.
I close with a prayer from "Celtic Benediction".
In the beginning, O God,
your Spirit swept over the chaotic deep like a wild wind
and creation was born.
In the turbulence of my own life
and the unsettled waters of the world today
let there be new birthings of your Spirit.
In the currents of my own heart
and the upheavals of the world today
let there be new birthings of your mighty creating Spirit.