Celtic spirituality scholar visits Cathedral

He describes himself as a wandering teacher, and on May 7, Dr. John Philip Newell was at Christ Church Cathedral teaching about 120 people in person and another 140 online about the sacredness of earth and its inhabitants.

He is an internationally celebrated teacher and author whose message is one of Celtic spirituality: a call for us to recognize and embrace the sacredness of Earth and every human being in it. 

John Philip is Canadian, and lives in Findhorn, Scotland with his wife, Ali. Findhorn is an ecovillage that teaches sustainable living. 

“It is good for my soul to be back in my home and native land of Canada,” he told the crowd.

Kurt Schmidt acted as host for the evening, which featured a talk by John Philip entitled “Celtic Spirituality - Why it Matters Now,” and a short session with his colleague, Cami Twilling. 

She is the director of Earth and Soul, an organization dedicated to “the study, spiritual practice and compassionate action inspired by the teachings of John Philip Newell,” says the website earthandsoul.org. She also leads spiritual retreats, in particular, to Iona, Scotland.

Kurt noted the many people online from the Black Mountain area of western North Carolina. They were to host John Philip last fall, but the arrival of Hurricane Helene cancelled the event.

Others tuned in from Toronto, British Columbia, California, Wisconsin, Indiana, Missouri and beyond.

Kurt acknowledged the financial help in bringing John Philip to Fredericton: the Diocesan Synod, and a bequest from Harry Palmer, “to support events just like this one,” said Kurt. This was John Philip’s only Canadian stop on his current tour.

Much of John Philip’s lecture was based on his book “Sacred Earth Sacred Soul.” 

“We’re living in a very challenging moment in time,” he said. “It’s also a deeply exciting time, with the convergence of new science and ancient beliefs.”

He began by giving some context to the topic.

“The lineage of Celtic wisdom comes down from the second century,” he said. “It focuses on the sacredness of the Earth… the sacredness of Earth and person intertwined.”

He cited the Gospel of John, noting the opening lines, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

“Everything is an expression of the Divine,” he said. “Do you know that’s what you are — born, not by accident, but by divine manifestation?”

Irenaeus of Lyons 
The first teacher of Celtic wisdom was Irenaeus of Lyons (ca. 140-202) a student of Polycarp, who himself was a student of St. John in Ephesus.

“Only one teacher separated John and Irenaeus,” he said. 

Irenaeus took the words of John — ‘in the beginning was the word’ — and added a twist: in the beginning was the sound.

That sound was perhaps the sound of Jesus’s heartbeat as John leaned into him in Davinci’s famous Last Supper painting. It is the heartbeat of creation, the very heartbeat of God.

Irenaeus saw Jesus as the re-sounding of the Divine, the deepest sound, the vibration of all things, said John Philip.

“It is the vibration of the sacred at the heart of everything,” he said. “And there is a great yearning to come back into relationship with Earth, with everything vibrating in step with the Divine.”

It was in the fourth century that “Christianity got into bed with empire,” he said.

That led to “Imperial Christianity,” the belief and practice that stretches from the Roman Empire to those of Britain and the United States: that it, as a nation, has the right to do whatever it wishes with the resources of another nation.

John Scotus Eriugena 
John Scotus Eriugena (ca. 815-877) was perhaps the greatest of the scotus vagans, or wandering Irish teachers. 

“John said God is speaking to us through two outward books, the little book of scripture, and the big book, the sacred text of Earth and nature,” he said.

“If we listen only to the big book, we will miss hearing the intimacy of the voice of the Divine. The little book includes prophetic voices calling us to be in relationship with the hungry, the homeless.”

John Philip told the story of a woman from Florida on a spiritual pilgrimage to Iona. She told John Philip of a pivotal event in her life when she was an adolescent. In church one Sunday, a dog wandered in, walked up to the altar and smelled all around, then turned and left the church.

“It didn’t like what it smelled. It didn’t smell right. It didn’t smell natural,” he recounted.

The woman got up and followed the dog out and never returned to church, yet she was on a spiritual journey some 50 years later.

“It’s an excentric story, but this is the story of millions. I believe she came sensing that Celtic tradition would understand her story,” he said. “She’s not alone. There are many seeking a sense of community around a new spirituality that deeply honours the natural.”

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin 
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) was a French scientist, mystic and Jesuit priest, whom John Philip calls a modern prophet. His beliefs were unwelcome in the Vatican. 

He believed the whole universe is like a burning bush.

“Everything is on fire with divine presence. We are being invited to glimpse the light and the fire of the Divine — to glimpse that fire in every creature.

“That is a critical issue facing Christianity,” said John Philip. “Will we seek that light? Will we protect it in every life form, adore it, cherish it, serve it, or will we continue to give the impression that the light we love in Jesus is somehow essentially foreign to Earth, and foreign to what is deep within every human being? 

“This, I believe, is the critical defining feature of the Christianity of the future. If we do not rise to this challenge to seeing Christ, not as an exception to humanity, but rather what is deepest in humanity, that will determine whether Christianity can again carry the profound blessing for Earth and the human journey today.”

In trying to silence Teilhard, the Vatican sent him to China in 1926 on a paleontological dig.

“Power does not like to be told the Divine is found in all things,” said John Philip. “Little did they realize what China would do to Teilhard.”

There he discovered the sacredness of Earth in its feminine form, and saw how the Church, and Western culture, subordinated the feminine. He began speaking of the fragrance of the feminine, found it in the law of gravitation, in the inexplicable pull and attraction of atoms, in 4.5 billion years of the Earth revolving around the sun.

“It’s not just a relationship, it’s a love affair,” said John Philip of Teihard’s discoveries. “We are born to love, to serve. Our wellbeing is found in relationships, in being found together.”

 Teilhard theorized that love is the greatest energy, and after humanity learns to harness all the energies of Earth, sea and sky, it will finally learn how to harness love.

“And when it does, it will have discovered fire for the second time,” said John Philip.

Teilhard returned to Europe saying ‘we need to save Christ from the hands of the clergy.’ That prompted a second exile, this time to a Jesuit community in New York City.

“In 1951 he agreed to an act of priestly disobedience,” said John Philip. “He signed over his writings to his personal assistant, Mme Mortier in Paris. In death, his writings would not belong to the Church, but to Mme Mortier.”

He died in New York in 1955, a relative unknown, with only 10 people attending his funeral. Mortier began releasing his writings and John Philip still meets nuns and priests with stories of how they read his works under the covers in secret and strapped the books to the underside of their mattresses.

His last writings spoke of Christianity being at the end of one of its natural cycles.

“It needs to be born again. It needs to see Christ, no longer as a deserter of Earth, but as a lover of Earth. This birthing is trying to come forth in many spiritual expressions.

“We’re not being called to make Christianity great again. We’re not going back,” said John Philip. 

“We being called to be part of a birthing that has never been before, and imagine our way into the sacred inter-relatedness of all things, with the wisdom of Jesus to serve this moment in time.”

CAMI TWILLING
Cami played music written by John Philip’s son, called “Arrival” — suitable to the birthing theme — and asked those gathered to “pay attention to what’s been stirring in you. What are we being invited to hear?”

She directed people to put their hand on their heart, to become aware of their heartbeat, their breath and that light within. She asked that each person turn to the two or three near them to share what’s stirring in their hearts.

The groups reported back, and John Philip took questions from the audience, including one on his place of residence, 60-year-old Findhorn, which he noted is not a commune. 

“It began as lunatics on the fringe… organic gardeners,” he said. “It has many different religious traditions there. The common ground is the nature of Earth. It is choosing to live a more intentional way, trying to point a way forward that can be shared.”

Afterwards, everyone enjoyed refreshments, and John Philip signed copies of his books. 

Photo captions:
1. Christ Church Cathedral during the Dr. John Philip Newell event May 7. 
2. Dr. John Philip Newell speaks to those gathered for his presentation at Christ Church Cathedral May 7.
3. People gathered at Christ Church Cathedral to hear a presentation by Dr. John Philip Newell May 7.
4. Cami Twilling, Cathedral representative and host Kurt Schmidt, and Dr. John Philip Newell at Christ Church Cathedral May 7.
Submitted photos