In this week’s column I share my notes from lectures given by two ministers in the Church of Scotland: The Rev. John Bell, at our clergy retreat in late April, and by The Rev. Dr. John Philip Newell in Denver, also in late April. I am excited to announce that John Philip Newell will be us at St John’s May 10-12, 2019. Mark your calendars; more information will come as plans are made. Meanwhile, the rector will set down her pen for the next three Tuesdays for some vacation time. Blessings to all who travel this summer for rest and re-creation.

On April 20^th I went to St Andrews in Denver to hear The Rev. John Philip Newell speak. The author of nearly two dozen books, he is an internationally celebrated scholar of Celtic spirituality. [1] On my vacation I will carry with me his book “The Rebirthing of God”. Just a few pages in, it strikes me as thematically congruent with Brian McLaren’s “The Great Spiritual Migration”. Our notion of what it means to be the body of Christ in the world is always changing, always being informed by new learnings. These two books promise to inform my own sense of who we are and why we are called together.

One of Newell’s best-known books is called “Listening for the Heartbeat of God”. In his talk, Newell described how the disciple John—the one whom Jesus loved—reclining at table and laying his head on Jesus’ bosom could hear Jesus’ heartbeat. John became symbolic of the practice of listening for the heartbeat of God. Our own heartbeats also speak of God, and Newell recalled Julian of Norwich who said we are not just made by God, but of God. We come out of the very womb or essence of God, and as such, the love longings deep within us are far greater than the fears in us that trap us in fragmentation. Christ came to wake us up and reveal to us our deepest identity and the deepest truth—a truth that we had long ago forgotten: that we are made of God.

Newell turned next to a discussion of Pelagius (360-430), a Welsh monk who is typically cast as the theological adversary of Augustine of Hippo. Augustine posited the doctrine of original sin (because we are descended from Adam and because Adam was sinful—disobedient to God—we all come into this mortal life having inherited something of the stain or sin of Adam, and by ourselves are powerless to overcome it) and Newell maintains that the inner landscape of our souls has been haunted by this perverted doctrine ever since.

Newell said that more correctly the original sin of humanity was our forgetting that we are made in the image of God. In response to this forgetfulness, Rabbi Abraham Heschel said that the entirety of Hebrew scripture could be summed up in the word “remember.” The Muslims too have a prayer service called simply “Remembering.”

Pelagius was cast as a heretic because it was said he claimed that human beings could, in fact, overcome their tendency to sin if only they tried hard enough. Newell says Augustine misrepresented Pelagius but that—as more of Pelagius’ writings come to light and are translated—Pelgius is being vindicated. An early proponent of Celtic spirituality, Pelagius was criticized for teaching women how to read and interpret Holy Scripture. He was also criticized for teaching that when we look into the face of a newborn we are looking into the face of God. (Newell also noted that in the Koran there is the teaching “Whichever way you turn, there is the face of God.”) Such a teaching was not palatable to the Roman Empire and those who saw how the doctrine of original sin was useful in humbling and subduing the populace.

Newell pointed out that Western Christianity tends to put boundary walls around the sacred. In contrast, adherents of Celtic Christianity see the boundless sacred in all. He says the world is bringing to birth the larger, cosmic God of Celtic thought and that birthing will stretch us all.

I found Newell’s presence to be unlike that of anyone I’ve met. He is both solid and gentle at the same time, and there is a peaceful golden light about him. It was a holy encounter and I look forward to welcoming him to St John’s next May.

April 23^rd-25^th I was in Avon, Colorado, with diocesan clergy on our annual retreat. John Bell was our retreat leader, and like Newell, he has been deeply involved with the Iona Community in Scotland. He spoke about the engaged spirituality of Jesus—how Jesus engaged the stories and poetry and hymns of psalms, among other things, to nourish his own soul. In his opening talk, Bell reminded us that prior to the printing of the first bible in 1450, Jesus and faith were things that resided inside people. Putting them on the pages of a book externalized them and depersonalized them. He says that if the Christian story is our story, it should be inside of us too.

Bell went on to say that after the Reformation, the psalms—which are as diverse and rich as the poetry of Maya Angelou and Robert Frost—got all squeezed into one form and one fashion of delivery. As such we lost much of the passion they convey. Psalms, said Bell, are folksongs of oppression and liberation. They were written in a singular voice but were meant to be sung by a community, to remind that community of its history. Bell would undoubtedly agree with Newell that people of faith are called to remember.

The Psalms offer an accessible, endorsed vocabulary of pain that few other resources can provide. They take us to places in the human condition we would rather not visit. Bell calls psalms the poetry of sorrow, that help us to find solidarity with someone who has been in pain before. Psalms give us the courage to ask God the hard questions. The questions the psalms pose are ones you would never ask unless you believed someone was listening. Psalms take us out of our comfort zone into the experience of others. The members of the Body of Christ can join together and sing a psalm for the person who is unable to say the words. When in a psalm the speaker talks of retribution, he never states the intent to seek retribution himself but instead states his desire for retribution and then lays that desire before God, for God to act as God sees fit.

In the ministry of praying for others, Bell recalled words his mentor taught him: “We pray for those who at night cry out to God and wish it were morning, and for those who in the morning cry out to God and wish it were night.”

Bell describes the Incarnation as God taking an unprecedented risk in entering the world, “where from conception to crucifixion, his divinity was so engaged with humanity that he posed a [threat], and therefore had to be done to death.” Bell says “there is a constant reciprocity in Jesus’ engagement with the public. He receives as well as he gives, and in the process, he and others are transformed. From the visits of the Magi to the death of Lazarus, Jesus bears witness to how his spirituality and ministry is dependent on constant engagement with people who are not like him.” What might we learn from this?

[1] To read more about Newell, visit: http://heartbeatjourney.org/ or   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Philip_Newell

[2] To read more about Bell, visit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_L._Bell or https://www.ionabooks.com/books/john-bell-wild-goose-resource-group.html