I’m reading John Philip Newell’s book Sacred Earth Sacred Soul. It’s a beautiful book but there is also a sadness in my reading of it. I feel like the last ten years of my life has been a unlearning of my theological heart language. Maybe it’s 25 years. By virtue of being born into the Dutch Reformational theological tradition in all of its richness, for which I am grateful, it also has its blinders on to some very rich soil such as Celtic Christianity which Newell writes about. For all of its gifts, Calvinism also has a lot to answer for. Early Roman Christianity follows Augustine too unquestioningly and the subsequent Reformation protected a patriarchy and prevented us from experiencing what certainly is a more feminine and earthy spirituality developed in those parts of the UK largely untouched by the Roman Empire. Most of what came from there through Pelagius and Brigid of Kildare and others was received with skepticism as being pagan and pantheistic. It certainly challenged the power structures in place. It is places like Iona that are allowing us to recover the riches of this tradition. Slowly unlearning.
We were visiting on the Sunshine Coast this past week and spent a couple of hours picking mushrooms one morning with our son Joshua and granddaughter Luciana, in rainforest ‘gardens’ above Powell River or qathet as the district is becoming more well known by, its original Indigenous name. To walk in the underbrush is a sacred experience. The holy ground beneath our feet was a thick carpet of green mosses and ferns and the trees were dripping Old Man’s Beard. With a bit of schooling, we start seeing a couple varieties of edible mushrooms showing themselves through the thick layers of green, reaching for the light that was streaming through the majestic evergreens. The forest floor is thousands of years of compost, feeding this new generation of life, including ours.
I’m reading John Philip Newell’s book Sacred Earth Sacred Soul. It’s a beautiful book but there is also a sadness in my reading of it. I feel like the last ten years of my life has been a unlearning of my theological heart language. Maybe it’s 25 years. By virtue of being born into the Dutch Reformational theological tradition in all of its richness, for which I am grateful, it also has its blinders on to some very rich soil such as Celtic Christianity which Newell writes about. For all of its gifts, Calvinism also has a lot to answer for. Early Roman Christianity follows Augustine too unquestioningly and the subsequent Reformation protected a patriarchy and prevented us from experiencing what certainly is a more feminine and earthy spirituality developed in those parts of the UK largely untouched by the Roman Empire. Most of what came from there through Pelagius and Brigid of Kildare and others was received with skepticism as being pagan and pantheistic. It certainly challenged the power structures in place. It is places like Iona that are allowing us to recover the riches of this tradition. Slowly unlearning.
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