Most Christians have some awareness of Celtic spirituality. Whether it is familiarity with blessed St. Patrick, exposure to that great Celtic hymn "Be Thou My Vision," or more recently inspiration offered by Van Morrison's mysticism, we all know something of the rich and peculiar form of Christianity that traces its development to Scotland, Ireland, and Wales some 1,500 years ago. Esther de Waal does a marvelous job of describing important elements of Celtic spirituality, reflecting upon them, and considering their many implications for our lives of faith today.
De Waal contends that Celtic Christianity is especially relevant to our day and age. Christianity is often charged with contributing to creation's destruction. But Celtic Christians had a high regard for God's good Earth.
George Macleod, the man primarily responsible for founding the Iona Community in Scotland and a great promoter of the Celtic Christian vision, once told de Waal: "Everyone today keeps asking, 'What is the matter?'...and the short answer is matter is the matter. It is our view of matter, the extent to which the Church has spiritualized the faith and set it apart from the material world, that has brought us where we are today."
De Waal notes the timeliness of reclaiming the Celtic vision: "The contemporary concern with green issues and with ecology, and the popularity of writings on creation spirituality, are all evidence of the urgent need to recover and restore what we have neglected and forgotten." Many Celtic Christians, including St. Patrick, learned to pray outside and they often noted that creation reveals God.
CELTIC CHRISTIANS HAD a healthy appreciation for God's involvement in daily life. The eternal and the temporal, the spiritual and the material, the sacred and the secular were all bound up with each other and not easily discernible. Thus whether one was caring for the fire, making the bed, tending the flocks, or cooking a meal, prayer was always appropriate. All manner of everyday routines were accompanied by prayer. It was a faith that would have made Brother Lawrence (of Practicing the Presence of God fame) right at home.
Theirs was not the idle spirituality of armchair contemplatives. Rather they left a rich legacy of the prayers "of a people who are so busy from dawn to dusk, from dark to dark, that they have little time for long, formal prayers. Instead throughout the day they do whatever has to be done carefully, giving it their full attention, yet at the same time making it the occasion for prayer." No wonder that, according to de Waal, nowhere else can we find a place where monasticism and culture intermingled so fruitfully. Action and contemplation do not compete, but work in tandem.
De Waal writes: "This is an approach to life in which God breaks in on the ordinary, daily, mundane, earthy. It is very much a down-to-earth spirituality. The sense of the presence of God informs daily life and transforms it, so that any moment, any object, any job of work, can become the time and the place for an encounter with God. It is ultimately a question of vision, of seeing." It is a vision that we Christians badly need since we have been as secularized as anyone.
This God-consciousness lent itself to a natural hospitality and concern for the poor as well. Life was hard and it was important to ease each other's burdens.
There are a wealth of resources here for busy Christians so caught up in things secular that we are not even aware of God's presence and loving involvement with us. "Birth and death, waking and sleeping, and in between all the working hours of each day, are all part of a life in which the presence of God is known. Living and praying is inseparable."
There is much more that could be said about the wealth of Celtic spirituality. It was the originator, for example, of the "soul friend" tradition (a model of spiritual direction). Various Celtic saints are credited with the marvelous saying that a person without a soul friend is like a body without a head. That is not surprising from a faith and a culture that value relationships and--not coincidentally--celebrate the Trinity.
De Waal offers insight: "Here is life seen in its wholeness--and it is something that most people in the West today have forgotten, and are beginning to search for again. It is not impossible to find, though it asks for sensitivity and for time. I believe that the gift of the Celtic world is to renew that lost vision."
I for one was deepened in faith by the Celtic cloud of witnesses. Whether I am washing dishes or feeding breakfast to my children, driving my car or going for a walk, preparing a sermon or visiting the sick, hungering for God or letting God's balm heal my inner wounds, Celtic spirituality reminds and enables me to be a person of prayer.
Arthur P. Boers was pastor of Bloomingdale (Ontario) Mennonite Church and the author of Lord, Teach Us to Pray (Herald Press) and Justice That Heals (Faith & Life) when this review appeared.
Every Earthly Blessing: Rediscovering the Celtic Tradition. By Esther de Waal. Servant Publications, 1992. $8 (paper).
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