Celtic Spirituality where is God

2. Celtic Spirituality, the Immanent Presence of God

Gaelic Blessing

“Deep peace of the running wave to you,

Deep peace of the flowing air to you,

Deep peace of the quiet earth to you.

Deep peace of the shining stars to you,

Deep peace of the gentle night to you.

Moon and stars pour their healing light on you,

Deep peace of Christ the light of the world to you.”

In Celtic Spirituality God’s presence was in and through the created world.  There was no dualism.  Nothing was seen as secular.  All was holy.  Nature was sacred.  God was seen everywhere, but this was not pantheism.  The hills, the sky, the sea, the forests were not God, but their spiritual qualities revealed God and were connected to God.  This was similar to the artist’s connection to his painting.  A painting or a statue, while bearing the identity of the artist’s hand, still has an existence separate from the work.

 Gaelic Blessing was theJohn Rutter anthem our choir sang at my ordination. Since as early age, I have experienced what the words and music are saying. As I sit by my desk, even in front of a picture window, I become consumed with my world and its problems and become self-absorbed. I go outside, and it is as if I am in a different world.  I suddenly experience a world larger than my own, sacred, one I did not create. My problems become small. I am connected to something greater than myself. Following the moon rise at night or the rising of the sun in the morning, or its setting in the evening or listening to the constant rhythm of the waves by the ocean brings a peace to my body and soul and mind that no drug or substance can duplicate. Nature helps us live in the present. This is where God meets us.

John Miriam Jones, With an Eagle’s Eye, 1998.

Phillip Newell, Celtic Benediction, 2000.

Phillip Newell, Christ of the Celts 2008.

Joannajoannaseibert.com

I look for God when I do the dishes

I look for God when I do the dishes

 “I search for the Spirit as I take out the trash. The sacred is revealed in brilliant light only rarely, in the flash of some great insight unexpected, but much more than this the holy is to be discovered in our daily lives, in the moments when we are simply being ourselves. Putting the kids to bed, working in the garden, sitting on the porch in the evening: the beauty of eternity is that it hides in plain sight all around us. We are all prophets of the predictable pattern, witnesses to the wonder of the average day.” Bishop Steven Charleston, Daily post on Facebook

from joanna es campbell

 The God of my understanding uses every bit of our lives to call us to God’s love. I remember one morning walk around my block when I took notice of all the trash bins out in front of our houses. I suddenly realized that this walk, many of the spiritual disciplines we practice are to clear our minds, literally taking out the trash so that we can hear God speak to our lives.

Bishop Charleston is reminding us of Brother Lawrence’s experience in Practicing the Presence of God, seeking and seeing God in every aspect of our life. He is telling us we don’t have to live in a monastery to find and live this kind of life. He believes we can see God’s presence more in our daily routine rather than in some St. Paul-like, blinding, falling off your horse, spectacular event. He is also practicing the family systems axiom of trying to stay the less anxious presence in the world around him. He is looking outside and being awed, and reminded by the daily ever-changing beauty of God’s presence in the vastness of Nature and being transformed by what he sees. He is actively looking for Christ in every place and every person he sees. This is the spiritual discipline of living in the present moment.

Joanna     joannaseibert.com

Forgiveness and Judas Escariot

The Ballad of Judas Escariot

“Twas the Bridegroom sat at the table-head

         And the lights burned bright and clear-

“Oh, who is that?” the Bridegroom said,

         “Whose weary feet I hear?”

“Twas one looked from the lighted hall,

         And answered soft and slow,

“It is a wolf runs up and down

         With a black track in the snow.”

The Bridegroom in his robe of white

         Sat at the table-head-

“Oh, who is that who moans without?”

         The blessed Bridegroom said.

“Twas one looked from the lighted hall,

         And answered fierce and low,

“Tis the soul of Judas Iscariot

         gliding to and fro.”

“Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot

         Did hush itself and stand,

And saw the Bridegroom at the door

         With a light in his hand.

“Twas the Bridegroom stood at the open door,

         And beckoned, smiling sweet;

“Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot

         Stole in and fell at his feet.

“The Supper is spread within,

         And the many candles shine,

And I have waited long for thee

         Before I poured the wine!”

Robert Buchanan in The Other Side of Silence, a Guide to Christian Meditation, Morton T. Kelsey 1976.

Theologian, Morton Kelsey wrote this practical book over fifty years ago to remind Christians that meditation was not just for those in Eastern religions.  His revised edition twenty years later is called The Other Side of Silence, Meditation for the Twenty-first Century has more of his writings and wisdom in a time when Christian meditation now is more well-known. Kelsey believes that meditation is simply the way we set up the conditions to prepare for the God who is seeking us and breaks through to us particularly in silence. “Doing meditation” involves using Biblical stores, dream images, poems, images from other sources.

 This poem about Judas by the Scottish poet, Robert Buchanan, is included in Kelsey’s book and should be read and meditated on every Easter, reminding us that no one is lost or not forgiven or not loved by God. I offer it also to spiritual friends who feel they have done something unforgivable or that that God no longer loves them, and of course I meditate on it myself when that darkness of guilt or shame or a poor self-image surrounds me as well. Judas is a reminder and icon of times when we cannot accept that we might be forgiven or loved or might be open to God’s Grace continuously offered to all of us through dark and light times in our life. In all honestly, was Judas’ betrayal of Jesus really worse than denying Jesus or abandoning him as the others did? He simply could not ask for or accept forgiveness and had forgotten that the God of his understanding was a loving and forgiving God.

Joanna joannaseibert.com