EAST MONTPELIER – On a recent week-long visit to the Island of Iona off the west coast of Scotland, I was reminded of the rich traditions of Celtic Christianity. Brought to Iona from Ireland by St. Columba, Christianity, spread throughout the British Isles and flourished there through the 12th century.
One of the primary characteristics of Celtic Christianity is a profound sense of the sacredness of all creation. Edward Sellner notes in “Wisdom of the Celtic Saints,” “Their daily life was lived in close proximity to nature and the spirituality reflected . . . a sense of wonder and awe at the divine residing in everything.”
A belief in the divine indwelling in every created thing informed their practice of worshipping outdoors, a practice scorned as pagan by the Roman church, and their deep love and respect for the environment, expressed in quiet care for all living things.
The sense of the sacred in all things extended to all persons. Rather than seeing humankind as mired in original sin, they saw the basic goodness of each person, created as we are in the image of God.
The Celtic tradition provided inspiration and encouragement for a daily practice of the presence of God.
In The Elements of Celtic Christianity, Anthony Duncan notes that “Celtic Christianity is essentially an embracing of life in its totality. There is no false division between the sacred and the secular, all is blessed. The whole of life, the whole of creation, is brim-full of the divine presence and there is nowhere where God is not.”
In the Celtic way, there are prayers for rising in the morning and for going to bed at night, and for just about every activity in between. God’s blessing was sought not only before meals, but for bathing and for kindling a fire, for placing a warp on a loom, for consecrating seed and for reaping the harvest and even for milking the cows. There is a wonderful down-to-earthness in these prayers, but even as I use the term down-to-earth, I want to emphasize that earth is not down while God is somewhere rarified, distant and up. There was nothing which was considered to be beneath God’s interest, no creature or activity so humble that God would not be concerned with it.
Iona is an achingly beautiful place, with its white sand beaches, green pastures and craggy hills, its views of the ocean and of the mountains of Mull. It’s easy to be moved to awe and to see God in creation when surrounded by such beauty.
I can’t help but wonder how might we be changed, both as individuals, and as a society, if, like the Celtic Christians, we saw and honored the sacred in every iota of creation;
If we saw and honored the sacred in each other and ourselves; If we practiced the presence of God, or the holy, by whatever name we relate to it, in our day-to-day living?
Celtic Christianity was eventually largely suppressed by the church of Rome. To me, this feels like a great loss, because, as we look at the state of our world today, it seems very clear that we have lost the sense of the sacredness of all creation, we’ve lost our ability to see and honor the sacredness of every human person and we’ve lost the practice of the presence of God in our day-to-day lives. Perhaps it’s time to start searching for what these early Christians knew and practiced, reclaiming the wisdom of this ancient tradition for the pressing needs of the present day.
Rev. Rona Kinsley is Pastor Emerita at The Old Meeting House in East Montpelier Center. Previously she was the interim pastor at the Greensboro United Church of Christ.
