I recently spent a couple of days listening to John Phillip Newell, minister, poet, scholar and teacher. John Phillip in his new book entitled "A New Harmony" really resonated with me and so I highly recommend this read.
Newell states, in a world that seems increasingly fragmented, John Phillip calls us to a vision of life's essential oneness. He invites us to be a part of the new harmony. A new harmony communicates across the boundaries of religion and race that have separated us and honors our distinct inheritances by serving what is deeper still...the oneness of earth's destiny.
Newell explores the ancient harmony that is deep in the matter of the universe, the essential interconnectedness of all things. Everything, whether the expanding light of distant galaxies or humanity's inner light of mind and consciousness, carries within itself the life of the universe's shared beginning. With keen insight and sensitivity, he confronts the brokenness of our harmony, as individuals and families and as nations and species. Only by knowing and naming the extent and depth of our disharmony will we find the way forward. Confronting our brokenness, individually and together, is integral to the hope for healing.
Newell draws from the Christian household from the likes of Evelyn Underhill, Meister Eckhart a fourteenth century Christian mystic, twelfth century Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, ninth-century Irish teacher John Scotus Erugena, Irenaeus, a second century teacher from the Celtic tradition; Teilhard de Chardin, Bede Griffiths, and Paul Tillich.
Matthew Fox, author, of "Original Blesssing" writes, "In these pages Celtic consciousness and scholarship once again awaken the heart and mind to...the everyday beauty and sacredness of things. Simply, but not simplistically, written, the author moves from dreams and everyday encounters to teachings from creation-centered mystics and today's scientific cosmology. He provides a radical challenge to the boredom that institutional religion so often elicits. With a book like this, religious history looks less bleak and spirituality much closer to home."
I encourage you to read this book and then lets dialog. Where do you find resonance?
