God is present in everything

God is present in everything

Chaplain Revd Gary van Heerden

As we celebrate our 125th year of being Scotch College, it is worth tapping into our Celtic roots, as Celtic spirituality has much to offer today. A key feature of Celtic spirituality is the belief that God is present in everything, in everyone, always close at hand. In his book, The Celtic Way, Ian Bradley, talks of the three distinguishing features of Celtic Christianity, the three Ps – presence, pilgrimage and poetry.

1) Presence

Working from the premise of the Celtic belief in the immanence of God, one expects to encounter God in every activity and in every encounter. The Celtic notion of a ‘thin place’ (places where the veil between us and God is very thin, where people feel God’s presence) means that it is as possible to experience God’s presence during a chapel service as during a drama performance, a recital, on the sport field, in the classroom or with mates during recess. This presence undermines the dualism between ‘being religious’ when in chapel and ‘secular’ while engaging in all other pursuits. In Celtic spirituality there is no sacred/secular divide. Everything is infused with God’s Spirit. This leads to a robust, earthy rather than ‘other worldly’ spirituality.

2) Pilgrimage (peregrinatio) – the notion of taking the Gospel to new places for Christ.

The Celts were a restless and an adventurous bunch. The community of Iona was started when St Columba settled on Iona in 563, which soon became a centre of Celtic spirituality from which Christianity spread as far afield as Russia. Interestingly, the Celts distinguished between genuine pilgrimage and the escapist kind, to which they were prone as a race. Embarking on a pilgrimage but with no inner change of heart was dismissed as a waste of time.

The founding document of the Uniting Church speaks of the church’s existence as a journey, a movement, a process of ongoing exploration and change – on the way to a known goal: “that coming reconciliation and renewal which is the end in view for the whole creation” (Basis of Union, paragraph 3). Perhaps the idea of pilgrimage is one that we need to rediscover, as contemporary Christianity can be very static.

On my bucket list is to walk the most famous modern-day pilgrimage, the Compostela de Santiago in northern Spain. 200 000 pilgrims walk the 800km journey to the Cathedral in Santiago every year, where the relics of St James are buried. But as the Celts remind us, however, a true pilgrimage always involves an inner journey as well.

3) Poetry

Celtic poems and prayers were an attempt to express the presence of God. God was always very close, present in every activity, in every word, in every breath. This closeness is reflected in prayers for all aspects of their lives – milking, shearing sheep, driving the cows, kindling the fire, journey prayers. As the men set out for their day’s work, leaving home to fish or farm, they would say or sing a short prayer.

Celtic prayers flowed out of the relentless demands of life itself, which highlights a profound truth: it is in the midst of the ordinary that God so often comes to meet with us. How to see God in our midst, rather than needing to escape to look for God?

In a society where religion seems to be on the periphery and where the language, symbols and practices of the church seem strange and inaccessible, an ongoing challenge for me as the chaplain is to find new words, images and metaphors to depict the Divine that boys can relate to.

As we celebrate the robust, earthy spirituality that our Celtic roots provide, I conclude with a prayer from the Iona Community Worship Book, said at every Thursday morning service in the Iona Abbey in Scotland:

“O Christ, you are within each of us. It is not just the interior of these walls: it is our own inner being you have renewed. We are your temple, not made with hands. We are your body. If every wall should crumble, and every church decay, we are your habitation. Nearer are you than breathing, closer than hands and feet. Ours are the eyes with which you, in the mystery, look out in compassion on the world. Yet we bless you for this place, for your directing of us, your redeeming of us, and your indwelling. Take us outside, Lord, outside holiness, out to where soldiers curse and nations clash at the crossroads of the world. So shall this building continue to be justified. We ask it for your own name’s sake. Amen.”