Four Online Sessions
Begins September 15, 2021
Wednesdays @ 10:00 AM PST
In this four-week course, the Reverend Al Gephart will invite participants to respond to the ways that John Philip Newell perceives concepts of God in the Christian community undergoing a seismic shift, reorientation, and rebirth.
Do you find yourself thinking about God in new ways? Or perhaps you’ve given up on God because traditional perspectives no longer satisfy? Some see a “rebirthing of God” taking place around the world. We will share reflections based on a book by that title, written by Celtic scholar John Philip Newell, former warden of the Iona Abbey in the Western Isles of Scotland.
Newell observes rebirth happening in a variety of ways through messengers like Thomas Berry, Mary Oliver, Bede Griffiths, Thomas Merton, Simon Weil and Carl Jung. “There is a desperate yearning among us for new beginnings.”
Such yearning is seen in a reconnecting to the earth, a reclaiming of compassion, a recommitment to the shared journey of many faith traditions, a rediscovery of spiritual practices, a rededication to nonviolence, a reuniting with love. We are invited to notice these fresh stirrings of the Spirit. Newell’s prayers express our connection with the sacred in all people, and with the whole creation.
