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One Foot in Eden
This book explores the connection between what is deepest in us and the original goodness of creation seen in the Garden. Writing in the Celtic tradition, the author views grace not as opposed to nature, but as releasing God's creativity which was planted in us at birth. Love's wisdom and passion may lie buried under layers of confusion in our lives, but they are waiting to be recovered. The book imagines a pilgrimage through the different stages of life, from the innocence of the newborn, through the awakening of adolescence and the passions of adulthood, to the wisdom which comes from experience.
112 pages, Paperback
First published December 15, 1997
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About the author
John Philip Newell
35 books113 followersJOHN PHILIP NEWELL is an internationally acclaimed spiritual teacher and popular speaker and the widely read author of several books, including Listening for the Heartbeat of God and A New Harmony. The former Warden of Iona Abbey in the Western Isles of Scotland, he is the founder of The School of Earth and Soul (A Celtic Initiative of Study, Spiritual Practice and Compassionate Action) and teaches regularly in California, New England, Virginia, Colorado, New Mexico, and Canada as well as leading international pilgrimages to Iona.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 6, 2019
This book was recommended by a good friend and it took me a while to understand why he appreciated it so much. Newell’s book offers a Celtic perspective on the stages of our spiritual life. He grounds each stage off of Scottish poet Edwin Muir’s poem, One Foot in Eden. A Celtic spiritual perspective is a perspective that is fundamentally rooted in Eden.
The benefit of the Celtic perspective is that it holds tight to the innate goodness of creation and humanity because of the Creator. The negative is that at times, the Celtic view minimizes sin. Newell argues that this isn’t the case. He says that the emphasis of the good “is not to deny that we and all creation are held in terrible bondages to wrongdoing and sin.” In the end, I do think there is some truth to this critique, but if one reads the Celtic view as just one facet of the complex truth of our humanity, one can appreciate what it adds to the conversation.
In Newell’s words, “The hope of this book is that in becoming more aware of the graces of God hidden within the soil of our own lives we will be led to more passionately seek their own rediscovery and redemption in the whole of life.” The focus on recovering Eden reminds us that “It is God’s life that sustains all life, and it is God’s Soul that indwells every living soul.”
On infancy, Newell tells us that we are called back to infancy, “Although this way of seeing is obscured in us, there is in the embers of our childhood, as he says, ‘something that doth live.’”
In childhood we find the seed of our true self: “Grace leads us not backwards but forwards into a redemption of what is truest in us.” And yet, “To reflect on the innocence of our childhood is not to romanticize it, for childhood is also the stage of life that is most focused on its own needs.”
In adolescence we find, “The grace of awakening is one of becoming aware of who we truly are, and choosing to live out of that truth.” And yet, there is an inner-focus in adolescence that must be acknowledged: “We each need to be asking ourselves if we are finding the right balance between inner awakening and outer awareness.”
As we move to early adulthood, we meet what GK Chesterton refers to as “The towering infallibility of twenty.” Newell says that we must be aware of the tension of early adulthood where we learn how sexual passion is to be properly expressed. Newell suggests that, “One of the greatest modern fallacies is that the stream of sexual passion can be both deep and unbounded.” I couldn’t agree more.
And yet, it is here that Newell offers one of his most problematic suggestions in the book: “’Expressed anger lasts for exactly twenty seconds. Unexpressed anger lasts a life time.” This is a therapeutic, not a Christian notion. Expressed anger, after all, can leave lasting relational damage.
Newell’s insights grow in profundity in the later stages of life. For the middle years, Newell says that there is nothing more important to learn in the middle years that, “We are, each one, loved at the core of our beings. It is the knowledge of this truth that can set us free to love one another as we are loved.”
Newell says that wise living in old age is light living. He points to TS Eliot, “My life is light, waiting for the death wind, Like a feather on the back of my hand.” Wisdom in old age: “coming to believe more and more about less and less.” He continues: “To return again and again to the ‘still point’ is to orientate ourselves to what is most real and to be set free from limited confinements to the outward.”
While the world has ceased to venerate old age, a biblical perspective venerates the elderly: “They have become what they are through years and years of openness to the springs of God’s wisdom within them. Their wise spirit in old age is a valuation of what they have been over many seasons.”
And finally, Newell arrives at Death. In death, TS Eliot reflects, “We shall not cease from exploration; And the end of all our exploring; Will be to arrive where we started; And know the place for the first time.” Death, in other words, takes us back to Eden. Newell reflects, “A spirituality that is alert to creation, as is the Celtic, sees in death not a movement away from life but a grace through which we may move closer to life’s source.” And again, “As St. Francis also put it in his great song of creation, death is the grace that leads us home.”
I commend Newell’s book to you. Be patient if you aren’t captivated by the early chapters. You may also appreciate or find Newell’s style difficult. Each chapter ends with recommendations for meditation, which don’t fit my own meditation practices, but I see the value in what Newell offers.
The benefit of the Celtic perspective is that it holds tight to the innate goodness of creation and humanity because of the Creator. The negative is that at times, the Celtic view minimizes sin. Newell argues that this isn’t the case. He says that the emphasis of the good “is not to deny that we and all creation are held in terrible bondages to wrongdoing and sin.” In the end, I do think there is some truth to this critique, but if one reads the Celtic view as just one facet of the complex truth of our humanity, one can appreciate what it adds to the conversation.
In Newell’s words, “The hope of this book is that in becoming more aware of the graces of God hidden within the soil of our own lives we will be led to more passionately seek their own rediscovery and redemption in the whole of life.” The focus on recovering Eden reminds us that “It is God’s life that sustains all life, and it is God’s Soul that indwells every living soul.”
On infancy, Newell tells us that we are called back to infancy, “Although this way of seeing is obscured in us, there is in the embers of our childhood, as he says, ‘something that doth live.’”
In childhood we find the seed of our true self: “Grace leads us not backwards but forwards into a redemption of what is truest in us.” And yet, “To reflect on the innocence of our childhood is not to romanticize it, for childhood is also the stage of life that is most focused on its own needs.”
In adolescence we find, “The grace of awakening is one of becoming aware of who we truly are, and choosing to live out of that truth.” And yet, there is an inner-focus in adolescence that must be acknowledged: “We each need to be asking ourselves if we are finding the right balance between inner awakening and outer awareness.”
As we move to early adulthood, we meet what GK Chesterton refers to as “The towering infallibility of twenty.” Newell says that we must be aware of the tension of early adulthood where we learn how sexual passion is to be properly expressed. Newell suggests that, “One of the greatest modern fallacies is that the stream of sexual passion can be both deep and unbounded.” I couldn’t agree more.
And yet, it is here that Newell offers one of his most problematic suggestions in the book: “’Expressed anger lasts for exactly twenty seconds. Unexpressed anger lasts a life time.” This is a therapeutic, not a Christian notion. Expressed anger, after all, can leave lasting relational damage.
Newell’s insights grow in profundity in the later stages of life. For the middle years, Newell says that there is nothing more important to learn in the middle years that, “We are, each one, loved at the core of our beings. It is the knowledge of this truth that can set us free to love one another as we are loved.”
Newell says that wise living in old age is light living. He points to TS Eliot, “My life is light, waiting for the death wind, Like a feather on the back of my hand.” Wisdom in old age: “coming to believe more and more about less and less.” He continues: “To return again and again to the ‘still point’ is to orientate ourselves to what is most real and to be set free from limited confinements to the outward.”
While the world has ceased to venerate old age, a biblical perspective venerates the elderly: “They have become what they are through years and years of openness to the springs of God’s wisdom within them. Their wise spirit in old age is a valuation of what they have been over many seasons.”
And finally, Newell arrives at Death. In death, TS Eliot reflects, “We shall not cease from exploration; And the end of all our exploring; Will be to arrive where we started; And know the place for the first time.” Death, in other words, takes us back to Eden. Newell reflects, “A spirituality that is alert to creation, as is the Celtic, sees in death not a movement away from life but a grace through which we may move closer to life’s source.” And again, “As St. Francis also put it in his great song of creation, death is the grace that leads us home.”
I commend Newell’s book to you. Be patient if you aren’t captivated by the early chapters. You may also appreciate or find Newell’s style difficult. Each chapter ends with recommendations for meditation, which don’t fit my own meditation practices, but I see the value in what Newell offers.
July 14, 2024
This book kept sitting on the shelf for quite sometime and I finally got around to reading it. I like how Newell draws from the ancient Celtic Christian tradition in each chapter about childhood, adolescence and awakening, passion and artistic creativity, middle years, and the coming of death in the context of eternity.
March 15, 2025
This was on my shelf for a long time and I’m glad I finally chose it for a Lenten reading. It’s not an easy read, but has beautiful passages and poetry references while reminding readers of the Celtic view of life as good. The reminder of the best parts of each stage of life was a wonderful addition to contemplating the Lenten season.
March 1, 2014
An amazing book to prepare for or journey through Lent!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews