J. Philip Newell is Scholar in Spirituality at St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh, Scotland. This volume grew out of a series of talks given during 1999 at St. Thomas's Cathedral in Portsmouth. Using a quotation from the ninth century Irish teacher John Scotus Eriugena, he sees the body as an echo of the soul. Newell's goal here is to correct a common Christian attitude that denigrates the body. He wants to "reclaim the Holy integration of the spiritual and the physical that is deep in our Jewish and Christian inheritance."
One of the most praiseworthy aspects of the book is the easy way Newell makes use of material from teachers in the Celtic tradition, the Jewish Kabbalah, and writers such as William Blake, Edwin Muir, Martin Buber, and Abraham Joshua Heschel. In his examination of the body as sacred, there are chapters on the mystery, the wisdom, the strength, the beauty, the creativity, the eternity, and the presence of the self. Each of these has a corresponding part of the body: the crown of the head, the forehead, the arms, the heart, the genitals, the legs, and the feet.
Early on, Newell notes: "A 19th century teacher in the Celtic tradition used the analogy of royal garments woven through with gold. If the golden thread were to be ripped out of the clothing the whole garment would unravel. So it is with the image of God woven into the mystery of our being. If somehow it were to be extracted we would cease to exist." This devotional resource is tailor-made for small groups in churches interested in a Christian overview of the sacredness of the body.