This post contains extracts from Newell’s very good book to cite the nine people he sharred to show how their experiences were a Great Search.
“Seek and you will find,” says Jesus. This is the promise at the heart of the Great Search today. And it is the hope that inspires the writing of this book.
Extracts from the Appendix of The Great Search: Turning to Earth and Soul in the Quest for Healing and Home by John Philip Newell, acquired on April 20, 2026.
Thomas Berry is a messenger of vision to us. He invites us to see everything in the universe as both physical and spiritual, and to see that we all began 13.7 billion years ago in the great flaring forth of light.
Nan Shepherd is a messenger to us of oneness with Earth. She invites us to know not just with our minds but with our bodies—to breathe in Earth’s freshness, to listen to its silence and storms, to taste its juice in the crispness of an autumn apple, to see its color in the new light of dawn and feel its wetness in the rain-washed landscape of grasses and trees around us.
Martin Buber is a messenger of presence to us. He invites us to be alive to God in one another and in every manifestation of life, and to know that now is the time of divine presence, always now—within us, around us, and between us—and to open our hearts to each moment, looking always for the gift of presence that calls us back to our true selves.
Carl Jung is a messenger of awareness to us. He invites us to be alert with love to the light and the shadow, the good and the evil, the beginnings and endings of life that are within us, and to remember the Valley of Diamonds through which we have all traveled in our journey of birth into this world. We come from light, and it is our longing for light that will save us.
Julian of Norwich is a messenger of wellness to us. She invites us to seek it now and to know that the wellness of the part and the wellness of the whole belong inseparably together. She calls us to look suffering in the face, to feel it and name it, and to ground our hope for healing in the love-longings of the Spirit deep within us, love for those we cherish, love for Earth, love for all. For it is together that we shall be well.
Jalaluddin Rumi is a messenger of love to us. He invites us to rediscover it as the true essence of religion, and to rebuild our world as a sanctuary of love in which to honor each other and find delight together.
Rabindranath Tagore is a messenger of wisdom to us. He invites us to let the wisdom that was knitted into us in our mother’s womb come forth again in ever-fresh ways, that we may see the infinite world deep in this world and the eternal Soul in every soul.
Etty Hillesum is a messenger of meaning to us. She invites us to live and breathe through our souls to access the meaning of life in both its glory and agony. She inspires us to defend the dwelling place of the divine deep within us and all life, and to know in our hearts the strength of love to bear all things, hope all things, and endure all things.
Edwin Muir is a messenger of faith to us, not faith in statements about God but faith in the light of the divine deep within every human being and life-form. Muir invites us to remember our first experiences of light, glistening in earth, sea, and sky, and in the eyes of those who love us, and to pledge ourselves in faith to every human being and to the healing of Earth as our shared home.
