“The universe is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects” – Thomas BerryThis quote introduced me to the writings of Thomas Berry and helped me focus my thinking as we planned for celebrating Earth Day Sunday at First UMC. In a society that champions individualism, the concept of interdependent living is a challenge for many to accept. Understanding Earth as sacred community is the reality we need to embrace. Our Environmental Stewardship Committee led this effort to reflect on God’s creation and our place in it. From music and liturgy to scripture and sermons, we were reminded that we live in a divine world, one that we are called to maintain. We also enjoyed lunch on the lawn, a great opportunity for fellowship and a reminder of the importance of living in community.
For several months, Evening Thoughts by Thomas Berry has been part of my bedtime reading. Almost ritualistically, I have read a few pages of it for personal reflection. Fascinated by Berry’s thought process and use of language, I have found my own thinking to be challenged and expanded. This eco-theologian calls us to be a part of this time of confronting the integral well-being of the Earth. All creatures of Earth are looking to us for their destiny. He reminds us that “our children and grandchildren depend on our decisions for the sustenance and flourishing of the life systems of the planet.”
At the conclusion of the book, the editor included “An Intellectual Biography of Thomas Berry” which in itself is interesting reading. This leads me to wonder what my intellectual biography might say? I hope it is still being written.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Earth Day 2008
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3 comments:
Cultural historian Thomas Berry has devoted his career to understanding how Western religion and culture have failed to sustain a nurturing relationship between humans and the Earth. In his major works -- The Dream of the Earth, The Universe Story, and The Great Work -- he has traced the Western spiritual estrangement from the earth implicit in the growth of modern technological culture. Berry calls for a new cosmology, expressed in a "New Story" or mythic consciousness that will reunite humans with the creative energy of the universe and overcome our destructive spiritual estrangement from the source of life. Berry's work offers both a conceptual framework for understanding how this western cultural estrangement has come about and a means of overcoming it through his new cosmology. Implicit in Berry's work is a reunification of science and religion through an "Earth Spirituality," an incarnational spirituality, an affirmation of the spiritual potential of matter, and a reflection of how we treat the material world. Berry, in a clever pun, calls himself a "geologian," not a theologian, meaning presumably that he is concerned with the earth,......
What was biographically introduced after the ... is not essential to the contribution of Thomas Berry. I will post my comment later. Tom
I haven't read Thomas Berry and probably couldn't appreciate him based on what both of you have said, nor am I ready for an environmentalist crown in heaven, but I did make a small contribution to a greener earth on Earth Day. My old concrete driveway was hauled away to be recycled, and recycled concrete was brought in to be used as base material for my new driveway. This was a condition in the selection of the contractor. Such would not have been the case a year or two ago. I am grateful to people like Ron for educating me to the need for protecting God's gift.
Thomas Berry, author of The Dream of the Earth and co-author with Brian Swimme of The Universe Story, draws a grim portrait of the environmental catastrophe of our time. He believes that the political, economic, intellectual, and religious establishments of the modern Western world have fashioned an ethic that gives human beings permission to subvert and dominate the non-human world. This "deep cultural pathology," as Berry calls it, has resulted in an AUTISM that cuts millions of people off from any intimacy with the natural world.
The worst part of the present environmental crisis is that our children will have to live with the dire consequences of overpopulation, the loss of precious topsoil, the extinction of many animal species, and the depletion of petroleum in about 50 years. Berry salutes the work of groups like World Watch and the ecologically attuned economics of Herman Daly. Perhaps the most critical need is for a revisioning of spirituality — one that will see Spirit in the non-human world and honor nature the way Native Americans do.
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Tom's quick synopsis
Berry's "Autism" means to me that our culture has subverted our stewardship covenant, in the name of greed, to the point where we are now oblivious to important and essential ancient input stimuli that render us incapable of responding righteously to what originally were blatant signals. In very simple terms, we no longer hear the "voice of God" so we can't do the will of God. Clearly recorded in the Bible by the ancients, who could still hear the voice of God, are the instructions for carrying out God's plan for man. We were created to be good stewards of our home planet. Thus it appears that the only crown in heaven, the only reward for a job well done, is an environmentalist crown. Ears to hear. Eyes to see. Protecting God's gift is not a need. It is more like gravity, not just a good idea, but the Law.
Tom
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