One of the things I like to do is bring forward various names of influential people whom, I think, a wider public audience ought to know. One such name is Thomas Berry. I have known about Berry for quite some time. I have read a couple of his books and have a deep appreciation for his perspective on the world and our problems. But I am guessing there is not wide-spread knowledge of Berry, even among the Catholic community of which he was a part. In a word, Berry had a deep concern for planet earth and what humans were doing to it. Due to Greta Thunberg from Sweden in our own day, this ecological issue has moved to the front of the news.
I was reminded of Berry and his work when I recently read a short book review of a new biography of Berry. Some of his former students, Mary Evelyn Tucker, John Grim and Andrew Angyal, have written a biography, which I plan to read. The book review by Marian Ronan has piqued my interest. The beginning of the review narrated how in the 1970s she was a young gal living at the women’s center in Grail national center in southern Ohio. I visited Grailville a number of times, so I know exactly the place she describes when she remembers a tottering older guy who also visited there. It was Thomas Berry.
I love how she has now edited her memory of that elderly visitor. She comments, “The priest's name was Thomas Berry, and in recent years, I have been forced to admit that my concerns about his age and wobbliness — he was in his mid-60s at the time — were a bit off-point. And that his portrayal of the new story of the universe, shared with us in mimeographed form before he began publishing about it, was a great deal more significant.”
I never met Thomas Berry, so I let her words inform my image of the man. But I do know about his portrayal of a new story of our universe and that is what I want to share.
Berry called himself a “geologian.” “Geo” is the Greek word for earth or universe. Today we are more likely to hear the word, ecology and ecologian---that is, a theologian thinking about our universe and the environmental crisis we may be helping to cause. Ronan says this of Berry: he “presented a vision of the universe, of all of creation, and of the Great Work we are called to within it.”
Berry was born in 1914 in Greensboro, NC, the home city of my college days. He died there in 2009. Berry was trained as a scholar of religion, but he also had a bent for science. He was influenced by another scientist-theologian, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. In effect, both men crafted what Ronan calls a “cosmic, utterly compassionate vision of the universe.” It is a phrase that I want to own and put forward as the way forward. The universe is our home. Let’s not trash it, but rather treasure it. With good reason, we talk about “Mother Nature;” we should treat our Mother well.
Berry’s life was guided by this vision. Ronan puts it well when she acknowledges, “Only human understanding of the history of the ever-expanding universe would lead us out of our era of planetary destruction and mass extinction into a more compassionate, sustainable era. So enormous would the effort be that was required to move humanity into this new era in politics, economics, culture and religion that Berry called that effort the Great Work.” I want to enlist in the Great Work and hope you do, too.
I am confident many people, perhaps, most folks do not think about planetary destruction. In my own case, I am old enough that I know I will be dead before there is much of a price to pay. But I think about my grandkids---all of whom probably should live to 2100. And then there are their kids and their grandkids. They will have to cope with it all. Can we move humanity into a new era of politics, economics, etc.? I don’t know, but I am hopeful. The alternative is not attractive. It is a Great Work, indeed.
There are a thousand reasons why people will not take on this Great Work. We are too busy, too interested in other things, too lazy and too committed to the way things are. It reminds me of Aesop’s fable about the ant and the grasshopper. This cute story tells about the frivolous waste of summer on the part of the grasshopper, as he plays around and does nothing to prepare for the impending winter. The ants, on the other hand, work through the summer, so they will be able to make it very well through the winter. Obviously, the grasshopper winds up on the doorstep of the ants’ house begging for food.
Are we grasshoppers or ants? Berry was pretty clear about the Great Work needing to be done while our universe is still in its summer time. He felt like winter would come. Is it not time for some of the wisdom of the ants (and Berry)? What else do we have to do that is more important? I want to be able to share with my grandkids about my involvement in the Great Work. It is ok to start small. Maybe plastic bags are a beginning point?
Berry had a vision for a new world; I am beginning to see, too.
I was reminded of Berry and his work when I recently read a short book review of a new biography of Berry. Some of his former students, Mary Evelyn Tucker, John Grim and Andrew Angyal, have written a biography, which I plan to read. The book review by Marian Ronan has piqued my interest. The beginning of the review narrated how in the 1970s she was a young gal living at the women’s center in Grail national center in southern Ohio. I visited Grailville a number of times, so I know exactly the place she describes when she remembers a tottering older guy who also visited there. It was Thomas Berry.
I love how she has now edited her memory of that elderly visitor. She comments, “The priest's name was Thomas Berry, and in recent years, I have been forced to admit that my concerns about his age and wobbliness — he was in his mid-60s at the time — were a bit off-point. And that his portrayal of the new story of the universe, shared with us in mimeographed form before he began publishing about it, was a great deal more significant.”
I never met Thomas Berry, so I let her words inform my image of the man. But I do know about his portrayal of a new story of our universe and that is what I want to share.
Berry called himself a “geologian.” “Geo” is the Greek word for earth or universe. Today we are more likely to hear the word, ecology and ecologian---that is, a theologian thinking about our universe and the environmental crisis we may be helping to cause. Ronan says this of Berry: he “presented a vision of the universe, of all of creation, and of the Great Work we are called to within it.”
Berry was born in 1914 in Greensboro, NC, the home city of my college days. He died there in 2009. Berry was trained as a scholar of religion, but he also had a bent for science. He was influenced by another scientist-theologian, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. In effect, both men crafted what Ronan calls a “cosmic, utterly compassionate vision of the universe.” It is a phrase that I want to own and put forward as the way forward. The universe is our home. Let’s not trash it, but rather treasure it. With good reason, we talk about “Mother Nature;” we should treat our Mother well.
Berry’s life was guided by this vision. Ronan puts it well when she acknowledges, “Only human understanding of the history of the ever-expanding universe would lead us out of our era of planetary destruction and mass extinction into a more compassionate, sustainable era. So enormous would the effort be that was required to move humanity into this new era in politics, economics, culture and religion that Berry called that effort the Great Work.” I want to enlist in the Great Work and hope you do, too.
I am confident many people, perhaps, most folks do not think about planetary destruction. In my own case, I am old enough that I know I will be dead before there is much of a price to pay. But I think about my grandkids---all of whom probably should live to 2100. And then there are their kids and their grandkids. They will have to cope with it all. Can we move humanity into a new era of politics, economics, etc.? I don’t know, but I am hopeful. The alternative is not attractive. It is a Great Work, indeed.
There are a thousand reasons why people will not take on this Great Work. We are too busy, too interested in other things, too lazy and too committed to the way things are. It reminds me of Aesop’s fable about the ant and the grasshopper. This cute story tells about the frivolous waste of summer on the part of the grasshopper, as he plays around and does nothing to prepare for the impending winter. The ants, on the other hand, work through the summer, so they will be able to make it very well through the winter. Obviously, the grasshopper winds up on the doorstep of the ants’ house begging for food.
Are we grasshoppers or ants? Berry was pretty clear about the Great Work needing to be done while our universe is still in its summer time. He felt like winter would come. Is it not time for some of the wisdom of the ants (and Berry)? What else do we have to do that is more important? I want to be able to share with my grandkids about my involvement in the Great Work. It is ok to start small. Maybe plastic bags are a beginning point?
Berry had a vision for a new world; I am beginning to see, too.
Comments
Post a Comment