A Tribute to Thomas Berry (Think About This #60)
The renowned eco-theologian Thomas Berry died in the early morning of June 1st at the distinguished age of 94. Even though we never met Berry, many of our contributors and close friends were deeply inspired by his life and work, including leading evolutionary thinkers like Brian Swimme, Mary Evelyn Tucker, Michael Dowd, and Connie Barlow. Berry was greatly influenced by the evolutionary cosmology of French Jesuit priest Pierre Teihard de Chardin. A Catholic priest himself, Berry will be best remembered for helping the religious traditions to recognize the ecological crisis as a deeply spiritual issue. The following is an excerpt from his article “The Spirituality of the Earth” (1990):
We need a spirituality that emerges out of a reality deeper than ourselves, even deeper than life, a spirituality that is as deep as the earth process itself, a spirituality born out of the solar system and even out of the heavens beyond the solar system. There in the stars is where the primordial elements take shape in both their physical and psychic aspects. There is a certain triviality in any spiritual discipline that does not experience itself as supported by the spiritual as well as the physical dynamics of the entire cosmic-earth process. A spirituality is a mode of being in which not only the divine and the human commune with each other, but we discover ourselves in the universe and the universe discovers itself in us.
To listen to a special tribute to Berry by evolutionary biologist Connie Barlow, click here.
Filed Under: Cosmology • EnlightenNext Editors’ Blog • Evolutionaries • Evolutionary Spirituality • Religion • Spirituality • Think About This
The cosmic spirituality spoken of in this article occurs when one reconnects fully to one’s higher self. When you learn to distinguish your inner guidance from outer conditionings and then follow through consistently, you learn to trust that inner guidance, it informs your thoughts and actions, and the universe begins to support you like never before. Why? Because you are now living life “in tune” with the universe and the divine plan to awaken and create a new world.
You may access a free report on the steps of reconnecting on my website. Best to all, Christine Hoeflich
“You are the universe telling its story for the first time in this particular way.” I first heard this from Brian Swimme a few years ago. The uiverse sure told us a great and inspiring story through the life of Thomas Berry.
We all came from that primordial singularity.
Therefore we are all one.
All the powers, all the talents, all the creativity
ever displayed by man or beast- lies within each
of us as potentia.
Magician, shapeshifter, artist, musician, scientist,
Samson.
All these are accessible. Like the woman who
lifts the car off her child. Or the idiot savant
who sits down at the piano, never having played
one, and performs as a prodigy.
Consider the hydra, which is immortal. Or the
honey bee which can grow young overnight.
Or the bombardier beetle who fires his dragon
breath faster then the electronic cannon on a
helicopter gunship. The caterpillar
shape shifts into the butterfly. And so forth.
If I may paraphrase a great writer: ‘Earths flush
with Miracles, and every common man a child of Stars.’
All creatures are composed of atoms.
After all, what is more ‘fearfully and wonderfully
made’ than we?
What keeps us from accessing our powers?
The Demon ‘Doubt.’
We have employed the weapon of logic, forgetting
that it is a two edged sword. And it has severed
us from our ‘connection’.
We are quick to sneer. And hold up all things to
the light of science to determine their authenticity.
As though our ancestors were naive children and
their teachings but primitive superstitions.
That sword has become welded to our hand
and we lay about us like Rustum…..
“The baleful sign of fevers; dust had soil’d
His stately crest, and dimm’d his glittering arms.”
Robert Clayton
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The issue seems to be one of perception and the overutilization of the energy of alienation from source and the nature of the spirituality that embracing that energy entails. This culture is continously using closed loop dynamics of energy perception to perpetuate acts based on the perception of non-abundance, One fundamental flaw would be the inability to live through the lens of charity. The universe is infinitely chariatable and renewable, but the perpetuation of nihlism and hoarding is a truer reflection of the nature of man to live through the utilization of closed loop non abundant energies. The trashing of ones house is a reflection of this energectic or spiritual disonance. It is remarkable that men of good intention can not see this relationship.
. The nature of the utilization of the energy is a timeless dynamic. Closed loop dynamics embrace nonabundance which is a further justification of the imorality and alienation that men perceive. The core nature of relationship is framed within the perception of the beholder, which is a consequence of the persistent overtulization of closed loop dynamic energy.Spirituality is non-exempt from this process. The inability to see this relationship is just another mirror of the process.
I knew Thomas Berry. I had that privilege through an environmental organization, which we both embraced and would occasionally meet for gatherings and board meetings. He was an extraordinary thinker. When we connected (on an irregular basis) he was in his seventies. He was cogent, alert, profound, brilliant, and dedicated to his passion of proving that the amalgamation of ecology and spirituality is a must for humankind to embrace as a truth.
He once said to me, “Descartes killed the world.” I suppose Berry was referring to Descartes’ denial that consciousness could be attributed to animals in order to explain their behavior and perhaps even to a suspected denial that the planet embodied sentientness.
In any event, Berry was as a profound a thinker as was Descartes and probably more so since Berry had the advantage of the proofs of modern science. Thomas Berry will be missed and I am honored to have known him.
I CAME IN CONTACT WITH THE IDEAS OF BERRY READING THE WORK OF AN ANOTHER JESUIT PRIEST WHOSE DOCTORAL DEGREE CITED HIM ABUNDANTLY.
I FOUND HIS THINKING CONGRUENT AND INFLUENTIAL.
IT REMAIND ME THE WORK OFEDWARD GOLDSMITH THE WAY ALSO A CONTRIBUTION ON RELIGION AND ECOLOGY.
THANKS FOR THE INFORMATION JORGE GABRIEL