Greetings!
Welcome to the June issue of the newsletter for the Forum on Religion and Ecology.
With the passing the geologian Thomas Berry on June 1st, we have had the privilege to be in contact with many people who knew him, and it has been deeply moving to hear many expressions of the profound gratitude and joy that they have experienced through their encounters with him and his work. Although we never met Thomas, we have been touched by his warm presence through our encounters with his writings and with people who knew him.
Thomas has been an unending wellspring of inspiration for our endeavors to work at the intersection of religious and ecological perspectives, particularly insofar as he was able to cultivate a humble and compassionate way of being in the world while also pursuing deep and rigorous thinking about the pressing ecological and spiritual issues of our current evolutionary moment. Furthermore, we are proud to be earning our doctoral degrees in an academic department that is guided by Thomas’ work. The mission statement of the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness program at the California Institute of Integral Studies expresses commitment to what Thomas called “the great work,” that is, the work of transforming human civilization from a destructive presence on this planet to a presence that nurtures mutually enhancing relations between all members of the Earth community.
Thomas is an important figure in the field of religion and ecology because of his early teaching and research in the history of religions. Thomas wrote a book on Buddhism and one on the religions of India, both of which are available through Columbia University Press. He also founded a history of religions program at Fordham and trained some 25 PhD students. It was there that John Grim and Mary Evelyn Tucker met. Thomas married them 30 years ago when they were his graduate students. It was because of the broad range of his teachings that they were able to organize the Harvard conference series in religion and ecology. Thomas participated in a number of those conferences.
Thus, Thomas can be seen as a pioneer in this field, as he integrated his efforts to facilitate inter-religious dialogue and his concern for the Earth community and the place of humans in the evolving cosmos. In other words, Thomas was a leader among those who sought to transform human-Earth relations by bringing religious traditions into contact with one another while also bringing these traditions down to Earth. Thomas’ writings engage the complex challenges of reinventing the human species and sharing in a new vision of the Earth community, and these challenges are expressed in a way that is too often absent from scholarly writing: an accessible style with simple and clear language. His two final books illustrate his work in the history of religions and will be published in August 2009: The Sacred Universe (Columbia University Press) and The Christian Future and the Fate of Earth (Orbis Books).
We hope that Thomas continues to inspire people to participate in the great work of our time. We also hope that Thomas will be an example for others who want to articulate radical ideas while cultivating a grounded personality. For more information about Thomas’ life and work, we encourage you to visit the recently updated Thomas Berry website (http://www.thomasberry.org), which includes biographical information about Thomas as well as information about his books, essays, and films. Recently, we updated the website to include tributes, photos, and obituaries in memory of Thomas (http://www.thomasberry.org/tributes_and_photos.index). We are also happy to direct your attention to the Thomas Berry Award and Memorial Service (listed below). The website and this Memorial Service are two among many ways to honor Thomas’ legacy and participate in the great work.
Sam Mickey & Elizabeth McAnally
California Institute of Integral Studies
Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale
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