Remembering Thomas Berry

He died this past Monday, June 1, 2009.  He was 94.
I had the great benefit of having spent a brief time in dialogue with Thomas.  I learned that he was brilliant, clear about his role and the place of his contributions, yet personally modest.  He was a towering figure, as I said earlier this week in a note to a friend, a generous soul, and a heck of a guy – sort of like the universe whose story he so presciently unfolded for us.

His time among us is over, but his work, I think, was done.  (It seems to me he planned things well.)  Our debt to him, as sustainability activists, is immense and far-reaching.  Thanks to him and Miriam MacGillis, his friend and interpreter, I actually think I have some idea of what I’m doing.   Here is a paragraph from the last page of his final book, aptly and poetically named Evening Thoughts, published in 2006…

“As a final reflection, I would suggest that we see these early years of the twenty-first century as the period when we discover the great community of the Earth, a comprehensive community of all the living and nonliving components of the planet.  We are just discovering that the human project is itself a component of the Earth project, that our intimacy with the Earth is our way of intimacy with each other.  Such are the foundations of our journey into the future.”

Ralph