Long before I left the East Coast I attended a workshop given by
Brian Swimme and his mentor, now the late Thomas Berry, a
Passionist priest and monk. At the time they were some of the few
small voices at the forefront of the "New Cosmology."
In 1992 their book THE UNIVERSE STORY was published. It
met with considerable success. However, I learned later that
Fr. Berry had written an earlier book--THE DREAM OF THE EARTH,
published in 1988 by the Sierra Club.
Now living in California, I came across yet another important book
written by Thomas Berry. In my opinion THE GREAT WORK is a
landmark study. It's an appeal for environmental responsibility, a
study in *Spiritual Ecology*--a field that I had no idea even existed.
Today, it's a movement that involves major universities, famous
people, religious groups, Green groups, right down to the grass-roots.
As for myself, I decided to volunteer with the San Diego Natural
History Museum. After more than a half-year of specialized training,
presented by scientists and curators, I graduated and became a
docent naturalist with the museum. For almost eight years I worked
in an EcoLiteracy program designed for small children.
Essentially, the message was to introduce these youngster to Nature.
It was about getting them involved early, not only to understand this
great Atmospheric-Oceanic-Geological-Biological System that we
call "Earth," but to value it.
Eventually I got a hankering to work in the "field," so to speak. After
more training, I was certified as a Volunteer Naturalist with the
California State Parks system--working at a national estaurine
research reserve shared also with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
I didn't know it--until I read Thomas Berry's book--but I was already
involved in the "Great Work."
Thomas Berry had become an important EcoTheologian in addition
to being a world-class Cultural Historian. As for his book, THE
GREAT WORK, it's the most jam-packed resourceful treatise that
I have encountered when it comes to the issues of Ecology and the
Environment. Let me quote him:
"History is governed by those overarching movements that give
shape and meaning to life by relating the human venture to the
larger destinies of the universe. Creating such a movement might
be called the Great Work of a people."
[Thomas Berry, THE GREAT WORK, p. 1.]
Some of the past efforts of the Great Work are as follows:
• For Classical Greece it "was the understanding of the human
mind and creation of the Western humanist tradition."
• For Israel it was about "articulating a new experience of the
divine in human affairs."
• For Ancient Rome it was about "gathering the peoples of the
Mediterranean world and of Western Europe into an ordered
relation with one another.
• In the Medieval Period "there was the task of giving a first
shape to the Western world in its Christian form...with the
medieval cathedrals rising so graciously into the heavens."
• In India the "Great Work was to lead human thought into
spiritual experiences of time and eternity."
• And China "created on of the most elegant and most human
civilizations we have ever known."
• In America the "Great Work of the First Peoples was to occupy
this continent and establish an intimate rapport with the powers
that brought this continent into existence in all its magnificence."
[ Ibid, pp. 1-2. ]
With this background Thomas Berry addresses our now living
generations--as put: "The Great Work now, as we move into a
new millennium, is to carry out the transition from a period of
human devastation of the Earth to a period when humans would
be present to the planet in a mutually beneficial manner...Such a
transition has no historical parallel since the geobiological
transition that took place 67 million years ago when the period
of the dinosaurs was terminated and a new biological age had
begun." [ Ibid, p. 3. ]
Having said this, Fr. Berry's book provides some very useful
answers on how to achieve this transition from devastation unto
a once-again healthy planet. And I can only put, that in a small way
I found myself in the midst of the Great Work.
At the beginning of my venture into the Great Work, as Thomas
Berry put, I began to wonder how this might relate to the
Benedictine Tradition. I knew about its monastic history in
the Dark Ages, when Benedictine monks reintroduced the
rudiments of agriculture to the peasantry and helped establish
fisheries. I also knew that the monks worked the land. They
were their own farmers.
And the late Rene Dubos--an early pioneer when it came to the
environment, who I understand was a Benedictine Oblate, added
that the "monks developed skills pertaining to agriculture [and]
they learned to manage their holdings on sound ecological
principles." [Conversation Lecture, Berkeley, 1970.]
As for modern day Benedictines, they are involved in habitat
restoration projects as well as workshops. And the Cistercians
(who follow the Rule of Benedict) are also engaged in the
Great Work. One book I have found and hold dear is
ECO-SPIRITUALITY: TOWARD A REVERENT LIFE, written
by Charles Cummings, A Trappist-Cistercian monk belonging
to an abbey in Utah. His book was published early on, in 1991,
long before "spiritual ecology" became popular.
In the end, for me the Earth is God's Garden. It's not only just
about saving it, but it is especially about being in it, enjoying it.
