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The Great Work: Our Way into the Future Paperback – November 14, 2000
Purchase options and add-ons
- Print length241 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherCrown
- Publication dateNovember 14, 2000
- Dimensions5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
- ISBN-100609804995
- ISBN-13978-0609804995
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Review
-- Chet Raymo, Orion
"A visionary book, full of insight, erudition, and cogency."
-- Ursula Goodenough, professor of biology, Washington University
From the Inside Flap
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Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The field was covered with white lilies rising above the thick grass. A magic moment, this experience gave to my life something that seems to explain my thinking at a more profound level than almost any other experience I can remember. It was not only the lilies. It was the singing of the crickets and the woodlands in the distance and the clouds in a clear sky. It was not something conscious that happened just then. I went on about my life as any young person might do.
Perhaps it was not simply this moment that made such a deep impression upon me. Perhaps it was a sensitivity that was developed throughout my childhood. Yet as the years pass this moment returns to me, and whenever I think about my basic life attitude and the whole trend of my mind and the causes to which I have given my efforts, I seem to come back to this moment and the impact it has had on my feeling for what is real and worthwhile in life.
This early experience, it seems, has become normative for me throughout the entire range of my thinking. Whatever preserves and enhances this meadow in the natural cycles of its transformation is good; whatever opposes this meadow or negates it is not good. My life orientation is that simple. It is also that pervasive. It applies in economics and political orientation as well as in education and religion.
That is good in economics which fosters the natural processes of this meadow. That is not good in economics which diminishes the capacity of this meadow to renew itself each spring and to provide a setting in which crickets can sing and birds can feed. Such meadows, I later learned, are themselves in a continuing process of transformation. Yet these evolving biosystems deserve the opportunity to be themselves and to express their own inner qualities. As in economics, so in jurisprudence and law and political affairs--what is good recognizes the rights of this meadow and the creek and the woodlands beyond to exist and flourish in their ever-renewing seasonal expression even while larger processes shape the bioregion in its sequence of transformations.
Religion too, it seems to me, takes its origin here in the deep mystery of this setting. The more a person thinks of the infinite number of interrelated activities that take place here, the more mysterious it all becomes. The more meaning a person finds in the Maytime blooming of the lilies, the more awestruck a person might be in simply looking out over this little patch of meadowland. It has none of the majesty of the Appalachian or the western mountains, none of the immensity or the power of the oceans, nor even the harsh magnificence of desert country. Yet in this little meadow the magnificence of life as celebration is manifested in a manner as profound and as impressive as any other place I have known in these past many years.
Product details
- Publisher : Crown; Reprint edition (November 14, 2000)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 241 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0609804995
- ISBN-13 : 978-0609804995
- Item Weight : 8 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #143,079 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #115 in Environmental Economics (Books)
- #201 in Ecology (Books)
- #259 in Environmentalism
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In his earlier book, "The Dream of the Earth", Thomas Berry so eloquently stated the need for humanity to realize what a beautiful foundational life-support gift we have in planet Earth and the need to treat it with the profound sense of respect and good stewardship it deserves and needs in to order to provide a healthy life-sustaining platform.
An understanding of the dynamics of Earth's resource cycles and regulatory systems can teach us how to live sustainably and regeneratively- most importantly, carrying that understanding into the formation and dissemination of religion, politics and economy.
We see God's handy-work, i.e., the blue prints and operating system for Earth through the dynamics of Nature's regenerative, life providing bounty and we then see what is required to maintain this perfect system. Indeed, we are entering the "Eco-zoic" faze of our existence- the realization and implementation of an ecologically sustainable reality.
So how could Berry top that beautiful piece of work? Almost ten years after "The Dream", he comes out with "The Great Work", a powerful and compelling continuation of the earlier theme of a beautiful Earth with attentive humans at the helm and with proper stewardship, only now with an exacting historical dialogue of how the Earth formed, settled and eventually became a biological life-support system and where we, as humans have lost our original awe and respect of God's creation through the many distractions of living in a human only, "civilized" and complex material world, forgetting our interconnectedness to all life.
This separation has culminated in an insane, parasitic and cancerous existence not only for us humans, but for all life on this planet. Isn't it curious that cancer of our bodies is one of our biggest worries and nemesis? Mass over-population, pollution, unsustainable resource use and habitat destruction have left us in a burn-out, dire mess. Our sense of economy is no "economy" at all, rather a predatory take all shark frenzy fully supported by governments through corporate purchase and manipulation and misguided `human only' pseudo-religious zealotry.
An un-Godly, reckless "Manifest Destiny" attitude of anthropocentric endeavors has been prevailing since the industrialization of our societies exploded on the human scene, blinding us with delusions of superiority, yet to the detriment of our shared and threatened environment.
Exactly in the middle of this fine book, is a chapter called
"Ethics and Ecology". Here, Berry relates our combined human sense of making like nothing is wrong on spaceship Earth (a closed-loop eco-system) with a parallel to the tragedy of the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. A course was set and could not be deviated from, regardless of the warnings of known dangerous icebergs ahead. An attitude that the Titanic was a perfect, fool-proof and unsinkable human manifestation prevailed.
The Titanic parallel underscores our misguided human notions that we can control Nature and that we are on a safe course in our activities on Earth. We see our creation of the Titanic (the micro), but not the big picture (the macro), i.e., Nature along with it's icebergs, etc., but especially, the need for our attention to it's requirements for a safe, healthy existence.
As Berry states, our "extractive" (exploitive, parasitic) economies have become "terminal" economies (dead-end) and need to be reformulated to sustainable/regenerative economies for the continuation and enjoyment of life- only in a more sane and quality existence.
For those that don't think it can be done, it would be educational to look at the turn-around of attitudes and subsequent successes of corporations that have been able to wake-up to what sustainable/regenerative/eco-friendly formats offer in terms of long lasting, profitable returns, let alone peace of mind. A good outline of that can be seen in the book, "Natural Capitalism" by Hawken and Lovins.
Further, religions need to continue with their return to the inclusion of all Creation and away from the current deviation of anthropomorphism. Understanding the dynamics and importance of interconnectedness with all of God's Creation is a matter of survival now and should not be interpreted as "Nature Love" vs. "Biblical Dogma". It's all one reality. Berry gently opens our eyes to this!
The consideration of an all-inclusive creation- man and nature in harmony instead of man vs. nature- both created by God to coexist, is also touched upon in the 'great work' of Chet Raymo's books "Skeptics and True Believers", sequealed by his "Climbing Brandon"- in a sermon by Saint Columbanus, there is in part: [Those who wish to know God, he says, "must first review the natural world."]. Indeed, a good place to start!
There is a good bibliography in "The Great Work" that provides a multitude of resources for further research and education on sustainable awareness and consciousness.
It is a serious book. Humanity should know what their purpose is this book helps a lot in this. This work of ours is the g
Great Work.
Top reviews from other countries
The Great Work of our time is re-imagining our primary role as humans NOT in terms of human-human or even human-divine relationships but in human-Earth relationships. Seeing the Divine anywhere requires seeing the Divine everywhere.
This is not just a book about ecological spirituality - that is too limited in scope. Thomas Berry challenges us (humans) to work towards re-inventing ourselves as a sacred manifestation of the Universe.
One of the best books written in the past decade. Highly recommended.
An inspiration for the future
By Howard A. Jones
Thomas Berry, who died in June 2009, was a Roman Catholic priest who had a unique vision of what religion, and Christianity in particular, should be about - not primarily about individual salvation but care of the planet for the wellbeing of all living things. The Great Work of the title is an exhortation to all of us to embrace this philosophy of the love of others through care of the environment. The great age of 94 at which he died is a measure of the depth of wisdom of his message.
Though the book contains warnings enough of the perils for humankind if we continue on our path of materialistic self-interest, overall this is a message of hope, of what we can become if we have the moral strength and courage to shift the focus of our existence from ourselves with our short-term goals to the continuing existence of life on the planet: `We think of the Earth more as the background for economic purposes or as the object of scientific research rather than as a world of wonder, magnificence and mystery for the unending delight of the human mind and imagination.' A primary concern for humankind `must be to recover an integral relation with the universe'.
Like some other contemporary futurists Berry lays great emphasis on the importance of the role of education in schools and universities. The whole emphasis of education has become the acquisition of facts rather than to `hear the voice of the rivers, the mountains, or the sea
. . . We have disengaged from that profound interaction with our environment that is inherent in our nature' and which finds natural expression in the indigenous peoples of the world. `The other-than-human world is not recognised as having any inherent rights or values . . . we have silenced too many of those wonderful voices of the universe that spoke to us of the grand mysteries of existence.'
This is an inspirational book for anyone who is sensitive to the plight of the planet and who wants to immerse themselves in the spiritual journey towards what another futurist, Frank Parkinson, called metanoia - a fundamental shift in our outlook on the world.
Dr Howard A. Jones is the author of The Thoughtful Guide to God (2006) and The Tao of Holism (2008), both published by O Books of Winchester, UK.
The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos: Humanity and the New Story (Ecology & justice)
Teilhard De Chardin - the Divine Milieu Explained: A Spirituality for the 21st Century
The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: Waking Up to Personal and Global Transformation
Reviewed in Canada on June 12, 2015