Thomas Berry, environmentalist-priest, dies

God bless Fr Berry. May he get his true desire-Heaven! What a wonderful time to fall in to the kind hands of Jesus during this wonderful Octave of Pentecost!

Rejoice in the Pentecost! The Paraclete has come!

May Thomas Berry now have all his questions about this great universe answered by the Creator. Rest in peace, brother.
-Rome's Stepchild

Requiescat in pace.

There is much work left for us to do.

Father Thomas' death is a great loss for the Passionists, the Church and all of humanity. He was forever modest about himself but he was one of the greatest mystics and saints of our era, and, like the few other great Catholic mystics of our time, almost completely unheeded by a Church leadership consumed with organizational and political matters. I, for one, will miss him greatly.

I join our descendants in thanking God for the gift of Thomas Berry's life.

The new NAHB 'National Green Building Standards' released late 2008 presented to builders this May in Dallas, is a document as important as the documents of Vatican II. It rewards builders for everything from land conservation, sustainable & renewable materials, energy savings etc. I have designed an affordable..accessible..natural passive energy.. octagonal shaped american home called 'opus solarus' (work of light) that meets these new standards and embodies all that Fr. Berry dreamed of. I will build the home this summer for fall 2009 display as a national model. My work is dedicated to John: 3:21 “Whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God”. I will honor Fr. Berry by having his published works adorn cocktail tables in the demonstration home.

Curtis L. Biggar, Architect

In these days of God's Spirit among us and in the desire for a New Pentecost, it is fitting that Thomas Berry moves into the fullness of life with God. Fr. Thomas brought to us a whole new awareness of the blessings of creation as the primary scripture and revelation of God. Thomas led us to new vistas of wisdom, truth, compassion and justice where the community of the whole of creation is the revelation of the community of life and love in God.
Thanks to God and to Thomas for a life lived so bountifully and so well. Eternal peace in its ever-opening vistas.
Edmund Garvey

I read his works years and years ago as a young Dominican! He was a true mystic and way ahead of his time! Rest in peace!

Apparently Father Berry pursued his eco-theological vision without getting into trouble with either the Vatican or the American hierarchy. That in itself is quite an accomplishment!

At the closing ceremony of one of Fr. Tom's retreats at Port Burwell, Ontario, on the shores of Lake Erie, I experienced one of those life changing "awe moments" when a lady brought Fr. Tom a bowl of water from Lake Erie and asked him to bless it. His response was, "God made it and you want ME to bless it!" This was one of many moments of "awe" he brought into our lives. May we who loved him continue what he started.

Yes! "May we who loved him continue what he started"!! I feel that now, in spite of so much impending ecological problems, his presence in spirit will find a fertile readiness for this work. I am encouraged to see readiness and receptivity in so many young people. He blessded us so much with his work, and don't you wish we could know what he is seeing now!

Fr. Tom's work and presence, as I connected with him through Whidbey Institute on South Whidbey Island, Washington-State, has been a transformative presence in my own spiritual life and vocational work. His keen and very active ability to shed light on the organic connectedness of spirituality and earth-care has provided a pragmatic hopefulness for human possibility. His was the dream. His was the life -- lived well with inspiration for all. Ours is task to continue living what Fr. Tom has shown us.

His very self has now emptied out into the universe...available to us as the air we breathe. Welcome home, Thomas!

I read Father Berry's work more than 20 years ago and it had a profound effect on me. I am ordained in another faith but I have been seeking to teach a spirituality and theology that is as beautifully integrated and earth-bound as was his. I am sorry he has left us. May God grant him great peace.

Thomas Berry is a contemplative prophet for the universe as our home, and the person most responsible for continuing the vision of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. The "Great Work" was begun so long ago and we who are in the religion business need to come to Berry's radical understanding of that great work as the work of the Spirit and the work of the church. I fear that his words and witness are being ignored much to our own peril, for the sake of empire thinking and restorationism. I pray that the holy awe that Thomas inspired in so many of us may find a firmer foothold soon for the sake of our home planet and all earth's children. Fr. Bob Cushing
Pastor: St. Theresa Church
807 South Third St.
Cordele, GA 31015

A friend of mine, a retire Methodist minister and head of Earth Charter Indiana told me that he knew Thomas Berry quite well and considered him both a friend and mentor, someone he said who was "was mid-wife to my expanded consciousness of the earth-human relationship." This man is himself an inspiration and mid-wife to many -- to myself for one.

Now that Thomas Berry has preceded us to heaven, let us call on his grace to renew the face of the earth, in every possible way.

It was his kindness and presence that most stands out for me.... and his mentorship
of my passion for the Earth. Thank you Thomas!!!
Love,
Bill
www.sacredearthnetwork.org

Thomas Berry's was a life well-lived. Such a humble, dear man, he taught us what it means to be an Earthling and live in a "mutually enhancing" relationship with all creation. His presence among us was a comfort and a support. He will be deeply missed.

Thomas Berry's has been a life well lived. A humble,dear man, he showed us what it means to be an earthling and how to live in a state of "mutual enhancement" with the whole of creation. His presence among us has been a gift, a comfort, and a support. He will be sorely missed.

A Great Soul is passing from our world. This morning, June 1, at 6:25 A.M. Thomas Berry died in Greensboro, North Carolina. I feel his last words to me, as we parted in July nearly a year ago, ring now as they did as I bent to kiss him farewell:

"Tell the story. Tell the story."

For each of us the call goes out as Thomas Berry passes from this world. Tell the story. Carry the story of this dear earth in your bones, in your sinew, carry its mystery across your lips in an ongoing incantation, a celebration of the wonders of the dream of the earth, championing her cause and her rights, the rights of all the children - the ant, deer, grass, wolf, human, cottonwood, and bee children - all of the children.

A great soul is passing. Listen for his whisper in the day hours and the night. His legacy lingers on in all of us who continue to stand, to live joyous by the light of the sun, thoughtful by moon glow, tender in the web of all lives twined as one, vining in the great and vast mystery of the Universe story, the old story that Thomas offered so eloquently to us all, full bloom, as the new and critical story of our time.

With prayers, reverence and deep gratitude for the potent touch of Thomas Berry's life in mine, I pray that we each are listening.

Cate

In 1986 I was given the opportunity (at the Land Conference, Collegeville, MN) to read Father Berry's unpublished manuscript, "The Dream of The Earth". In that read, Father Berry gave me to believe that the Holy Spirit was moving in a radically new direction. It was the most uplifting and encouraging read of my lifetime.

Father Berry has laid out the way forward for the human family. What a privilege and extraordinary opportunity to be contemporaneous with one of the most important persons of all time.

God bless the Earth's Dream and Fr Tom's.

One time, I asked Thomas Berry what he thought about the afterlife.
He said "As far as I'm concerned, if you haven't been there yet, you'll never get there." Another time I asked him "what he thought about evil." He said, "Evil was entropy." Ponder that for a while. I have many others in my files, but those two come from clear memory of the moment.

Sitting atop a little mountain overlooking Lake Eklutna north of Anchorage, I first read these words: "We experience an identity with the entire cosmic order within our own beings. This sense of an emergent universe identical with ourselves gives new meaning to the Chinese sense of forming one body with all things" (in "The Dream of the Earth")....and realized the Thomas Berry who'd written them was the same Thomas Berry who'd taught my first college course in Asian traditions at Fordham and leavened my life ever since. Namaste, Sheng jen.

Father Berry made many remarkable contributions to our understanding and appreciation of Creation, and to the need for humankind to care for the Earth as well as for each other. His wise, compassionate, and patient way of being in the world will be sorely missed. Peace be with you, Father Berry!

"Presently we are returning to the primordial community of the universe, the earth, and all living beings" (from "The Dream of the Earth")
-- Namaste, Sheng jen, you have leavened our life

Thomas Berry was an inspiration to me as a teacher. I began a group called KIDS FOR THE EARTH under his guidance in the late 80's. "Our children need to understand the meaning and grandeur and sacredness of the earth as revelatory of the deep mysteries and meaning of the world," he wrote in Our Children:Their Future in 1982. Is this not the mandate of our time?

I have been using Berry's work -- and the work of his disciples -- to wonderful ends with high school students for two decades. His ideas resonate so clearly in the minds of young people, perhaps because they are so firmly rooted in the font of Creation. I am delighted that Orbis will be releasing more of his work this fall. We are all more alive for this man's life.

He was my mentor in ecological thinking with a political meaning. He was the director of the Ph. D. dissertation on the religion of the Tainos, the first peoples who met Columbus in 1492. He once told me that you needn't be loved by everyone, but should strive to be respected by everyone. Ironically, earning that respect from the public, also reaped the reward of our love.

I read his works years and years ago as a young Dominican ! He was a true mystic and way ahead of his time! Rest in peace!

The sound of a wood thrush
I overlooked Thomas at first, like a man in a forest might miss the sound of a wood thrush. The Dream of the Earth just rustled at the edge of my thought after I read it in 1989. For me, seeking awareness meant studying a lot of ecology, naming to know. Ironically, two scientists, two community ecologists, opened my senses to the call of Thomas' spiritual teaching. Aldo Leopold's "thinking like a mountain" announced an expanded, inclusive land community; and Rachel Carson's lush Carolina estuaries included whelks and wonder in equal measure.

By the time I met Thomas in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, I was ready to hear the subtle, powerful, and beautiful call of his Eco-spiritual wisdom. His talks and conversation were engaging; at times there seemed to be an urgency in his voice, not plaintive but rather admonitory. I was struck, too, by the intensity of gaze; yet a gentle, kind spirit loomed beneath that beetled brow; he half smiled, half provoked; and his unassuming posture belied a powerful presence. Thomas' teaching corresponded with a new interest in dwelling, a new attention to what he called, the "community of subjects" with whom we share the planet.

For me Thomas's teaching dilates the mind; it broadens, deepens, and en-visions - literally, it offers a new way of seeing the deep spiritual center - of both our environmental crisis and its salvation. For Thomas, our "Ecozoic" moment is cosmic, and warrants a response that is cognizant of science yet moving toward a new paradigm. It's true, as others have noted, that the delicate warbling of Thomas' teaching has eluded many ears. I know from experience, then, that our work must be to listen, to witness, and to build community.

The work of the world is in the living of life, and I am grateful for the refreshing example set by Thomas Berry on how to do this in a way that respects the greater connections between all things here on the planet we call home.

I look forward to reading more of Fr. Berry's works, and meeting him there through his ideas and words which may live on and be put to great use for a singular purpose that will remain relevant for as long as humans are here.

Thomas Berry was a contemporary of my Father, Vincent Edward Smith, who was a Thomist philosopher. I have many memories of their conversations as a young child and was fortunate to hear him speak at Loyola University several years ago. I have never pondered the beauty of the arth without thinking of him. May he rest in peace thumbing through the pages of the Summa.

I feel very fortunate to have met Thomas in this lifetime. His thinking has made a fundamental difference in the way I express the relationship between Spirit and Nature. Thank you Creator for bringing such a light into the world. I hope to meet you again at the far reaches of the Universe and the unboundedness of time and space...

Scores of thousands of people have visited the Center for Ecozoic Life and Learning at Silang, Cavite, Philippines who have been inspired to a new life by the works of Father Tom Berry. They have now formed the Great Work Movement (Philippines).We join you all who celebrate this extraordinary life of a teacher whom more and more Filipinos will get to know of in the years to come.

Thomas was one of the great influences on my life, from the time I met him in 1966 at Fordham University. He was my teacher, my thesis mentor, and for many years my friend. I have carried with me so many pearls of wisdom from Thomas, including his approach to pastoral care in a mental hospital: "The first thing I tell them (the patients) is: 'No despair! If you despair, I can't help you.' Then I tell them that there's no problem in life that can be solved. Problems can only be: first, survived; then, tolerated; then, managed. And then I tell them that there is nothing at all in this life that is truly worth being unhappy about." I'm told that the patients couldn't wait for Thomas to visit again.
One day early in my study of Buddhism, I told Thomas over coffee in the Fordham cafeteria that I couldn't agree with the First Noble Truth, that suffering is inherent in all life. "Life is wonderful," I insisted, speaking from the innocence of a 22-year-old. Thomas laughed that wonderful laugh of his and said, "Just wait a while, my friend. Just wait a while."
When I left the academic world without finishing my PhD thesis, Thomas was at first disappointed. But as he followed my journey after that, through twenty years of antiwar, anti-nuclear and environmental activism, and then through twenty years of service to people with HIV/AIDS, he came to accept what I always told him, that my life was constantly guided by the things I had learned from him, and from the sacred wisdom teachings that he had imparted, from ancient India and China, from native peoples, and finally from the New Story of the Universe and the primacy of the Earth-Life Community that he left us all as his great legacy.
Many have recounted the beautiful mysticism that Thomas so eloquently expressed in his life and his teachings. For me, the tough love and down to Earth commonsense wisdom that Thomas also valued was just as important.
May your spirit soar throughout the cosmos, dear Thomas, and may we all continue the Great Work by "telling the story" in your memory.
Kevin McVeigh, MA Fordham University, 1968
Director of HIV Client Services, Tapestry Health, Western Massachusetts

I first met Thomas Berry at the Passionist centre in Port Burwell Ontario, on the shores of Lake Erie. Since then I have met him again and heard him speak, at a Native American reserve on Georgian Bay, at McGill, and I think the last time was on the occasion of his 80th birthday, at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in NYC which coincided with the Feast of St. Francis when the animals are brought into the cathedral to be blessed. Paul Winter was there with his saxophone and his Consort, playing, I think, his Missa Gaia. I sat in the sanctuary with John and Nancy Todd, right behind the baby elephant, listening to Thomas and his prophetic words.

I was blessed beyond measure to be able to drive from Montreal to the Green Mountain Monastery in Greensboro, Vermont for the returning of his body to the arms of meadow he loved so well. He had co-founded this monastery with two Passionist Sisters who thereby created the first Catholic community of nuns dedicated to the healing of the earth. They welcomed over a hundred people from all over who came to remember and celebrate the life of this great man. Hard to convey the mixture of sadness and joy, the tears and laughter that permeated the day, leaving me among others, full to over-flowing.

Those many who loved him stood in silent tribute as his casket was lowered into the earth and Paul Winter's saxophone rang out over the meadow. I was one among many who mixed some red soil from Greensboro NC with the earth of Greensboro VT and was able to throw my handfuls onto his coffin. A satisfying farewell, accompanying a fresh commitment to carry forward his Great Work in whatever way I can.

The music was stupendous all day, from the strains of rehearsal first heard as we began to arrive in the morning to the soaring of many beautiful voices echoing through the rafters of the Great Room in the monastery where we sat and stood around the casket and the altar for the Eucharistic celebration.

I loved the fact that one of the doors into what I think was the garage was out of bounds because of the nest built on the lamp above the doorstep where baby birds had just hatched. It was so fitting to be in the midst of life and death and experience them as one. Go to www.greenmountainmonastery.org for a more complete picture of an unforgettable day.

Thomas Berry has been a great inspiration to me, and I feel truly indebted to him for my new understandings of our amazing Story. It has brought me to great sense of awe, wonder and at times a sense of disbelief at our mind boggling Universe of which I feel so much a part. He was a great mystic....may he now rest amidst our stars and galaxies.....a new bright star in our heavens.

It's great to hear people's memories and stories of Thomas Berry. Like a lot of the folks here, Berry's vision of the universe changed my life. I was blessed to have him as a mentor for two decades. The memorial service in Greenboro, NC was a moving celebration of Berry's life. It's unbelievable how many people Tom has inspired with his presence, his spirit, his writing and his teaching. Here is a tribute to Thomas I wrote a few months ago: http://drewdellinger.org/pages/blog/125/tribute-to-thomas-berry

And a poem I wrote in honor of Thomas Berry and his work:

Carolina Prophet

Poem for Thomas Berry

we were dreamed
in the cores
of the stars.
like the stars,
we were meant to unfold

we were dreamed in the depths
of the undulating ocean.
like the waves,
we were meant to unfold

like bursting supernovas, birthing elements,

which crucibles give rise to creativity?

the world makes us
its instrument.

Father Thomas,
speaking for stars, in a voice
old as wind: ‘origin moments
are supremely important’

what are the origins
of a prophet?

found in syllables of Sanskrit,
or Chinese characters?
in a decade of midnight prayer?

in childhood epiphanies
rising like heat?
blue Carolina sky;
dark pines;
crickets;
birds;
sunlight
on the lilies,
in the meadow,
across the creek.

born in Carolina
on the eve of the Great War,
Saturn conjoining Pluto in the sky.
raised in a world of wires and wheels,
watching dirt roads turn to pavement.

brooding intensity,
measuring loss
when others could see only progress.

white hair communing with angels of Earth

Father Thomas, reminding us
we are constantly bathed in shimmering memories
of originating radiance

we are constantly bathed in shimmering memories
of originating radiance

the psychic stars:
the conscious soil:

this thin film of atmosphere;

and only gravity
holding the sea from the stars.

when a vision of the universe takes hold
in your mind, your soul becomes vast as the cosmos.

when the mind is silent,
everything is sacred.

like the spiral
like the lotus
like the waves
like the trees
like the stars,

we were meant to unfold.

--Drew Dellinger

http://drewdellinger.org

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too bad... he was a prominent personality. just adored his books (downloaded them from http://www.picktorrent.com ) they had a great influence on me. unfortunately when the ime comes we all must go, but a good memory of us and our deeds will remain forever.

May Thomas Berry now have all his questions about this great universe answered by the Creator. Welcome home, Thomas...

Thomas Berry has been a great inspiration to me, and I feel truly indebted to him for my new understandings of our amazing Story. It has brought me to great sense of awe, wonder and at times a sense of disbelief at our mind boggling Universe of which I feel so much a part. He was a great mystic....may he now rest amidst our stars and galaxies http://www.mediafilelinks.com .....a new bright star in our heavens.

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