As I came to the realization the past few weeks that I had absorbed all that I possibly could from Jack Kerouac over a twenty-year period, the question became, what now? Or possibly, who now? Since I look for signposts in the world at large, through the agency of other humans, other times, other cultures, one would think I might cast far afield for another guiding star, since our own culture, so deeply divided and obstinately bent upon aggressive expression of its own stupidity, arrogance, racial bigotry, prejudice, and the utter denial of obvious truths -- in other words, the death of "common sense" -- why on earth would I look within our own culture for anything positive?
There are only a few touchstones from the last century that might be of any aid. If we look to the 19th century, the guiding stars I see are Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, and a little later, John Muir. In the 20th century you had the urban common sense (though he had a farm in Maine to which he often retired) of E.B. White as an essayist, Aldo Leopold, Loren Eiseley, but they all built toward a fuller, further expression in the work of Gary Snyder, Wendell Berry, and Thomas Berry.
Gary Snyder used both Buddhism and indigenous wisdom to fashion a new/old approach to nature and human life itself. There is great value in Snyder's work, which I would like to address further, but not at present.
Wendell Berry is perhaps the last wise voice from the Christian and farming tradition of America. I'm not a Christian and have never identified as such. You might say I'm "culturally Christian" by virtue of having been raised in this society, much as people who were not Orthodox in the expression of their own Jewish heritage would say they were "culturally Jewish." I can honor Wendell Berry as our last wise elder from the homogenous past, but as I said, I'm neither Christian nor -- though I spent a swath of my childhood on a farm, I did not originate there, nor did my family actively farm -- am I a representative of our agrarian, pastoral history.
Thomas Berry (1914 - 2009) was a Catholic priest of the Passionist Order. However, Thomas was really a cultural historian, scholar, and educator. He first delved deeply into the Western tradition, but he also expanded his vision into other faiths and saw truly -- as far as I can tell -- and quite accurately into Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism and Hinduism. I've read the books he's written on these faiths and they are beyond erudite; they penetrate into the inner vison and reality of each faith. Thomas taught graduate classes in these faiths at the collegiate level for many years.
One might think, then, that Thomas would continue delving more deeply into the realm of the human spirit and become something of a mystic, much as Thomas Merton did. But instead, due to a growing ecological awareness, Thomas moved into the biological and geological sciences and in turn studied the entire history of the development of the Earth, and then with the guidance of his friend, Brian Swimme, extended that study into the history of the Cosmos itself, back to its origins. In fact, he coined a new term for himself. He said he wasn't a theologian, but a "geologian."
Although Thomas never left his religious order, it's apparent to me that he educated himself right out of his own faith. He became less a believer in a personal god or redeemer and instead, placed his faith in the intrinsic and instinctive processes of the Universe itself. Instinct, after all, is just compressed and condensed intelligence. In effect, he transferred his faith from believing in a Creator into believing in Creation.
I quite understand that. I went through a similar phase, in my own smaller fashion, about 15 to 20 years ago. I articulated it to myself in this way: I couldn't say that I loved a Creator, but there is no question that I love Creation. I guess in a way, it's an indirect method of loving God. If you can't love a deity, you can at least love what has been created, whether by that deity or not. As it turns out, in my own faith and path, Creation is said to have begun in a kind of automatic, unconscious way. But what Thomas and I both agree upon is that Creation seems to operate from a vast, complete, and quite spontaneous intelligence. You may call it instinct, but anyone who looks at nature with an unjaundiced eye sees a comprehensive and creative intelligence in everything about it. The whole process of evolution and nature is instinctual genius. No matter what the obstacle or cosmic disaster, Nature just keeps right on rolling along, including making a crucial part of human blood out of ancient exploded stars. Fantastic.
Nature does this through sequential transformations. Evolution is quite creative and continually adapts. However, we are at a moment in human history when our own impact upon nature has been extended far beyond the capacity of Nature to keep pace. In the long run, Nature wins, of that I'm sure. But in the short term, we may screw up both the healthy stasis of Earth's natural endowment, and short-circuit our own evolutionary path forward as well.
We're like kids gone crazy in a science lab, and we may just blow ourselves and the whole lab to smithereens.
But this doesn't seem to stop anyone. In fact, the cultural and economic monoculture that drives human life on earth seems like a headless beast that no one can command. Even if we could, we lack the intelligence, foresight, wisdom, maturity, and consensus in order to act. We don't realize that we're constituents of a biosystem that is larger than we are. There have been many massive extinctions over the various phases of Earth's biological evolution. Over millions and millions of years, one form's death and extinction seems to presage the later emergence of more advanced forms. Contemporary humanity doesn't seem to be a logical terminus for the ongoing evolution of the homo species, but we might become extinct due entirely to our own continued intransigence.
In a clan or a tribe, if you acted selfishly, you were probably ostracized and died. Unfortunately, when you have several billion people on the planet who are quite determined to continue being selfish, at first it is others who are less agreeably placed in the total structure who die. But eventually, if our biological arrogance and self-absorption continues, we'll just move from genocide to biocide, which will inevitably lead to humanicide (sic).
But no matter. The Earth will go on without us. Of that, I have no doubt.
Anyway, I propose now to begin to delve into Thomas Berry's work. I should warn you, though -- his work is so vast and so deep and so expansive, that I won't be able to do it justice in just a post or two. I think it will take me at least a year, maybe longer, but in the long run, my hope is that these original posts grow and develop into a book. I see that where Thomas's work ends, other information begins. My hope is to be able to put the two major puzzle pieces together and to make a contribution to the scope and vision of our overall Big Picture.
That's the plan anyway. Today I'm beginning what will be a long, long study, but one which I am quite looking forward to.
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