Short Readings from Berry.

“Contemporary men have no spiritual vision adequate for these new magnitudes of existence.
In the very effort at discovery we have abandoned inner meaning. So far we have not been
able to fill these magnitudes with a human or spiritual presence; the result is that we are not
comfortable with the universe or with ourselves. Humanity is stunned by its own
achievements; even while conquering space, it is not communing with the universe. This art
of communion is a spiritual skill. To create such a skill, to teach such a discipline, are
primary tasks of contemporary spirituality. Men have lost the universe even while walking on
a distant planet; recovering the universe requires an ability beyond that of maneuvering
rocket engines.
A spirituality suited to contemporary man must rest on the drive we feel for a total experience
of the real. This is what sends men into the primordial past as well as into the distant future,
into the outer dimensions of the universe as well as into the fantastic worlds hidden in the
smallest particles of matter. We must walk on the moon both as a physical experience and as
a mystical symbol of our inner journey into ourselves.
A recovery of meaning involves the recovery of the sacred. But this requires our own self-
recovery, our return to the depths of our own being; we must somehow manage the whole of
existence in terms of the interior dynamics of our being and the authenticity of our deeper
self.” – Berry, Thomas.‘Contemporary spirituality. The journey of the human community’ in
Crosscurrents, Summer/Fall 1974. Pp 175-179

“What seems to be little understood is that our inner world of mind and imagination can only
be activated by experience of the wonder and beauty of the outer world. If this outer world is
damaged, there is progressive diminishment of our own personal fulfilment. We depend on
the natural world in all its radiance to awaken in us our most precious intellectual, aesthetic
and emotional experiences. As humans we could not have come into being until the natural
world had achieved that brilliance of development characterizing the late Cenozoic period.
We needed to experience a magnificent outer world to fulfil the needs of our inner world, our
soul space. The deep inner tendencies to dance and sing, the need to feel the wind in the
summer evenings, to see the animals as they roam over the land: these awaken us to our
personal identity and guide us in our fulfilment. Through what is seen in these surroundings
we come to the knowledge of the unseen world of beauty beyond imagination, of intimacy
with the numinous presence unfolding the entire universe.” - Berry, Thomas. The Sacred
Universe” in The Sacred Universe. Earth, Spirituality and Religion in the Twenty-First
Century. Tucker, Mary Evelyn (ed.) New York: Columbia University Press, 2009, pp152-
169.

“We, and our children, are becoming unresponsive to the natural world. We live in a world of
computers, cell phones, digital photography, television, highways and automobiles,
supermarkets, and trivial plastic playthings for our children – all fostered by inescapable
advertising aimed at stirring our deepest compulsions to buy and consume. Our education is
focused on producing skills associated with the production, distribution, and use of such a
multitude of objects with none of the exaltation of soul provided by our experience of natural
phenomena. We no longer realise that the universe is a communion of subjects, not a
collection of objects – subjects to be communed with as divine manifestation, not objects to
be exploited solely for economic gain.” – Berry, Thomas. Women Religious in The Christian
Future and the Fate of Earth, Maryknoll New York: Orbis, 2009
“We have lost our connection to this other deeper reality of things. Consequently, we now
find ourselves on a devastated continent where nothing is holy, nothing is sacred. We no
longer have a world of inherent value, no world of wonder, no untouched, unspoiled, unused
world. We think we have understood everything. But we have not. We have used
everything.” – Berry Thomas. ‘The World of Wonder’ in The Sacred Universe. Earth,
Spirituality and Religion in the Twenty-First Century. Tucker, Mary Evelyn (ed.) New York:
Columbia University Press, 2009, pp170-177.