{"id":1082,"date":"2009-06-02T16:17:03","date_gmt":"2009-06-02T21:17:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/06\/02\/thomas-berry-passes-away\/"},"modified":"2009-06-02T16:17:03","modified_gmt":"2009-06-02T21:17:03","slug":"thomas-berry-passes-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/06\/02\/thomas-berry-passes-away\/","title":{"rendered":"Thomas Berry passes away"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ThomasBerry.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The tributes are starting to come in for Thomas Berry, Catholic ecotheologian (or “geologian,” as he sometimes referred to himself), scholar, and spiritual\/deep ecological visionary, who passed away at age 94 yesterday. Berry is best known for books including The Dream of the Earth<\/a>, The Universe Story <\/a>(with physicist Brian Swimme), and The Great Work<\/a>, in which he articulated the idea that the universe is not a collection of objects but a communion of subjects. Berry wrote:<\/p>\n

“If the dynamics of the Universe from the beginning shaped the course of the heavens, lighted the sun, and formed the Earth, if this same dynamism brought forth the continents and the seas and atmosphere, if it awakened life in the primordial cell and then brought into being the unnumbered variety of living beings, and finally brought us into being and guided us safely through the turbulent centuries, there is reason to believe that this same guiding process is precisely what has awakened in us our present understanding of ourselves and our relation to this stupendous process. Sensitized to such guidance from the very structure and functioning of the Universe, we can have confidence in the future that awaits the human venture.”<\/em><\/p>\n

A few of the more interesting tributes are from the National Catholic Reporter<\/a> and Drew Dellinger<\/a>, whose tribute to Thomas<\/a> is shared on Gus DiZerega’s<\/a> blog. But I’m sure there will be much more about him in the coming days.<\/p>\n

Berry’s vision is completely in synch with the views I’ve described on this blog under the terms “immanentism,” “immanent naturalism,” et al. His passion and writing will continue to nourish many.<\/p>\n

\"Tree.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The tributes are starting to come in for Thomas Berry, Catholic ecotheologian (or “geologian,” as he sometimes referred to himself), scholar, and spiritual\/deep ecological visionary, who passed away at age 94 yesterday. Berry is best known for books including The Dream of the Earth, The Universe Story (with physicist Brian Swimme), and The Great Work, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[196,4415,688977,691847],"tags":[16779,4451],"class_list":["post-1082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ecoculture","category-ecophilosophy","category-geo_philosophy","category-religion-spirituality","tag-ecotheology","tag-mortality"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-hs","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1083,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/06\/03\/berrys-creative-dynamic-universe\/","url_meta":{"origin":1082,"position":0},"title":"Berry’s creative, dynamic universe","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"June 3, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Another Thomas Berry quote worth spending a bit of time with: \"Acceptance of the challenging aspect of the natural world is a primary condition for creative intimacy with the natural world. Without this opaque or even threatening aspect of the universe we would lose our greatest source of creative energy.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Eco-theory"","block_context":{"text":"Eco-theory","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/ecophilosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9651,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2018\/05\/22\/pointing-to-omega\/","url_meta":{"origin":1082,"position":1},"title":"Pointing to Omega?","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"May 22, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Okay, so I watched Harry and Meghan's royal wedding (not so much intentionally as to enjoy the loving company of my co-habitants) and was impressed by the tension between Bishop Michael Curry's sermonizing on love and the dour and perplexed faces of many of the royal-loving Brits in the audience.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Spirit matter"","block_context":{"text":"Spirit matter","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/religion-spirituality\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8394,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2015\/09\/18\/eco-humanities-glossolalia\/","url_meta":{"origin":1082,"position":2},"title":"Eco-humanities glossolalia","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"September 18, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"I've just come across the earliest outline I wrote for the course I'm currently teaching (in its third incarnation), \"Environmental Literature, Arts, and Media.\" The course has also turned into a book project I'm working on, which will be a thematic primer to the environmental arts and humanities.\u00a0Both course and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Academe"","block_context":{"text":"Academe","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/academe\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8848,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2016\/06\/29\/toward-telling-an-adequate-story\/","url_meta":{"origin":1082,"position":3},"title":"Toward telling an adequate story","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"June 29, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"This post builds\u00a0on the previous\u00a0one on the state of the eco-humanities.\u00a0Here I focus on the substantive elements for narratives adequate to the Anthropocene. One of the challenges of our time is to learn to\u00a0tell an adequate story of\u00a0humanity's current predicament. Next spring's Stories for the Anthropocene Festival\u00a0in Stockholm aims to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anthropocene"","block_context":{"text":"Anthropocene","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/anthropo_scene\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"ss9-1-300x300","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2016\/06\/ss9-1-300x300-275x275.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8311,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2015\/06\/18\/the-many-ecologies-of-laudato-si\/","url_meta":{"origin":1082,"position":4},"title":"The many ecologies of Laudato Si","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"June 18, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Now that Laudato Si, the Papal Encyclical \"On Care for Our Common Home,\" is available for all to read, the punditocracy can debate it to their hearts' content. As the most far-reaching statement by the single largest (relatively united) religious denomination\u00a0on the planet, it is likely to have an immense\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Climate change"","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/climate-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12803,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2022\/08\/04\/after-the-anthropocene-the-deluge\/","url_meta":{"origin":1082,"position":5},"title":"After the Anthropocene, the deluge?","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"August 4, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"On the Ecocene, the Chthulucene, the Ecozoic, and other Holocene successor terms The term \"Anthropocene\" has come to be accepted among many intellectuals as the best, or perhaps least worst, name for the geological present, when human activities have come to dominate the planet. It's still debated among geologists, with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anthropocene"","block_context":{"text":"Anthropocene","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/anthropo_scene\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2022\/07\/1_yKN9ZnquOlc3qgKjhDKRjQ.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2022\/07\/1_yKN9ZnquOlc3qgKjhDKRjQ.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2022\/07\/1_yKN9ZnquOlc3qgKjhDKRjQ.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2022\/07\/1_yKN9ZnquOlc3qgKjhDKRjQ.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2022\/07\/1_yKN9ZnquOlc3qgKjhDKRjQ.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2022\/07\/1_yKN9ZnquOlc3qgKjhDKRjQ.jpeg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}