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From time to time, a man, a woman, and occasionally a child, will emerge in the Church to remind us that prophets still walk among us.  Prophets, whether within the Church or beyond its boundaries, are often ahead of their time, misunderstood, and suffer ridicule and indifference.  More often than not, they are appreciated only after they are long dead.  Prophets point us to a larger reality where we can situate our lives and our decisions, both good and bad.  Jesus, the Prophet of all prophets, continually bore witness to the largest of all realities—the Kingdom of God.

One such modern prophet was the late Fr. Thomas Berry (1914-2009), a Passionist priest from North Carolina.  As a child, he recalls a day when, at the age of 11, he walked into a meadow with grass standing about 12 inches high and lilies standing even higher blowing in the breeze.  For Thomas, looking back on that seemingly innocent experience, it was a mystical experience filled with wonder, awe, and reverence.  That experience never left him and continued to form his outlook towards everything in life.  He concluded that whatever was good for that meadow was good for everybody.  Contrastingly, whatever was detrimental to the development of that meadow was going to be bad for everyone.  From an early age, Thomas Berry knew that we are not “apart” from nature, but we are a “part” of nature.

This is a story of a boy who always enjoyed going into the forest. His father, a rabbi, asked his son why he went to the forest so often.  The boy replied that in the forest he finds God there.  The father reminded his son that he didn’t have to go to the forest to find God because God is the same everywhere.  To which the son replied, “I know God is the same everywhere, but I am not.”

All peoples throughout the world, regardless of culture or time period, have lived within a story, a myth. (Remember, a myth isn’t something that’s not true. A myth is truer than true. Myths are trans-rational, that is, they don’t always follow logical formulas.  Myths are too vast for reason to encompass them).  All peoples are guided by a story telling us how things came to be and why things are the way they currently are.

Thomas Berry believed (and it’s hard to argue the contrary) that we currently live in a myth that fundamentally supports destruction.  Children need to experience stars in the sky, rabbits, squirrels, mountains, streams and run barefoot through the grass.  They need to see a cow and be told that is where our milk comes from.  In the natural world, children’s imaginations expand.  Our souls are wild, that’s why we immediately feel at home in the wilderness.  (By the way, all of Jesus’ most powerful moments happened in nature—in the desert, on top of mountains, picking wheat, on the Sea of Galilee—and not in synagogue or Temple).

Thomas Berry believed that we need a new story, a story that brings religion and ecology together.  We need a new narrative that holds together humanity, the earth, and the entire cosmos in the one, unfolding story.  He called this unfolding: The Great Work.  The Great Work is the work of all of us, not just the visionaries who come along now and again.  The Great Work involves an entirely new way of seeing things, a radical conversion you might say.  This Work begins with turning away from our destructive behavior toward the earth and each other in favour of living a relationship that is mutual and beneficial for everyone and everything.

A major step in that direction, in that new myth, is to first realize that our primary relationship with the natural world has been based on “use”.  What can we get out of this natural resource for our own benefit?  Use has led to exploitation.  One of the worst feelings in the world of human relationship is to feel used, to say, “You used me.”  The natural world is saying to us, “I’ll feed you, I’ll clothe you, I’ll heal you, I’ll shelter you, but don’t use me in a destructive way.  I have interior riches to bestow on you, and I even reveal the Divine, if you’ll let me.  But I can no longer do this if you are going to degrade me and destroy our relationship.”  How can we possibly have healthy humans on a sick planet?  The health of humans depends on the health of the earth.

Berry reminds us that we are evolutionary and ecologically embedded human beings.  We can’t extricate ourselves from evolution nor the environment we live in.  We are part of a story that has been unfolding for millions of years.  We must bring the best scientific insight into dialogue with the best Biblical insights.  Facts and statistics about pollution or the irreversible disappearance of species will only motivate us so far in changing our behavior.  That is why we need a New Story.  Berry says that it’s only in the last 20 years or so that scientists have just begun to realize that what they are discovering is a Story—a new and powerful Story.

In this new, powerful, beautiful story, we need to replace fear and control with delight in creation.  We need to experience nature as something good and not something “useful” to be exploited.  We are only going to save the things we love.  Fall in love with nature and rediscover your wild soul.  Wonder and awe are not just reserved for children.

Several years before his death, a remarkable rabbi, Abraham Joshua Heschel, suffered a near-fatal heart attack. His closest male friend was at his bedside.  Heschel was so weak he was only able to whisper. “Sam,” he said, “I feel only gratitude for my life, for every moment that I have lived.  I am ready to go.  I have seen so many miracles during my lifetime.”  The old rabbi was exhausted by his effort to speak. After a long pause, he said, “Never, once in my life, did I ask God for success or wisdom or power or fame. I asked for wonder, and He gave it to me.”

Fr. Phil Mulligan