Recovering a Sense of the Sacred

The health and future of Mother Earth are in rapid decline due to Climate Change, which is in turn caused by human arrogance and indifference and greed. 

At the same time as it is becoming ever more clear humanity is bringing about such destruction, we are also being gifted with a new creation story from science.  One that underscores the very sacred reality that is our universe, our home, and our place in it.  This story can unite all peoples irrespective of religious, political or cultural differences.

The late, celebrated student of the universe, geologian Thomas Berry, told us how to recover a sense of the sacred when it has been lost. He begins with the observation that it has been lost—for he talks about recovering our sense of the sacred. 

What is more important if humanity is to wake up and get up and choose to survive as a species? 

Here are Thomas Berry’s instructions: We will recover our sense of wonder and our sense of the sacred only if we appreciate the universe beyond ourselves as a revelatory experience of that numinous presence whence all things come into being. 

Indeed, the universe is the primary sacred reality.  We become sacred by our participation in this more sublime dimension of the world about us.

Notice how he identifies a sense of wonder with a sense of the sacred.  How important this is!  Once again, we are being told to pay attention to the Via Positiva.  Awe.  “Awe is the beginning of wisdom,” Heschel reminds us again and again.  And in our pursuit of knowledge, we have often put aside or even run over the quest for wisdom.

Wisdom of course is feminine in the Bible and around the world.  She is reasserting herself in our time for her neglect has been devastating for millions of species and the Earth herself.

Awe. Wonder.  Reverence.  Gratitude.  Here is the springboard for all spiritual growth.  This is why moving from an original sin consciousness to an original blessing consciousness lies at the heart of our survival as a species today. 

Our origins, as Hildegard of Bingen reminds us, are Love.  And Goodness.  And Joy, which derives from both.  So is our destiny.

Berry again: The human venture depends absolutely on this quality of awe and reverence and joy in the Earth and all that lives and grows upon the Earth….In the end the universe can only be explained in terms of celebration.  It is all an exuberant expression of existence itself…..

Adapted from Matthew Fox, Christian Mystics, pp. 361, 365.

See also Fox, Hildegard of Bingen, a Saint For Our Times, p. xiii.

And Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality.

Banner Image: A sunlit glade in Muir Woods. Photo by Zetong Li on Unsplash

Queries for Contemplation

Do you agree with Berry that the human venture depends absolutely on awe, reverence and joy in the Earth returning?  And that the universe is the primary sacred reality?  How do we best assist that recovery of the Sacred?

Recommended Reading

Christian Mystics: 365 Readings & Meditations

As Matthew Fox notes, when an aging Albert Einstein was asked if he had any regrets, he replied, “I wish I had read more of the mystics earlier in my life.” The 365 writings in Christian Mystics represent a wide-ranging sampling of these readings for modern-day seekers of all faiths — or no faith. The visionaries quoted range from Julian of Norwich to Martin Luther King, Jr., from Thomas Merton to Dorothee Soelle and Thomas Berry.
“Our world is in crisis, and we need road maps that can ground us in wisdom, inspire us to action, and help us gather our talents in service of compassion and justice. This revolutionary book does just that. Matthew Fox takes some of the most profound spiritual teachings of the West and translates them into practical daily mediations. Study and practice these teachings. Take what’s in this book and teach it to the youth because the new generation cannot afford to suffer the spirit and ethical illiteracy of the past.” — Adam Bucko, spiritual activist and co-founder of the Reciprocity Foundation for Homeless Youth.

Hildegard of Bingen, A Saint for Our Times: Unleashing Her Power in the 21st Century

Matthew Fox writes in Hildegard of Bingen about this amazing woman and what we can learn from her.
In an era when women were marginalized, Hildegard was an outspoken, controversial figure. Yet so visionary was her insight that she was sought out by kings, popes, abbots, and bishops for advice.
“This book gives strong, sterling, and unvarnished evidence that everything – everything – we ourselves become will affect what women after us may also become….This is a truly marvelous, useful, profound, and creative book.” ~~ Andrew Harvey, author of The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism.

Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality

Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew is often neglected by Christian theology): the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
“Original Blessing makes available to the Christian world and to the human community a radical cure for all dark and derogatory views of the natural world wherever these may have originated.” –Thomas Berry, author, The Dream of the Earth; The Great Work; co-author, The Universe Story