Evening Thoughts, “Reflecting on Earth as Sacred Community” by Thomas Berry, edited by Mary Evelyn Tucker

“Among the contemporary voices for the earth, none resonates like that of the noted cultural historian Thomas Berry.” (book jacket)  In these essays and countless earlier writings, he shares with us his wisdom gained from years of study of the universe, the earth, and of the creatures that called it their home for billions of years.  He claims that after the arrival of the humans, “the newcomers” he calls us, peace and harmony on the planet continued for many more billions of years.  But beginning with the technological era of the 1900’s and accelerating rapidly to the present, the greed and over-consumption of the human community, especially in the western parts of the world, Europe and the Americas, the riches of the earth are gradually becoming depleted.

The title of this book (Evening Thoughts,) could very well refer to the possible end of the earth as we know it, unless a concerted global effort is made by the human race to save our planet, and also to the evening of his own life.  Born in 1915, he would have been in his late 90’s by the time the book was published, in 2006. During his long life he made an amazing contribution to society, telling us repeatedly and most eloquently of the beauty and riches of nature, and the crisis the earth is now in, the gravest in the history of the world.  Fr. Barry died recently, and despite his valiant efforts to speak the truth of the earth’s precarious situation, the devastation of our planet continues. It is true that a growing number of people all over the world are beginning to recognize the crisis we are in, but unless drastic measures are made to bring the earth back to health, it may be too late.  (Thomas Berry still hoped something will be done.  Read his earlier book, The Great Work.) He is by no means the only ecologist with the message that it was primarily humankind that caused the earth crisis, and it is up to all of us to correct it.  Most of his  books end with a lengthy bibliography and list of other resources.