Saturday, December 12, 2009

Another gap in my education


Thomas Berry..... I'd never heard of him until today. I know, some days I feel like I've been living in a cave. It's hard to summarize his career in one sentence, particularly since I am just learning about him myself.

I just read this essay he wrote in December 1993, called The Meadow Across the Creek.

My favourite part:

"We have indeed become strange beings so completely are we at odds with the planet that brought us into being. We dedicate enormous talent and knowledge and research to developing a human order disengaged from and even predatory on the very sources whence we came and upon which we depend at every moment of our existence. We initiate our children into an economic order based on exploitation of the natural life systems of the planet. To achieve this perspective we must first make them autistic in their relation with the natural world about them. This disconnection occurs quite simply since we ourselves have become insensitive toward the natural world and do not realize just what we are doing. Yet, if we observe our children closely in their early years and see how they are instinctively attracted to the experiences of the natural world about them, we will see how disorientated they become in the mechanistic and even toxic environment that we provide for them."

No comments:

Post a Comment