Selected by Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim. Published by Orbis Books, 2014. Reviewed by Peter Healy SM.

This book is rich territory for anyone wanting to delve into the life and work of Thomas Berry. It is challenging in its sweep and vision. It is one of a series of 30 texts from Orbis Books on modern spiritual masters. It brings together a comprehensive selection of writings from a long and deeply reflective life. A life that began in a Passionist monastery and then proceeded to the study of Asian religions and lectureships in several universities. Berry then established a research centre and a writing and teaching career spanning several decades. Each of the 12 chapters of the book begins with biographical notes and reflections on a given theme. Tucker and Grim, his former students, have done a superb job in structuring the book around Berry's life and thought.

The book begins with Thomas Berry's most well-known interest - promoting the epic evolution as a story. This interest culminated in 1992 when he collaborated with Brian Swimme and created the book: The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era - A Celebration of the Unfolding of the Cosmos. In line with this interest, one of the largest chapters in the book is devoted to "Religions Awakening to the Universe". In the chapter the reader is invited to view religions as having cosmological dimensions and as responding to the new cosmology now available. Here we are reminded that the universe is a primary bearer of religious experience and that religion itself arises from wonder and awe. Berry drew on the thought of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. The large-scale vision of humanity in an emerging evolutionary universe inspired Berry to think of story, rather than science. At a certain moment in time, and with a creative orientation to Earth, Berry would describe himself as a “geologian” rather than a “theologian”.

The next largest chapter covers the "Challenge to Christianity". Berry believed that Christianity, and all major religions, have a specific role to play and all are challenged comprehensively by our current situation. Much has to do with their ability to be open to the new context offered by the epic of evolution. This context is a new revelatory moment and it offers a new way of understanding the universe, Earth, life, and all human endeavour. Berry suggests it can even offer a new sense of being Christian.

The notion of the "Ecozoic era" is key in Berry’s thought. A chapter is devoted to this and it covers the places in Berry’s writing which deal with the features of the new era. He is a master of the succinct and in relation to the new era he says: 

“a rising Gross National Product with a declining Gross Earth Product reveals the absurdity of our economy. It should be clear, such as in the medical profession, we cannot have well people on a sick planet.” 

Berry notes that a new language is needed for the Ecozoic era. A new dictionary containing redefinitions of old words and new words would support entry into the era. Reading Berry's work is something of an immersion into a novel and creative language and world-view. 

At the end of the chapter on the Echoic era, Berry nominates 13 determining features for the era. He is calling for a comprehensive statement about humanity and the new order of things.

One of my favourite Berry quotes is: 

“As the primary manifestation of the divine, the natural world is the primary sacred scripture and the primary sacred community. There could be no verbal scriptures unless first there were cosmic scriptures. There can be no human community apart from Earth community.”

Thomas Berry deservedly takes his place in Orbis Books' Modern Spiritual Master Series. Nothing he says is without depth and substance. This book will reward those wanting to find the deeper meaning behind all our current ecological impasses. It will reward readers with a world-view that is as generous and ample as the universe itself. It will challenge readers to embrace a universe story that is evolving and transforming itself in ever-creative, irreversible sequences.