I got a note from Thomas Berry last week.
Don’t get me wrong: he passed away in 2009, and I never had the pleasure of his acquaintance. Nonetheless, when I ordered a bargain bin copy of The Great Work it came in the mail inscribed from Berry to a friend and out from between its pages fell a handwritten copy of An Applachian Wedding. It ends, in his confident, leaning script, like this: . . . a deluge of delight / as we open our arms and / rush toward each other / all of us moved / by that vast compassionate curve / that brings all things together / in intimate celebration / celebration that is / the universe itself. September 1, 1991. Tom Berry.
We are experiencing our own delights at the Whidbey Institute this month: rain, and with it a whisper of autumn. Gifts, from the beautiful new Farmhouse patio to the recently-installed Portal sculpture in our Thomas Berry Hall courtyard. A fast-approaching gathering of friends.
We can continue to learn from Thomas Berry, for whom our great hall is named, as our 40th Anniversary Festival comes and goes. The Great Work is ever more vital, and we are fortunate to have some great thinkers—Joanna Macy, Drew Dellinger, and David Spangler among them—joining us at our Festival to move us on this path.
Won’t you join us too? Click here to view the September Newsletter online and read on!