(Please excuse the formatting as a bulleted list. The blogging software is deficient; it won’t allow me to post more than one paragraph, which is a severe constraint on how I wish to express myself.)

  • Hello, my name is Jim Clark and I’m an introvert. The thought of blogging terrifies me. Yet it also intrigues me, and people keep telling me that they appreciate what I write in letters or in response to spontaneous questions, so I’m willing to give it a try.
  • Cosmology is the account of how we came to be. The account can be scientific or mythical, but it provides the basis for what we consider to be real, that is, it constitutes our world view. So the first cosmological question is, what is our present situation? And, how did this situation come to be? The second cosmological question is, how do I (or we, as community) respond? I have had the sense for most of my life that human beings have the capacity to greatly disrupt the natural functioning of the planet. (However, I don’t believe that anyone intends deliberately to despoil the planet, although cases of eco-sabotage have occurred. Rather, the destruction takes place as a result of obliviousness toward consequences of normal activities.) These beliefs comprise one kind of answer to the first question, a portion of the world view that I have held. Finding the answer to the second question has been exceedingly difficult for me.
  • In 1995 I joined an organization called Earth Ministry  because it seemed to advocate a response to Earth’s ecological crisis from a Christian perspective. (I am a lifelong Roman Catholic; living out of this religious tradition has been an important dimension of my life.) Earth Ministry was sponsoring a series of lectures by theologians who had developed perspectives on the need to care for the planet. The last lecture in the series was given by Thomas Berry, in May, 1996. The lecture was titled, The Universe Story, Its Significance for our Time.
  • His talk made a profound impression on me. His use of the language was strange to my ears, and I had difficulty grasping what he was saying, yet I sensed that he was presenting deeper insights into our present situation than I had ever heard before. Among other things he pointed out that Earth itself is the primary revelation of the divine and that this revelation precedes the revelation that is contained in Scripture. The Scriptures are necessarily limited because they are an expression of language; words and language are always an imperfect representation of reality — they can never communicate the fulness of what the writer experienced. What he said about language was consistent with what I already understood, but the idea of Earth revealing the Divine directly through our experience was an entirely new way of understanding revelation for me. Thomas Berry introduced me to the Universe Story (also called the Great Story, the Epic of Evolution and Big History). He equated the work of scientists, their efforts to understand the universe, with the work of medieval monks, who devoted lives of prayer and study of ancient texts to come to their understanding of the cosmos and the human place in it. The work of science has provided the account of the evolution of everything over the span of billions of years, serving as a new creation story that can be a common story for all peoples because of the methodology, the scientific method, by which the story has been developed. Thomas Berry asserted that the outcome of the scientific endeavor, the Universe Story, constitutes a revelation of the Divine that is the equivalent of the revelations that have brought forth the world’s great religions.
  • This assertion has provided the primary orientation for my thinking in the years since. But how might I respond? Among my personal gifts are the technical skills needed to understand and conduct science. I have devoted much of my life to the love of God. The present Earth crisis demands a new kind of response if our offspring are to enjoy the continuance of the human adventure. And I crave meaningful conversation with others about the things that matter. About a year ago, while pondering these things, it suddenly came to me that these four elements encompass a large portion of what I love and have to offer to the world. I began considering how to weave them into something of coherence and value to others. I conceived of a teaching/presentation project, which I have yet to name, so I just refer to it as a program on science and spirituality. (My private name is the Four Heartstrings project, because it encompasses the four loves of my life: science, spirituality, Earth and circle gathering, but it’s not a name that communicates readily to others what I hope to accomplish.)
  • The Universe Story divides rather naturally into three parts, which I call a drama in three acts. Act I is cosmic evolution, the origins and development of the entire universe, where the time scale is billions of years. Act II is the evolution of life on Earth, which has perhaps been going on for as much as four billion years, but the time scale is largely on the order of millions of years. Act III is human presence on Earth, where we now consider events on the scale of thousands of years. (However, recent history has accelerated to the point that significant global change occurs on a scale of tens of years.) I have been presenting each Act in a series of weekly sessions over a period of six weeks. I present the science of one or more significant emergences in the Great Story and then, as one participant put it, ask questions that scientists never ask. My hopes are to inspire in participants a sense of the sacredness of this story and of our earthly home, to evoke a religious or spiritual sensibility into the consideration of the cosmological questions (What is our situation? How are we to respond?) and to provide and receive mutual support as we ponder these things together.

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