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40 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The universe in a wildflower., May 2, 2001
"There is eventually only one story," collaborators Swimme and Berry write, "the story of the universe. Every form of being is integral with this comprehensive story. Nothing is itself without everything else. Each member of the Earth community has its own proper role within the entire sequence of transformations that have given shape and identity to everything that exists" (p. 288). Beginning 15 million years ago (p. 7), THE UNIVERSE STORY follows the universe "from its original Flaring Forth through the shaping of the galaxies, the elements, the Earth, its living forms, the human mode of being, then on through the course of human affairs during the past century" (p. 241). The product of its writers' "imaginative power as well as intellectual understanding" (p. 237), this book "is not the story of a mechanistic, essentially meaningless universe, but the story of a universe that has from the beginning has [sic] its mysterious self-organizing power that, if experienced in any serious manner, must evoke an even greater sense of awe than that evoked in earlier times at the experience of the dawn breaking over the horizon, the lightning storms crashing over the hills, or the night sounds of the tropical rainforests, for it is out of this story that all of these phenomena have emerged" (p. 238).
This superb book shows that the universe acts "in an integral manner" (p. 26), everything in the universe existing for everything else (p. 263). For plants and animals, "the universe is a chorus of voices" (p. 42). We are told, for instance, "the winds speak to the butterfly, the taste of the water speaks to the butterfly, the shape of the leaf speaks to the butterfly and offers guidance that resonates with the wisdom coded into the butterfly's being" (p. 42). Similarly, we can "climb a mountain and get hit by something so profound, at so deep a level," that we will never be quite the same (p. 41). For humans, "the adventure of the universe depends upon our ability to listen" (p. 44) to "the mountain language, river language, tree language, the language of the birds and all animals and insects, as well as the languages of the stars in the heavens" (p. 258). We also learn Walt Whitman's sentience was "an intricate creation of the Milky Way, and his feelings are an evocation of being, an evocation involving thunderstorms, sunlight, grass, and death. Walt Whitman is a space the Milky Way fashioned to feel its own grandeur" (p. 40).
The moral of this STORY is that the Earth is "a one-time endowment" (p. 246). Through the destruction of the rainforests at the rate of an acre a day, by disturbing the chemical balance of the planet through petrochemicals, through genetic engineering, and through the "radioactive wasting of the planet," we are "eliminating the very conditions for renewal of life in some of its more elaborate forms" (pp. 246-7). "As the natural world recedes in its diversity and abundance, so the human finds itself impoverished in its economic resources, its imaginative powers, in its human sensibilities, and in significant aspects of its intellectual intuitions" (p. 242). This celebration of the unfolding universe will change the way you look at life.
G. Merritt
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33 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Universe is the Hero., July 29, 1999
By A Customer
It's been a while since I've read this book, but I can say that it's one of the most important books I've read. It's not a book to be read for entertainment, or for a "wow" experience. And yet I certainly didn't find it dull. I don't think the book is for "overly intellectual" people. But I would say it's a book for thought and reflection, as well as for knowledge. This book was written because, "In the modern period, we are without a comprehensive story of the universe. The historians ... deal not with the whole world but just with the human, as if the human were something separate from or an addendum to the story of the Earth and the universe. The scientists have arrived at detailed accounts of the cosmos, but have focused exclusively on the physical dimensions and have ignored the human dimension of the universe." In their account, the authors take a mythological approach to the story of the universe, "humanizing" the various stages of its development, but also basing all that they write on the best knowledge yet uncovered by science. The deliberate, and successful, result is the growing feeling that the universe is at last telling its own story, though us. We ourselves are part of the universe. The universe evolves! It hasn't always been as it is now. This fact may appear boring to some of us, but in a broader perspective, this idea is a radically new and exciting idea -- unthinkable in times past. Told in this way, the story is one of familiar (i.e., mythological) forces and processes interacting at each stage, but with each stage being yet more complex and intelligent than the last. The universe doesn't just change, it evolves. And as we discover its story we see how much a part of the universe we are, and that our own awareness is also a part of it. I believe that these ideas are essential for our own human evolution, and our ability to invent our own next leap, together, into the future.
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19 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Powerful antidote to the Western world's destructive ways., April 7, 1998
The Universe Story begins to fills a vast void in Western experience. The telling of our evolutionary story has been marked by the reductionism of science. This is how our scientists are trained -- not to attempt to interpret data within their narrow disciplines in a way which might be meaningful. The idea of relating the remarkable oddessy we have been on as a story is precisely the antidote we need to turn things back from our destructive ways. Telling it as a story embeds us in the evolutionary process, giving the human a role, rather than relegating our species to some (non-existent) meaningless exterior process. Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme have made a remarkable first attempt and should be applauded for their courage. Almost all scientists and most theologians have not had the fortitude to take us down this path. Tell it is a story! How preposterous! It's not preposterous. It's finally acknowledging that we humans are an integral part of the incredible creative event that is still unfolding all around us! And it may be the only thing which will get through to the human mind the necessity for an active compassion toward ourselves and our fellow travelers on this Earth. Swimme and Berry celebrate this and give us a new faith at a time when many despair that the human will survive the despoiling of our beautiful planet home. The science in The Universe Story is impeccable. Swimme's background as a physicist and mathematical cosmologist provides the much-needed grounding in scientific data that makes this book stand a shoulder above many other books which have attempted to place the human within the larger story. But rather than downplay the great turning points in evolutionary history through analytical reductionism, the authors give us an opportunity to feel awe and wonder at the astounding array of events that had to take place to bring us into existence. Not the least of these is to impart how important it is that the human is the way in which the Universe reflects upon its own beauty through conscious self-awareness. We are not just simply somehow "outside" looking in. We are the Universe "tasting itself." Thomas Berry, who calls himself a "geologian," is renowned the world over as a cultural historian. In his deep concern for the Earth community and his call to "put the Bible on the shelf for 20 years in order to read the primary scripture of the Natural World" in order to regain some of our lost widom, he is one the great prophets of our age. If the evolutionary past could be taught like this -- as a wondrous story -- in all our schools, our attitudes might turn around and we might learn treat the Earth with respect, coming out of a deep awareness of our interconnectedness to all life. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in thinking in a new way about our role in the universe and for staying on the leading edge of eco-theological thought.
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