Why this site?

The origin of this website can be traced back to a conference Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim helped to sponsor at Harvard that was organized by Paul Waldau and Kimberley Patton in 1999 called “Animals and Religion.” The papers from this conference along with others were published in a book Waldau and Patton edited titled A Communion of Subjects (Columbia 2007).

In addition, the Journey of the Universe project, and the work of Thomas Berry, are the context in which the Living Earth Community website project emerged over many years. The Journey project consists of an Emmy award winning film, a book from Yale University Press, 20 conversations/podcasts, and three online Yale/Coursera courses. The film has been shown around the world and, along with the book, has been translated into many languages.

All of this was inspired by the vision of cultural historian and geologian, Thomas Berry. Berry called for a New Story for our times that would draw on the scientific understanding of evolution along with the humanistic integration of our role in this epic narrative. He was especially concerned to emphasize the dynamic qualities of the universe and Earth with his often-quoted phrase, “the universe is not a collection of objects, but a communion of subjects.” This phrase implies that we live amidst a vibrant complexity of universe and Earth processes that are not simply dead or inert matter.

As the Earth Charter says, “Earth, our home, is alive with a unique community of life.” 

In 2018, the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology held a conference titled “Living Earth Community: Ways of Being and Knowing the World” at the Oak Spring Garden Foundation in Virginia. The conference papers were collected and published in the volume: Living Earth Community: Multiple Ways of Being and Knowing. That conference and subsequent volume were the catalyst for this website project.

This project acknowledges that such affective sensibility and relational awareness has been widespread among Indigenous peoples across the planet for millennia and endures into the present. In this spirit, there is an implicit call here for recovering our ancient kinship with all life forms.

This sensibility is now being widely recognized by scientists, ecologists, and animal behaviorists as well as by nature writers and humanists. Such growing recognition is what the Living Earth Community project celebrates with renewed wonder and awe at the complexity and beauty of life.

The sense of wonder that this project evokes has implications for protecting biodiversity and encouraging conservation. Moreover, the awe that the Living Earth Community inspires can also encourage action in responding to the climate emergency. This is our hope in offering the Living Earth Community project into a world so in need of the healing of human-Earth relations.