The success or failure of any historical age is the extent to which those living at that time have fulfilled the special role that history has imposed upon them.
Interpretation
Our actions define the success of our era based on how well we meet our historical responsibilities.
This quote by Thomas Berry highlights the idea that the success or failure of a particular historical period depends on the ability of individuals in that era to recognize and fulfill their unique roles and responsibilities as deemed by history. It suggests that each generation carries a weight of expectation and must act consciously to contribute positively to the unfolding of human experience.
In practice
During a motivational speech to young activists, emphasizing the importance of their role in shaping the future.
If the religious experience were simply some naive impression of the uninformed it would not have resulted in such intellectual insight, such spiritual exaltation, such spectacular religious ritual, or in the immense volume of song and poetry and literature and dance that humans have produced.
We might sometimes reflect and recall that the purpose of all our science, technology, industry, manufacturing, commerce, and finance is celebration, planetary celebration. This is what moves the stars through the heavens and the earth through its seasons. The final norm of judgment concerning the success or failure of our technologies is the extent to which they enable us to participate more fully in this grand festival.
Diversity is the magic. It is the first manifestation, the first beginning of the differentiation of a thing and of simple identity. The greater the diversity, the greater the perfection.
Both education and religion need to ground themselves within the story of the universe as we now understand this story through empirical knowledge. Within this functional cosmology, we can overcome our alienation and begin the renewal of life on a sustainable basis. This story is a numinous revelatory story that could evoke the vision and the energy required to bring not only ourselves but the entire planet into a new order of magnificence.
The historical mission of our times is to re-invent the humanβat the species level, with critical reflection, within the community of life-systems, in a time-developmental context, by means of story and shared dream experience.
If the outer world is diminished in its grandeur, then the emotional, imaginative, intellectual, and spiritual life of the human is diminished or extinguished. Without the soaring birds, the great forests, the sounds and coloration of the insects, the free-flowing streams, the flowering fields, the sight of clouds by day and the stars at night, we become impoverished in all that makes us human.
If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work.
In America, now, let us - Christian, Jew, Muslim, agnostic, atheist, wiccan, whatever - fight nativism with the same strength and conviction that we fight terrorism. My faith calls on its followers to love one's enemies. A tall order, that - perhaps the tallest of all.
See the good in people and help them.
If I had never joined a church till I had found one that was perfect, I should never_x000D_ have joined one at all; and the moment I did join it, if I had found one, I should have_x000D_ spoiled it, for it would not have been a perfect church after I had become a member of_x000D_ it. Still, imperfect as it is, it is the dearest place on earthto us.
Nobody knows what you want except you. And nobody will be as sorry as you if you don't get it. Wanting some other way to live is proof enough of deserving it. Having it is hard work, but not having it is sheer hell.
How hard it is, how bitter it is to become a man!
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