188: We are Brought Forth by the Universe

Published: May 9, 2021, 8:53 a.m.

It can seem so difficult to connect to one another and listen to one another, but when we soften and open and quieten down it's not beyond us to know others and their worlds with enormous depth and sensitivity. As Lizzie says in this episode, we're made for connection, because we were never really as separate as we feel to begin with. 

This week's Turning Towards Life is a conversation about our shared heritage as participants in a vast unfolding process that brought all of us into being, hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.

This is Turning Towards Life, a weekly live 30 minute conversation hosted by Thirdspace in which Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn dive deep into big questions of human living. Find us on FaceBook to watch live and join in the lively conversation on this episode. You can find videos of every episode, and more about the project on the Turning Towards Life website, and you can also watch and listen on Instagram, YouTube, and as a podcast on Apple, Google and Spotify.

Here's our source for this week:

Here we might observe that the basic mood of the future might well be one of confidence in the continuing revelation that takes place in and through the earth. If the dynamics of the universe from the beginning shaped the course of the heavens, lighted the sun, and formed the earth, if this same dynamism brought forth the continents and seas and atmosphere, if it awakened life in the primordial cell and then brought into being the unnumbered variety of living beings, and finally brought us into being and guided us safely through the turbulent centuries, there is reason to believe that this same guiding process is precisely what has awakened in us our present understanding of ourselves and our relation to this stupendous process. Sensitized to such guidance from the very structure and functioning of the universe, we can have confidence in the future that awaits the human venture.

Thomas Berry, “The New Story,” in The Dream of the Earth, 137

Photo by Beat Schuler on Unsplash