New
Directions
1976 - 1978
In 1976 we found in International
House on Riverside Drive a most satisfactory locale for our Annual
Meeting and Luncheon. That year we were saddened by the death
of Dr. Dobzhansky and subsequently elected to invite Mlle. Mortier
to fill the role of Honorary Vice-President. (In her reply, Mile.Mortier
wrote, "Father Teilhard did not very much like honours and
during the years of our acquaintance he taught me to retire behind
the task to be accomplished." Happily, though, she accepted.)
The officers were all reelected and Bishop Belshaw and Dr. Mary
Schmitt (biologist) were asked to come on the Board of Directors.
Dr. Margaret Mead, the
renowned anthropologist, long a member of our Advisory Board,
was our speaker and her topic was, "An Anthropologist Looks
at the Converging of the Peoples of the World Today."
In September, Michael
Murray, who had been a speaker at the 1967 Conference of the
French Fondation at Vezelay, again attended their Conference,
held this year at the Grand Seminairede Char-u-es,taking the
greetings of the American Association to Mile.Mortier. Although
an Episcopal minister, he was asked to concelebrate the daily
Eucharist in the superb cathedral. He reported that more than
a dozen distinguished speakers from almost as many countries,
including Hungary and Poland, spoke on a wide variety of subjects,
showing how the thought of Teilhard touches and inspires every
aspect of human endeavor from politics and science to psychology
and devotional life.
Back in New York, the
expenses of running the Association were proving to be larger
than our income - this despite the fact that the Temple of Understanding
now gave us a monthly contribution in order to use our office
as their New York headquarters. We were going through a cycle
of dropping membership while the cost of services - insurance,
postage, xeroxing, even rent - continued to rise. Because the
Secretary now worked almost alone, with generously-given but
only sporadic volunteer help, she had to have the Newsletter
professionally printed, using the Martin Printing Company recommended
by St. James' Church.
To add to our growing
concern, a letter from the Vestry of St. James' Church gave notice
of a reappraisal of all the tenants in the building we occupied.
There was a feeling that our work did not fall within the guidelines
laid down by the Committee on the use of the building. Dr. Coburn
was no longer Rector, so we did not have strong support within
the church, but the three Episcopal ministers on our Boards did
write the vestry of St. James' in support of our work. Several
months of uncertainty faced us.
Early in the spring of
1977 the Mary Lukas and Ellen Lukas biography, Teilhard, was
published by Doubleday, giving evidence of continuing interest
in Fr. Pierre.
At the Annual Meeting
of 1977, again held at International House, all the officers
were reelected except the Treasurer. Pemala Alderson became a
member of a Fund Raising Committee headed by Gertrud Mellon.
Dolores Knorr, Comptroller of the Museum of Primitive Art, was
elected Treasurer.
Two former Board members,
who had resigned when they were out of the country, returned
and were reinstated: Fr. Almagno from his six years in Italy
and Dr. Wolsky from his year in Saudi Arabia.
Robert Muller, Director
and Deputy to the United Nations Under-Secretary General for
Inter-Agency Affairs and Coordination, was elected to the Advisory
Board as was Gregory Abels and George Torok, of Hallel Communications,
and James McPartlin, who is active in Teilhard affairs on Long
Island.
It had long been a concern
of the Secretary that the substance of the discussion groups
and seminars held in the New York Center was not available to
members who lived outside the city. The possibility of offering
cassette tapes was investigated but they proved too expensive.
An answer came through Gregory Abels who had joined the Association
a few years earlier while studying Teilhard's thought under Donald
Gray's direction. He was now Vice-President of Hallel Communications,
a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization of professional communicators
who used the media in the service of society, specializing in
the areas of public service, human values, social justice, culture,
education and spiritual concerns. They undertook to underwrite
the production of three tapes, the Association to share in any
profit that might accrue after the expenses had been met. The
three tapes were:
I. The Religious Experience of Teilhard by Donald Gray. This
tape explores Teilhard's personal spirituality and calls on us
to respond to Teilhard's invitation to "come and see and
to expand our horizons.
II. The Spirituality of the Earth by Thomas Berry. This tape
is concerned with the need for a new spirituality, a spiritual
perception of the earth and the creative process.
III. The Crisis of the Future by Ewert Cousins. This tape emphasizes
that in awakening to the crisis of the future we might be inspired
by Teilhard's attention to the mystical dimension of consciousness
and by his call for an increase in global awareness that is future
oriented. Humanity must take responsibility for evolution; the
challenge is one of survival. These were offered to members at
a cost of $23.00 for the three tapes, and to the general public
at $26.00. Hallel was later to say that they were pleased at
the response from this country, Canada, and Great Britain.
That fall saw, at long
last, the fruition of a plan that had been long in the making:
the publication of the first issue of Teilhard Studies. This
was made possible by a gift of $500.00 specially designated for
this purpose. The New Story by Thomas Berry attracted very favorable
response from many sources. One letter came from a former member
in New London, Connecticut, who wrote:
Dear Friends: I enclose
a check for $15 with which I wish to reestablish my membership...
. The immediate reason for this action, which I felt I could
not afford, is the statement offered by Thomas Berry in The New
Story. Nowhere have I seen a more clear and helpful record of
the Phenomenon of Man. I felt that I could not afford to lose
contact with the development of Teilhardian directions..."
The cover is from the
work of a well-known Japanese artist, Kazumi Amano. Upon reading
The Phenomenon of Man he was fired by Teilhard's concept of the
spiritual evolution of humanity, moved to this country and now
devotes his time and talent to the abstract presentation of this
vision.
That same autumn found
the Association facing the reality of declining membership (now
down to about 390),lower attendance at our evening programs and
the perennial problem of our inadequate bank balance. Our financial
plight was both short term and long term. A plea for help to
members of our two Boards brought in about $3000.00 for which
we herewith record our grateful thanks. But this was the answer
to only the short-range problem. The long-range problem remained.
We have from the beginning existed almost solely upon membership
income - an uncertain and inadequate source. In fact, it is a
completely unrealistic financial base.
Though the vestry of
St. James' Church agreed to continue to allow us to occupy the
building for the present, it reserved the privilege of rescinding
its agreement if a request came from an organization whose work
fell more within their guidelines.
Change seemed to be forcing
itself upon us.
After much deliberation
the Executive Committee came to some conclusions that it presented
to the Annual Board Meeting which was held on April 29th at International
House.
But, first, at that meeting
the following officers were reelected: Thomas Berry, President;
Mlle. Mortier, Honorary Vice-President; Donald Gray, Vice-President;
Winifred McCulloch,Secretary; Dolores Knorr, Treasurer. Emily
Binns, formerly of the Advisory Board and a Professor of Theology,
was elected to the Board of Directors and to the Second Vice-Presidency
to head the Committee on Fund Raising. The Board accepted with
much regret the resignations, for personal reasons, of Pieter
de Jong and Gertrud Mellon. There were two elections to the Advisory
Board: Faith James and Mary Lukas.
The Executive Committee's
proposals were unanimously accepted and as a result the following
changes were made:
On May 20th the library of 670 books and the archives were moved
to Donald Gray's office at Manhattan College, 4513 Manhattan
College Parkway, Bronx, New York 10471.
On the same day the files and records were moved to the Riverdale
Center of Religious Research, 5801 Palisade Avenue, Bronx, New
York 10471. There Thomas Berry has made available both office
space and a conference room for seminars and meetings.
Mrs. Faith James, one of the new Advisory Board members, is taking
charge of the membership records from her house in White Plains.
The general mailing address of the Association now becomes: Box
67, White Plains, New York 10604.
Winifred McCulloch continues to edit the Newsletter.
It was voted not to offer subscriptions to The Teilhard Review
any longer; members may subscribe directly from London. And,
it was voted to raise the basic annual membership rate to $20.00.
Ninety-five people came
to our Annual Luncheon on April 29th and some sixty others came
to the afternoon talks, attesting to the popularity of these
annual occasions. The speakers were Robert Muller and Thomas
Berry who addressed the general topic "New Experiences of
the Sacred." Robert Muller spoke on "The Sacred as
Perceived by the International Community" and Thomas Berry,
on "The Sacred as Perceived by the Ecological Community."
As this account of the
American Teilhard Association is brought to a close in October
of 1978 it finds the Association in a period of change but also
with plans for the future. Thomas Berry, in an editorial written
for the October 1978 Newsletter, 'emphasizes the importance of
the Association's publications to keep in touch with our widespread
membership and to communicate Teilhard's thought more effectively
to them and to society at large. It is planned that ideas formulated
in lectures and discussion groups taking place at the Riverdale
Center, and those set forth at the Annual Meetings, will be made
available in some written form.
But, the editorial goes
on to say, there is another dimension to Teilhard's vision. It
is not only something intellectual to be made available in books
and lectures and publications, it is also "a vital movement
of human beings caught up in a personal, living process that
will shape the human community of the future. Teilhard was not
thinking of some limited group of persons who would be affected
by his writings but of the human community in its full breadth
across the earth and the full dimensions of human historical
development. Yet his vision has from the beginning been received,
sustained, communicated and activated by both formal and informal
associations throughout the world. The number of these associations
is constantly increasing just as the number of writings about
Teilhard is mounting each year. Associations now exist on the
European continent, in England, Canada, South America, Australia,
and the United States. The spontaneity whence these associations
have arisen witnesses to the efficacy of Teilhard's vision.
"Our own future
is bound up with this larger movement which in turn we might
well consider to be bound up with the emerging earth process
itself. We can believe that the earth process is groping toward
its future in and through our own efforts at clarifying our vision
of the future and activating those energies that are needed to
bring the future into being in a desirable form.
"The challenge is
surely great; but we cannot deny that the sources human and spiritual
that are available for substantial human achievement in the future
are also great... .
"We today, helped
by Teilhard to see the challenge that faces humanity and the
earth, must have the energy and the courage to carry on the process.
Our own most glorious life task must be in sustaining this expansion
in a difficult period, in enabling a damaged earth to recover
and renew itself until the inner communion of all its living
and non-living systems is achieved."
The year 1981 will be
the Hundredth Anniversary of Teilhard's birth, and the Association
hopes to mark the occasion in a significant way. This is one
of our goals for the near future.
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