Ecology, Spirituality and Eckhart: on Loving the World

Abstract

I am acutely aware tonight of the bodily absence of Peter Talbot Willcox, my friend of many years and second chairman of the Eckhart Society. I well remember back in 1992 browbeating him into taking· on that task, among the many others he shouldered, despite his professed lack of expertise in matters Eckhartian, academic, and, indeed, Roman Catholic, not to mention Dominican. Among his many interests and, in fact, passions, if I may so describe them, was a profound concern with the environment. On several occasions I participated in conferences Peter organized on the subject, especially in league with Teddy Goldsmith, the editor of The Ecologist, one of Peter's many friends. While teaching in Oxford, I was privileged to be included among the core group of the Friends of the Centre, which Peter organized and out of which there developed another of his brain children, the Religious Education and Environment Programme, a project to introduce environmental studies into the British religious education curriculum. There was much more to Peter's passions, not least his work for the World Congress of Faiths. But as I came to know and work with Peter what impressed me most personally about his insatiable quest to get at the heart of things in a theoretical and especially a practical way was his struggle to bring Eckhart and environmental concern together. As we strolled around his lovely gardens at Thanescroft one evening, he confided to me his