Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey

by Jane Goodall

How we humans came to be the way we are is far less important than how we should act now to get out of the mess we have made for ourselves.

Somehow we shall find the strength to get through a day of unhappiness, of suffering, of heartache. Somehow, I always have.

If God was good and all powerful as I had been led to believe, how could He allow so many innocent people to suffer and die?

Would I sacrifice my life for what I believed? There was, of course, no way I could be sure. To paraphrase what Eleanor Roosevelt once said: people are like tea bags; you never know how strong they are until you dump them in boiling water.

For those who have experienced the joy of being alone with nature there is really little need for me to say much more; for those who have not, no words of mine can ever describe the powerful, almost mystical knowledge of beauty and eternity that come, suddenly, and all unexpected. The beauty was always there, but moments of true awareness were rare.

Words can enhance experience, but they can also take so much away.

Once we have labeled the things around us we do not bother to look at them so carefully. Words are part of our rational selves, and to abandon them for a while is to give freer reign to our intuitive selves.

Together the chimpanzees and the baboons and monkeys, the birds and insects, the teeming life of the vibrant forest, the stirrings of the never still waters of the great lake, and the uncountable stars and planets of the solar system formed one whole. All one, all part of the great mystery. And I was part of it too.

We all need, as adults, some experience to make us look at the world again through the eyes of a child.

How sad it would be, I thought, if we humans ultimately were to lose all sense of mystery, all sense of awe.

Some made a great splashing as they moved through the waters of life and the ripples spread far and wide. Others seemed to sink without a stir—but surely, it was not so, just that the movement of their passage was deep down, creating change that was out of sight. And some, buried silently in contemporary mud, had been dug up afterward with a great swirling of the waters.

“A man who possesses a veneration of life will not simply say his prayers. He will throw himself into the battle to preserve life, if for no other reason than that he is himself an extension of life around him.”

I learned, on that mind-journey, that there are things which I, with my finite mind, shall never be able to understand. And that, although I can never accept evil—deliberate, malicious cruelty to man or beast—and though I shall always fight it, I do not have to account for its presence among us.

Each one of us matters, has a role to play, and makes a difference. Each one of us must take responsibility for our own lives, and above all, show respect and love for living things around us, especially each other. Together we must reestablish our connections with the natural world and with the Spiritual Power that is around us. And then we can move, triumphantly, joyously, into the final stage of human evolution—spiritual evolution.

It is my task to try to change their attitudes in this matter; they will not listen if I raise my voice and point an accusing finger. Instead they will become angry and hostile. And that will be the end of the dialogue. Real change will come only from within; laws and regulations are useful, but sadly easy to flout. So I keep the anger—which of course I feel—as hidden and controlled as possible. I try to reach gently into their hearts.

We cannot solve all the problems of the world, but we can often do something about the problems under our noses.