Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey

by Jane Goodall

I thought about the power for good, the power for evil, that exists in each one of us. What a difference a single individual could make in our gradual progress toward a moral world. Indeed, I mused, every one of us had a role to play. Our contributions were different. 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. At all different levels the ripples and currents passed or mingled, and some merged inextricably. With each merging a new force was created, itself as unique as the two beings who forged it. What joys the world would have lost if some of those forces had never been created, and what pain in other instances would it have been spared. Forces released not only by the meeting of minds, but of bodies, too.