A tribute to Jane Goodall
A life of purpose and meaning
When I heard of Jane Goodall’s passing, my first thought was: now I’ll never meet her. She was one of the few famous people on earth whose presence I wanted to be in. I knew of her for her work, not her celebrity, but it wasn’t just her work I admired. It was her goodness, her energy, and her spirit; and because she was that rare thing: a scientist with faith. Science and love met somewhere within her soul and made it possible for her to change the scientific world’s stubborn insistence that you can’t study animals if you name them; that animals are not sentient beings with individual thoughts, feelings, needs, and longings.
When she returned from her first study of chimpanzees in Africa, she was scorned and dismissed for her honest records of the lives of the chimpanzees she had lived among; and for her affection for them. Real scientific studies, she was told, assign numbers to animals, not names. And even though she recorded the first known use of a tool by a chimpanzee, the scientific world did not believe her. A great deal of the dismissal was based upon her being a woman, but probably also because she was turning long-held principles on their heads. Nevertheless, over the course of her sixty-some years of professional life, much of the scientific world gradually came around to her way of thinking.
The chimpanzees, it turns out, were wiser than the scientific establishment of the time, and returned Ms. Goodall’s gentle respect with acceptance and love. We have all seen the video of a chimpanzee holding her in a long embrace of farewell and gratitude. It is impossible to see this unmoved, or to come away believing anything but that the chimp’s action was animated by something more profound than instinct. I suspect that most of us also come away accepting that animals have souls, even though this idea is still rejected by most of the Christian religious community. I see this blindness as a stubborn refusal to accept our responsibility and stewardship for God’s creation. If we don’t care for what we don’t value then we can carelessly use animals without regard for them as individuals, flinging them away without so much as a twinge. Jane Goodall’s deep knowledge and love shone from her, lighting her face when she spoke, and animated her campaign to protect the chimps’ native habitats and end animal testing laboratories.
To be ninety-one and still traveling to speak out for the protection of animals and of the environmental world is to be both exhausted and driven by deep purpose. As we remember her, I hope we, too, can find ways to support and honor what she believed in: the sanctity of living beings; a reverence and love for them and the desire to protect them; and the grounding hope that we are not powerless: that we can each do something to make the world better before we leave it.
May her memory always be honored. May her work carry on in all the little things and in the momentous ones.
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I know the world is losing its collective mind
and it’s difficult to look out and see the chaos around us. But we are not the only human beings in history who have lived through trying times, and although we are required to do what is right, adversity does not require us to live in abject misery. It’s essential to remind ourselves of the good things in the world, so I hope these posts provide a place of refuge for my readers. Only about 9 percent of you are paid subscribers. That’s okay, because times are hard, and there are many things to spend your money on. These posts will always be free. But if you find what I do is worth something to you, I hope you will consider a subscription. It’s about 27 cents a day for a little something to help lighten the mood. Less, if you subscribe annually. Come and hang out with me, the dogs, and this stalwart little community of good people. And remember: We do not have to live on bended knee.
Also: dog photos.
Whatever you decide, I’m glad you’re here.
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And now for your gratuitous dog photos:
I am deeply grateful to, and inspired by, the late Jane Goodall. I am also grateful to you for such a poignant tribute to her and her work.
She inspired me too. Thank you for writing and for the dog photos. I do read you most days and it does help. Keeping focused on dogs and horses is what will keep me sane I think. Jane knew that, too. The animals give us much more than they get back, I think.