Whenever the New York Times Book Review interviews an author, they ask: "What book is on your nightstand"?
Currently on the top of my pile is The Book of Hope, by Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams. It is not a memoir of the 90-year-old activist author, it is a dialogue between the two authors exploring the question:
What is hope? Good question.
The first sentence of the book is "We are going through dark times". Written in 2021, one might see this as a prophetic statement. It is also an understatement.
Last week, Jane Goodall was awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Biden. It is the highest civilian honor given for exemplary work and life. Goodall herself is known through her relentless support of the chimpanzees which led her to speak out about climate change in early days. She is still as vocal in her efforts to turn the tide, metaphorically and physically. She says of those who stand up against it ". . .even when they lose their lives, their voices still resonate long after they are gone, giving us inpiration and hope . . ."
In Goodall's view, hope is possible because of four reasons: 1) the human intellect, 2) the resilience of nature, 3) the power of young people, 4) the indomitable human spirit.
Each of her reasons is supported by experiences over a lifetime of living with chimpanzees as compared with human beings! She cannot see how anyone of us would use our superior intellect to destroy what nature has provided us free of charge, except by greed. Young people figure into hope as next to come with lots of new ideas, technology, and energy, unless consumed and subsumed by social media. And, last but not least is our own "indomitable" human spirit. She is no Polyanna. She recounts story after story of ordinary people facing formidable challenges and their indomitable spirt playing out in crises after crises. Her life is one notable example. But what IS hope?
An author from another era gave hope a name: "The thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all", wrote Emily Dickinson. This morning I heard the birds singing when I stepped out in the 39 degree dawn. These song birds have come from climates far North of this tropical place, flying through the dark of night. Darkness does not deter them from making the trip. What does hope have to do with it? Everything!
All projects, whether writing, baking (though I wouldn't know), painting, drawing, studying, are built on hope. Without hope we would not begin, could not imagine anything, may not finish a darn thing. Hope keeps us alive -- keeps us going when obstacles loom large. Hope is precious. In times of multi-crises, we have four options, says Professor Marshall Ganz*: 1) to leave, 2) to fight (which may be necessary), 3) to build (by finding sources and others with similar value systems and spirit), 4) to give up. These four reflect the four elements of hope that Goodall spells out. I noticed the word spirit in both analyses of the "idea" of hope, which may be all that it is like democracy itself. We need hope to sustain such big ideas. The idea of living without hope is born in darkness. When confronting dark times, the absence of hope is the the absence of light. How would we find our way out without hope?
Have you ever watched a bird on the nest? Sitting still through a rainy day, drops running off her back? She is not enduring something, she is ushering in hope through fragile eggshells that could never withstand the elements without her warm body. She has a single purpose in sitting silently, not singing her song. She is committed to seeing it through, no matter the wind and rain storms. Nothing could convince her to abandon her cause. She knows instinctively that she must see this through. She is hope herself!
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