When most of us were kids, our images of gorillas and chimpanzees came from old movies showing them in the jungle with a person called Tarzan. It was reading the old 1912 Edgar Rice Burroughs book that inspired Jane Goodall to go to the jungle and learn about the primates that lived there.
She worked as a waitress to earn enough money to get to Kenya, met Louis Leakey, the paleontologist who then urged her to go to Tanzania to study families of chimps in the Gombe forest. This is where she developed her unique relationship with primates and brought their particular intelligence to our attention.
Jane Goodall expanded her work to protecting the forests not just of Gombe but of many places inhabited by the nature we seem to be so intent on destroying. She established several organizations focused on saving our biodiversity and educating young people. She died yesterday while on a speaking tour urging us to realize that in protecting the wild, we actually protect ourselves. She was 91.
Prayer for the Day
God of wild places and tame, in creating them,
You created us as your children to care for all;
Lord of the gorilla, the chimpanzee, and their forest home,
May we protect the diverse world around us.
Grant, O Holy One, that we not only acknowledge our creation,
But work to preserve it in all its beauty and glory.
In the name of the One who walked among the lilies,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
You cannot get through a single day without making an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.
Only if we understand, can we care. Only if we care, we will help. Only if we help, we shall be saved.
Jane Goodall (1934-2025)
The heavens are telling the glory of God;
And the firmament proclaims God’s handiwork.
Day to day pours forth speech and night to night declares knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard;
Yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and the words to the end of the world.
Psalm 19: 1-4