This week we are continuing with part two of our eight-part series on “The Book of Hope” co-authored by Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams. In the book Jane presents four main reasons for hope and hopefulness in spite of the grim global realities that we face. In this session we take a look at her first reason, the amazing human intellect.
There is also supplemental material for the book series in this week’s support page. I’ve included the transcript of session one which contains passages from the book in case you haven’t ordered a copy yet. And during our zoom coffee hour it was brought to our attention there is also a workbook available to accompany the book. Ordering information is included in the supplemental material. Look closely because there are several different workbooks available. We want to make sure everyone purchases the same workbook!
The service will be available at 10AM on our YouTube Channel followed by Zoom check-in and coffee hour at 11AM. You’ll find the links listed below.
Have a good week-end.
In Ministry,
Dave
HERE IS THE SERVICE LINK FOR THIS WEEK’S SERVICE(Please note it won’t be active until 10AM on Sunday morning)
HERE IS THE ZOOM LINK FOR SUNDAY:
David Hutchinson is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: UUHoulton coffee hour and check-inTime: Jan 16, 2022 11:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meetinghttps://us06web.zoom.us/j/83783793362?pwd=U2hiK0VsYm5qRjNQbStGVWhyYnFLQT09
Meeting ID: 837 8379 3362Passcode: 198275
Virtual Offering Plate
If you would like to send in your pledge or donation simply drop an envelope in the mail. The address is listed below. You can also send your donation electronically with our new payment system on the church website. Simply go to uuhoulton.org and click “Donate” on the menu and it will explain how the system works. You can set up a regular monthly payment plan or donate in single transactions. Thank you for your generous support! Thank you for your generous support!
UU Church of Houlton61 Military StreetHoulton, ME 04730
Workbook for The Book of Hope by Jane Goodall: A Survival Guide for Trying Times Paperback $11.99
available on Amazon
Is there hope for a world ravaged by racial discrimination, religious hatred, and climate change?
What part can you possibly play to help build a better world?
✓ The Book of Hope by Jane Goodall and Douglas Abram is a powerful dialogue on one of the least talked about but most essential elements of human nature and existence –hope. Hope is needed now more than ever.
★This workbook is independent and unofficial and details all the crucial points from Jane and Abram’s thought-provoking and inspiring dialogue on hope.
✓ It contains a self-reflection section after each chapter with inspiring questions tailored personally for you. The self-reflection questions not only help you connect to Jane’s message on a deeper level but set you on a practical path to becoming hopeful about your life and the environment.
Here’s just a tip of self-reflection questions that you’ll encounter in this workbook;
- What does hope mean to you?
- While a life mission presupposes a divine plan, a life purpose comes from realizing that one can make a difference. Can you say reading The Book of Hope has inspired in you some form of purpose? How?
- Douglas Abrams observes that hope can both be profoundly personal and sweepingly global. What are the profoundly personal hopes you have about your own life and that of your immediate family?
- Do you think about the consequences of the choices you make on the environment? For example, what you buy or eat?
Session One Supplemental Material
The Book of Hope Part OneIntroduction; What Is Hope?
Today we are starting an eight week series on naturalist and environmentalist Jane Goodall’s latest book “The Book of Hope; A Survival Guide for Trying Times.” It’s a 249 page book and we are using the chapter headings as our outline for the series, a topic that we have certainly touched upon before, hope being one of the core components of our emotional, psychological and spiritual make-up, but this is Jane’s distinct approach and contribution to the topic from her long life-experience and wisdom. This is the second book in the Global Icon Series in collaboration with Douglas Abrams, the first being “The Book of Joy with Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama” a book that we also studied a few years back in our UUHoulton services.
I was certainly familiar with Jane Goodall’s work which began in 1957 researching the life and behavior of chimpanzees in Gombe, Africa, but didn’t really know many of the details of her long and storied career. So, in preparation for this series Linda and I watched a documentary on Jane Goodall during the Christmas break titled “Jane” which came out in 2017 directed by Brett Morgen featuring restored footage from the National Geographic Archives that had not been seen in 50 years. It’s available to rent on Amazon for $3.99 if you’d like to see it. I highly recommend it.
To start things off I would like to read an excerpt from the introduction of the book, An Invitation to Hope. You’ll find the complete introduction posted on the UUSupport Page.(The introduction to the book was included in last week’s support page)
And right up front on page 7, Douglas Abrams also admits his own reservations and that the book might indeed be a tough sell. He says,
As a born-and-raised and somewhat skeptical New Yorker, I had to admit that I was suspicious of hope. It seemed like a weak response, a passive acceptance – “Let’s hope for the best.” It seemed like a panacea or a fantasy. A willful denial or blind faith to cling to despite the facts and the grim reality of life. I was afraid of having false hope, that misguided imposter. Even cynicism felt safer in some ways than taking the risk of hope. Certainly, fear and anger seemed like more useful responses, ready to sound the alarm, especially during times of crisis like this.
So to start our study here is Jane’s definition of hope found in chapter one, the title of which is “What Is Hope?
Hope is what enables us to keep going in the face of adversity. It is what we desire to happen, but we must be prepared to work hard to make it so. (then Jane grinned) Like hoping this will be a good book. But it won’t be if we don’t bloody work at it…Hope requires us to work hard to make what we want to happen actually happen…You need hope to get you going, but then by taking action, you generate more hope. It’s a circular thing.
So again, here is her definition:
Hope is what enables us to keep going in the face of adversity. It is what we desire to happen, but we must be prepared to work hard to make it so.
And then she elaborates,
Sometimes, I think, ‘Well, why on earth do I feel hopeful?’ Because the problems facing the planet are huge. And if I analyze them carefully, they do sometimes seem absolutely impossible to solve. So why do I feel hopeful? Partly, because I’m obstinate. I just won’t give in. But it’s partly also because we cannot accurately predict what the future might bring. We simply can’t. No one knows how it will all turn out.
Then Doug tells Jane a joke:
“Have you heard the joke about the difference between an optimist and a pessimist? The optimist thinks that this is the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears the optimist is right.”
Jane laughs and then says, “We don’t really know how it will all turn out, do we? And we can’t just think that we can do nothing and everything will work out for the best. We have to do something.”
She goes on to say,
Hope does not deny all the difficulty and all the danger that exist, but it is not stopped by them. There is a lot of darkness, but our actions create the light. We can shift our perspective to see the light and also to work to create more of it. It’s important to take action and realize that we can make a difference, and this will encourage others to take action, and then we realize we are not alone and our cumulative actions truly make an even greater difference. That is how we spread the light. And this, of course, makes us all ever more hopeful.
Doug then introduces some research and statistics that have been done in hope studies in recent years and is curious about Jane’s opinion.
Jane responds, “ I think it’s important to remember that while statistics can be helpful, people are moved to action by stories more than statistics. So many people thank me for not putting statistics in my lectures!”
Doug replies, “Don’t we want to tell people the facts?”
“Well, let’s put them in the back of the book for those who want all the details.”
(Which they do in this book. There is a great resource of recommended books for further study on each chapter.)
Doug then introduces psychologist Edith Eger’s work to the conversatioin.
Edith Eğer says that people who wonder how you can have hope in seemingly hopeless situations, like a concentration camp, confuse hope with idealism. Idealism expects everything to be fair or easy or good. She says that it’s a defense mechanism not unlike denial or delusion. Hope, she says, does not deny the evil but is a response to it.
Near the end of the chapter Doug comments:
I was beginning to see that hope was not just wishful thinking. It did take the facts and the obstacles into account, but it did not let them overwhelm or stop us. Certainly, this was true in many seemingly hopeless situations…The global situation today certainly could seem hopeless, and yet Jane was feeling hope even when logic might tell us that there was no reason for it. Maybe hope is not an expression of the facts alone. Hope is how we create new facts.
So here is the four part outline of the book, Jane’s four main reasons for hope and hopefulness in spite of the grim global realities that we face:
- The Amazing Human Intellect
- The Resilience of Nature
- The Power of Youth
- The Indomitable Human Spirit
In the upcoming weeks we will explore these four points and (I hope) start our own dialogue on the UU support page and during our zoom coffee hour that meets on line at 11AM on Sunday mornings, a conversation discussing our own struggles with hope, especially during these extended covid-times as well as strategies that lead to hope and hopefulness in the days ahead.
In today’s first session we have covered a basic introduction to the topic, a definition of hope, identified several challenges to being hopeful and introduced Jane’s four part outline that we will explore in the upcoming weeks.
In closing a hope quote from South Africa’s Nelson Mandela
I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one’s head pointed toward the sun, one’s feet always moving forward.
My blessings to you on this day. May your path be filled with peace and hopefulness.
Joys & Concerns
When one of us is blessed we are all blessed.
When one of us experiences sorrow we all feel the pain.
This is MLK Day week-end. Here are several inspiring quotations from Martin as we remember his contribution to the cause. The road to social and racial justice stretches ahead of us.
An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.
I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.
We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.
If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.
Donna and Christoph were at the church bright (and cold) and early on Wednesday morning to meet the guys from DOC’s to work on the church furnace and propane stoves (you can see DOC’s work vans in the background). All the stoves are up and running efficiently…Thank you Donna & Christoph!!!
sunset in Monticello on Friday evening, January 14th
Please send in joys and concerns during the week to dave@backwoodsblog.com and I will post them on the Support Page.
Prayer List
For those recovering from COVID-19 in the state of Maine
Local emergency personnel and hospital staff
For our state and national leaders as they respond to the current coronavirus crisis
For those working for social justice and societal change Pray for peaceful action and democratic process in our nation
Prayers for refugees in Eastern Europe, Central America and for those along our southern border
Concerns regarding the new covid variant Omicron
Prayers for those who have lost their homes in the recent Colorado fires Prayers for those who died in the apartment fire in the Bronx and their grieving families
The Four Limitless Ones Prayer
May all sentient beings enjoy happiness and the root of happiness.
May we be free from suffering and the root of suffering.
May we not be separated from the great happiness devoid of suffering.
May we dwell in the great equanimity free from anger, aggression and exclusion.
Comments are closed