This week we continue our eight-part series on “The Book of Hope” co-authored by Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams. We are looking at Jane’s fourth reason for hope and hopefulness in our changing and challenging world, the indomitable human spirit. Even when a situation looks like we have hit rock bottom and the odds may not be in our favor, the best in us somehow finds a way to pull through and keep going.
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
HERE IS THE ZOOM LINK FOR SUNDAY:
David Hutchinson is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic:
UUHoulton coffee hour and check-inTime: Feb 6, 2022 11:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
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UU Church of Houlton
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Session Four Supplemental Material
The Book of Hope (part 4)The Power of Young People
Today we continue our eight part series on “The Book of Hope; a Survival Guide for Trying Times,” a recent best-seller by conservationist Jane Goodall and co-author Douglas Abrams.
Jane is best know for her ground-breaking work on the behavior of chimpanzees in Tanzania back in the 1950s and early sixties.
Since then The Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) a global community conservation organization founded by Dr. Goodall in 1977 has worked to protect chimpanzees and inspired action to conserve the natural world we all share, to improve the lives of people, animals and the environment. The Jane Goodall Institute operates in more than thirty countries world-wide. Today we look at Jane’s third reason for hope, the power of young people, and a large part of the Jane Goodall Institute’s work is with young people, a program called Roots and Shoots.
More about that in today’s session.
We begin today with a quote by Jane on her work with youth. This is from page 112.
As I began traveling around the world, raising awareness about the environmental crisis, I met young people on all continents who were apathetic and disengaged, or angry and sometimes violent, or deeply depressed. I began talking to them and they all said more or less the same thing: ‘We feel this way because our future has been compromised, and there’s nothing we can do about it.’ And indeed we have compromised their future.
“There is a famous saying,” Jane continued. “We have not inherited the earth from our ancestors we have borrowed it from our children.”
Doug adds,
“And it’s not just from this generation that we are stealing. We are stealing it from all future generations. Some are calling it intergenerational injustice because the children of the future, the people of the future, do not have a vote or a say in our executive boardrooms.”
One of the most successful programs of Jane Goodall Institute is The Roots and Shoots program. The program is based on the understanding that everything is interrelated. Roots and Shoots focuses on education and projects that help make the world a better place for people, animals and the environment. Its main message is that every single individual matters, has a role to play, and makes an impact on the planet – every single day. And we have a choice as to what sort of impact we will make.The program is world-wide. It is local-based. It is hands on. For example, many of the programs involve planting gardens, caring for animals, starting small businesses and getting involved in the political process. She gives many inspiring examples of the people she has met and what these groups are doing to help move the world forward, even when there are hardships and resistance.
Jane says,
“What gives me hope is that everywhere I go, Young people filled with energy want to show me what they’ve done and what they’re doing to make the world a better place. Once they understand the problems and when we empower them to take action, they almost always want to help. And their energy and enthusiasm and creativity are endless.”
Once again Douglas Abrams refers to hope research and hope studies. He shares this outline on page 124
Outline of Hope
- Clear and inspiring goals
- Realistic ways to realize those goals
- Belief that one can attain this goals
- Social support to continue in the face of adversity
In the last couple of years youth have been at the center of such tough issues as climate change and the environmental crisis.
“Fridays for Future” was initiated by Greta Thornberg, the environmental activist who at the age of fifteen started protesting outside the Swedish Parliament with a sign that read SCHOOL STRIKE FOR CLIMATE. Since then Greta has spoken with world leaders and at major conferences, and millions of people have participated in these youth-led climate protests. Jane has met Greta and Douglas wondered what Jane thought of her efforts as well as Greta’s provocative speech at the World Economic Forum when she declared, “Adults keep saying: ‘We owe it to young people to give them hope.’ But I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day, and then I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if our house is on fire. Because it is.” Doug asks Jane what she thinks about Greta’s critique of hope and her belief that fear is a more appropriate response.
“We do need to respond with fear and anger about what is happening,” Jane replied. “Our house is on fire. But if we don’t have hope that we can put the fire out, we will give up. It’s not hope or fear – or anger. We need them all.
Jane’s motto: Only if we can understand, can we care. Only if we care, will we help. Only if we help, shall we be saved.
Back in the early 1990s I had the opportunity to work in the public school system in Aroostook County teaching environmental education on recycling and waste disposal. I worked for the Cooperative Extension Service and helped develop a curriculum called “The Waste Away Program” for grades 4,5 and 6. This was the Cooperative Extension’s version of Jane’s Roots and Shoots, working with youth and seeing the potential of its long range impact for the future.
For example, the 4th grade classes I worked with in 1992 were the future class year 2000, a celebrity class heralded as the future of America as they entered the 21st century. These students were to be the young leaders of our country.
At the time, in 1992, these 4th graders were 4th graders. But now, in 2022, these students have just turned forty years of age and as I reflect on some of my former students, I see that some of them are now educators, health care workers, business leaders, social justice activists, ministers and community leaders. It helps to have an expanded perspective when we work with young people. It has value both at the time and in the future. Investing in our youth is always time and effort well spent.
Jane says that young people today are not just better informed but they’re becoming more engaged in decision-making and in the political process. Roots and Shoots, for example, is more than an environmental program. It’s actually teaching people the values of participation and democracy. Joint discussions joint decisions, doing things together. The full impact, of youth empowerment programs in these countries hasn’t become apparent, she said. “Yet.”
Jane’s “yet” was a powerful reminder that even the most hopeless circumstances can, in time, change. The words “not yet” identify a growth mindset, or the belief that we can change and grow. Children – and adults – who have a growth mindset are much more successful than those who have a fixed mindset about themselves and the world.
Jane says, “I tell them that while they will have to live with the existing system, they can stuck hang on to their values, make some small difference every day, and maintain their hopes for a better future.
Doug replies, “That’s wonderful, but doesn’t it feel like a drop in the ocean, given the overwhelming autocracy or tyranny that people are facing around the world?
Then again, says Jane. Millions of drops actually make an ocean.
Doug smiles and says. Checkmate, Jane…Hope it is.
Two “hope quotes” to end today’s session:
I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death.
– Robert Fulghum
“All cannot be lost when there is still so much being found”
― Lemony Snicket
From our discussion last week during zoom coffee hour:
We also recorded the session on zoom if you would like to see it as it happened. Here is the link:
https://youtu.be/gQPprkl6ly8
Last week during zoom coffee hour we had our first group discussion on the book, using the companion workbook by Easy Growth Publishing.
One of the questions we asked is “Do you consider yourself an optimist or a pessimist?”
If you had to self-select, in which category would you place yourself? And instead of just making it one or the other, we added a sliding scale or a gradient continuum from one to ten; one being most pessimistic and ten being high-end optimistic.
And in different settings or situations your score or rating may change.
As you reflect on your response and your emotional content connected to an event or a challenge you can start to see how we all swing back and forth between various levels of despair and hopefulness.
And secondly, what I’ve noticed in the Jane Goodall book are two basic types of challenges, one being at the personal level and the other being larger stories and challenges at the global level. Each type have their own particular challenge.
The take-home assignment in our zoom coffee hour was too make two separate hope lists; one list of your personal hopes and fears that you have faced or are facing in your life and a second list of the global hopes and fears that you have – as humanity faces challenges now and in the years to come.
Once you have those two lists, go back and apply question one to each item and come up with a score for how hopeful or pessimistic you are on each item. This will give you an idea of what issues are significant for you and how you’re feeling about them.
One of the aims of this book series is to see your hope-score improve (at least a little bit) from the time you start the book and when you finish.
Below, I’ve included a worksheet from the booklet where you take each one of the hopes from your two lists and feed it into the four-step “Outline of Hope.”
Outline of Hope
- Clear and inspiring goals
- Realistic ways to realize those goals
- Belief that one can attain this goals
- Social support to continue in the face of adversity
PRACTICE PIECE FOR THIS WEEK:
How to Drink a Mindful Cup of Tea
BY JOSEPH EMET
A cup of tea or coffee is a nice break. Drinking it mindfully is a real break. Joseph Emet teaches us this five-step practice.
Here is a homemade koan for drinking tea: Who is enjoying this tea?
Ask yourself this question with each sip. When you encounter that person, let them go. You need a break from their story now and then. Otherwise your tea break will not really be a break at all.
Constantly rehearsing the story of our roles, obligations, and commitments wears us down. Yes, we may be mothers, doctors, servers, or office workers, but at the core, we are more than these things. We are “breath-breathing humans,” as the Sufi poet Rumi said. Whatever your story, you are more than that story. Get in touch—and stay in touch—with the breath-breathing human you are as you enjoy your tea.
“Just this,” remind yourself with each sip. “Just this.” Sit and breathe like a flower in a meadow, enjoying the sun.
If you have ever watched one of Thich Nhat Hanh’s talks, you have probably witnessed elements of tea meditation. Halfway through a talk, Thich Nhat Hanh will pause and pour himself a cup of tea. Then, as several hundred listeners watch his every move, he will slowly raise the cup to his lips and enjoy a few unhurried sips. He sometimes holds the cup with both hands as if to illustrate that his whole attention is on it.
Thich Nhat Hanh truly takes a break when he drinks his tea. He is not using the time to prepare his next topic. Paradoxically, taking a true break is more effective than using the time to think of your next move. As you disengage even momentarily from your surface mind, you access deeper layers of your self to include in your discourse or journey. That allows you to talk, move, and act more authentically as a whole person.
Thich Nhat Hanh can do this in the presence of hundreds. See if you can do it when you are having tea with someone (or alone, for that matter). Here’s a five-step practice you can do once your tea is ready.
1. Pause
Take a few moments to sit with your cup of tea before you start drinking it. You want this time to be a meditation break as well as a tea break. Even if you meditated that morning, by 3 p.m. it’s a dim memory. With a few conscious breaths now, you can reconnect with that meditative space.
2. Touch the interbeing nature of the tea
See the soil, rain, and sun that went into creating this drink, and the women and men whose hands harvested, prepared, packaged, shipped, and sold it. “The entire universe can be seen in a flower,” Thich Nhat Hanh wrote in Love Letter to the Earth. This vision is rewarding in itself, and is good training for seeing everything with the same eyes, including the person sitting in front of you.
3. Touch your own interbeing nature
Your stress, happiness, and unhappiness are made up of your opinions and attitudes. In turn, your state of mind affects how others feel around you. Let go of your opinions and attitudes. Feel your stress dissolve. Feel it float away. Feel it drop to the ground.
4. Enjoy the first sips
“To be here and now, and enjoy the present moment is our most important task,” says Thich Nhat Hanh in Being Peace. Let the aroma of the tea fill the space of your mind until there is no room for thoughts. Let the thinking mind become a tea- enjoying mind.
5. Relax and expand your vision
Be silent for the first few sips. Notice how expanding the context of your vision puts your momentary concerns and problems in perspective. When you are relaxed, you are more creative and see more possibilities in each situation. See this moment as an important and productive part of your day. If you can step outside the box for a few moments now, you will return to your task with a fresh mind.Breaks for meditation throughout the day act as pressure valves for emptying your mind and finding freedom. So you can apply these steps to other activities in your daily life, such as eating dinner, washing dishes, or even riding the bus. They are all great opportunities to practice stillness in motion, our natural condition on the spinning earth.
ABOUT JOSEPH EMET
Joseph Emet is a Buddhist teacher and author of Finding the Blue Sky: A Mindful Approach to Choosing Happiness Here and Now (TarcherPerigee).
Jim Holden had a birthday this week. Happy birthday Jim!!!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY Donna Rich! Donna’s birthday was January 31st. Send her a belated card or email greeting this week!
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
Prayers for the easing of tension on the Ukrainian border between Russian, NATO and US
Prayers for all those struggling with discouragement, the winter blues or depression this time of year.
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.
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