As we are starting to wrap-up our eight part series on “The Book of Hope” we take a look at some of the challenging questions that this study has raised and we summarize the creative tools of hope that Jane offers in this book. We also hear “A Message of Hope from Jane” as she challenges us to continue the good and hopeful work.
We are also meeting for our second group discussion of the book during this week’s zoom coffee hour. You’ll find “The 4 Tough Questions” we’re going to discuss during zoom in today’s supplemental material. We will be recording the zoom session on a private link for those who cannot make it to the zoom coffee hour and would like to view it at a later time.
The service will be available at 10AM on our YouTube Channel. You’ll find the links listed below.
Have a good week-end everyone.
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: UUcoffee hour and check-inTime: Feb 20, 2022 11:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meetinghttps://us06web.zoom.us/j/89696774681?pwd=ZEZ5MTFZRkxUTS9BOHpDdFo4b01Cdz09
Meeting ID: 896 9677 4681Passcode: 579750
Virtual Offering Plate
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Here is a recent article from YES Magazine that relates to our book series on hope. Jane Goodall refers to “eco-grief” as a growing factor as humanity begins to come to terms with the extent of our ecological problems. This article is written by Morgan Florsheim and I quote her in this week’s session.
Don’t Tell Me to Despair About the Climate: Hope Is a Right We Must Protect
Recently I read an essay that kept me up at night. The piece, Under the Weather by climate journalist Ash Sanders, left me with an unsettled feeling in the pit of my stomach that I found myself struggling to shake, even weeks later.
The personal essay tells the story of Sanders and a mentor of hers, Chris Foster. Sanders recounts how both she and Foster have struggled for much of their adult lives with a gripping sense of impending doom, a depression deeply tied to their grief for a world lost. She writes about the newly coined terms for environmentally related mental health problems—eco-anxiety, climate grief, pre-traumatic stress disorder—and suggests that these conditions should not necessarily be viewed as disorders, but rather as the only reasonable response to a world experiencing catastrophe.
She tells the stories of people whose experiences of living have been ruled by this extreme grief, to the point of burnout or withdrawal from society—people whose climate depression has made their lives feel “unbearable.” When Sanders asks Foster if he believes he is sick, he replies, “I don’t know. But I know this: If your heart is breaking, you’re on my team.”I am tired of being told that this world I was handed is irrevocably broken.
After reading those final words, I set the book that contained the essay down on my bedside table, suddenly wide awake and reeling. It’s not that I don’t empathize with Sanders. Since I was a teenager, I’ve known that I want to be a part of the fight against climate change and environmental injustice. I know firsthand the realities of mental health struggles, and I know what it is to feel climate anxiety, even climate grief. I know that someone like Sanders or Foster, who has been doing climate work much longer than I have, is likely to experience these emotions to a much higher degree. I am not naive to the incredible task of building a more equitable, safe, and thriving future. Sometimes (often) it overwhelms me.
But equally, I know what it is to watch someone you love feel crushed by the weight of the world, and to feel helpless in lifting that burden. I’m 22, barely out of college, and already I have seen more friends than I could have ever imagined fall into deep depression, magnified by their care for the world and the way they felt helpless to stop the suffering within it. I know the way depression closes a person off to the good and spotlights the bad, how it sows seeds of shame and self-doubt and sits back to watch them grow. I wish that I didn’t. Depression tells us that we are at once powerless and culpable, and therefore the only logical response is to disengage, turn inward, eschew connection—a response which only serves to reinforce the oppressive systems like racial injustice and capitalism that are truly responsible for our suffering.
In her essay, Sanders described an interaction Foster had with a student who began to cry in one of his lectures as Foster categorized a goal carbon dioxide target of below 350 parts per million as “hopeless.” The student asked the question, “If I didn’t have hope, how could I live?” and Foster’s instinct was to respond with, “Exactly.” Sanders says Foster knows his attitude “doesn’t make him easy to be around,” but she brushes past what I would argue is the larger issue—that the peddling of despair is unproductive, if not downright irresponsible.Where is the joy or satisfaction in fighting for a world that is already damned?
Even without professors who declare doom, a hopeless attitude toward the world is already pervasive in communities of young people, both on social media and in person. I’ve seen it in my peers, my friends, my partners. On college campuses, cynicism is sometimes equated to intelligence. To be optimistic, I’ve been told on multiple occasions, is to be willingly naive. But while misery may love company, it doesn’t always leave space for joy. I was made to feel guilty for feeling happiness in a world of darkness. Whether this cynicism is a symptom or the cause of an increase in mental health issues in young people, we know this: The rate of major depression in adolescents increased more than 50% between 2005 and 2017, and the rate of moderate to severe depression in college students nearly doubled between 2007 and 2018.
My generation, unlike Sanders’ or Foster’s, was born into a world where the climate crisis was already well underway. We’ve had it hanging over our heads our whole lives. I am tired of being told that this world I was handed is irrevocably broken. I understand that the climate leaders from generations past are tired too, and that the decades of work have disheartened some. The youth climate movement deserves hope and optimism regardless. To imply the impossibility of a livable future or teach a class on catastrophe without giving students the tools to emotionally process the content suggests not a radical awareness of the mental health issues discussed in Under the Weather but rather a blindness to them. We cannot expect people to take care of the world when they are not given the resources to take care of themselves.
The hypothesis known as “depressive realism” theorizes that people with depression see the world more accurately than their peers, that they are simply unfettered by positive cognitive biases. I don’t think it matters whether or not the theory of depressive realism is accurate. (Science suggests it is not). I find it to be unhelpful, maybe even dangerous. If we view depression as an inescapable side effect of living in a damaged world, it may suggest to some that it is pointless to do the things necessary to take care of oneself, or that it is selfish to allow yourself rest while injustice persists and the seas continue to rise.Doom and gloom do not a movement make.
Neither of those things is true. Whatever the root of depression, its symptoms can be treated. This isn’t to say that all it will take is a few therapy sessions to stop being overwhelmed by global catastrophe, and much work must be done to ensure that everyone can have access to treatment. But you don’t have to be in crisis to seek help. And we don’t have to ignore reality to live fulfilling, happy, and productive lives. The suggestion that a person must either be miserable or ignorant, that we must either accept the weight of the world or turn our backs to it, not only lacks nuance but actively contributes to the suffering its proponents claim to want to address.
And if we really want to make progress on the climate front? Research by experts on climate change communication suggests, perhaps unsurprisingly, that people respond poorly to hopeless depictions of catastrophe. Suggesting readers should be depressed about the future results in more apathy than action. In other words, doom and gloom do not a movement make. Where is the joy or satisfaction in fighting for a world that is already damned? I want a different narrative to follow, one that encourages self-care alongside activism, that works intentionally to foster excitement for the future we desire.
We’re talking about degrees here, literally, so there is no point at which we can no longer strive to make the future better than it otherwise would be. To Sanders and Foster, I say this: Tell me of your despair, but don’t tell me to despair. The question of whether it is the world or the person who is ailing is too simple. The world is sick but it is not only sick. We all need healing.Hope is not a happy accident. Hope is a right we must protect.
In one of my final college classes over Zoom in spring 2020, my professor, environmental anthropologist Myles Lennon, led us through a discussion of Braiding Sweetgrass, the awe-inspiring book by Indigenous scholar Robin Wall Kimmerer. Kimmerer writes of the endurance of Indigenous people: “despite exile, despite a siege four hundred years long, there is something, some heart of living stone, that will not surrender.” The climate crisis is not the first time a people has faced the end of the world. As we navigate this latest existential threat, we would do well to listen to Kimmerer and other Indigenous leaders. As my professor put it that day, existence can cohabitate with collapse. It is not one or the other.
I have a lot of decisions ahead of me. As I consider how I want to live my life, where to dedicate my energy, I refuse to accept the idea that I must sacrifice all joy to attend to the world’s problems. I know myself to be more helpful when I have addressed my own needs: needs for good food and good company, for hope, for long afternoons in the sunshine. I am grateful for the teachers that I have had in this movement, such as professor Lennon, and the people who have reminded me of all the reasons to imagine a brighter future. I know that hope is not a happy accident. Hope is a right we must protect. Hope is a discipline, according to Mariame Kaba, an organizer and educator building the movement for transformative justice.
The climate crisis is ongoing. And, also, a bird is building a nest in the eaves outside my window. Come spring, there will be new birth. In shaky hands, I hold these two truths together.
 | MORGAN FLORSHEIM is a writer, educator, and optimist specializing in the natural world, the intersections between environmental and social justice work, bodies, human relationships, and more. She has been published in Entropy Magazine, Sidereal Magazine, and Hobart. Morgan is based in Nashville, TN and speaks English. |
Session Six Supplemental Material
The Book of Hope (part 6)The Lifelong Journey
Today we are beginning the third and final section of the book; Becoming a Messenger of Hope. For a quick review, the first section was “What is Hope?” and the second section was Jane’s four reasons for hope in a changing and challenging world. In this final section she shares from her own life experience and challenges us to do the same, finding the specific role of hope in our experience.
And as if there weren’t enough problems already, while Abrams and Jane Goodall were working on the manuscript for this book, the coronavirus pandemic struck. Doug had planned to travel to Jane’s childhood home in Bournemouth, England to conduct the final interview for this chapter when their plans were unexpectedly changed by circumstances beyond their control. Instead, the interview was conducted via Zoom with Jane in England and Doug in California. Here is how Doug opens the chapter.
Seeing Jane’s face, albeit on a screen, was a warm ray of hope in the midst of my grief. Her gray hair was pulled back into her typical ponytail, and she was dressed in the same green safari shirt that she had worn in Tanzania. She looked like a wilderness guide; and, indeed, during our work on the book, she had taken me to many of the most beautiful aspirations and darkest fears of our world and our own human nature, as we were tracking hope and confronting despair.
Like many of us during covid, those of us working at home converted our home-space into creatively modified work-space. Jane’s office was now in her attic with multi-use as a zoom studio, living space and bedroom. There’s a photo in the book showing Jane in her work-space, seated behind her laptop computer which is sitting on top of a hard covered book, which is perched on top of a small crate which is on top of a small wooden desk. All this just to get your video camera at the right height for a zoom meeting. A trip around her office shows photos, souvenirs and momentos from a lifetime of travel and her box of treasures which she shares with Doug, some of which she uses in her lectures and presentations.
One of her most famous stuffed animals is Mr. H a little chimp holding a banana. You’ll find a picture of Mr H on page 185
Jane says,
Mr. H has now been with me to sixty-one countries, and he’s been touched by at least two million people because I tell them the inspiration will rub off on them. And let me share a secret that I tell the children: every night Mr. H eats a banana, but since it’s a magic banana, it’s always right there again in the morning. (Jane smiles a mischievous smile)
Children are always a large part of Jane Goodall’s mission. The early formative years are essential to not only young chimpanzees but human children too. These early events of our life form who we are and who we are to become. Jane’s childhood is no different and she shares several stories about her family and early memories, one of them being World War Two.
Growing up during World War Two taught me so much – I learned the value of food and clothes because everything was rationed. And I learned about death and the harsh realities of human nature – love, compassion, courage on the one hand; brutality and unbelievable cruelty on the other. This dark side was strikingly revealed to me at a young age…And the defeat of Nazi Germany – well, there could be no better example of how victory can be won, even when defeat seems inevitable if the enemy is confronted boldly and with great courage.
Then Jane lists several of her personal challenges that were part of her “life curriculum” as she calls it; early ill health, dangers in Africa (leopards, buffalo, snakes), lack of concrete results from her work in order to get continued funding, and then political and legislative challenges involving the medical testing of chimpanzee in labs, hunting practices in Africa, conservation issues, wide-spread poverty and economic limits.
Yet, Jane found surprising (and unexpected) success on many of these issues. Doug noted that Jane has a proven skillset and strategy for tackling problems that appear insoluble.
Here are four of them.
- Determination (or as Jane might say her obstinance)
- Ability to inspire
- Find allies to assist in the cause. Gain assistance from those in the best position to bring about change.
- Trust the process (Timing and results are beyond our control)
Even when she has personal reservations or doubts about the process, she has learned to keep moving forward, oftentimes, even she is surprised by the results.
When asked why she thinks she is so successful in her efforts she replies,
I know now that people want to hear someone speaking truthfully about what we are doing wrong, especially when they can be reassured that there is a way out of the mess we have made. They want to hear people who speak from the heart. They want to be given reasons for hope. But even knowing that, I still get nervous…People realize that I am sincere. I unflinchingly lay out the grim factors – because people need to know. But then, when I lay out reasons for hope, as I have done in this book, they get the message and realize that there really could be something better if we get together in time. (And) Once they realize that their life can make a difference, thy have acquired a purpose. And as we’ve said earlier, having a purpose makes all the difference.
The rest of the chapter covers two side-issues that came up during the interview that Doug didn’t expect, but proved quite interesting to hear Jane’s views and experience: One was God or spirituality and the second was death and the after-life.
Jane says,
When you talk about spirituality , many people are uneasy or absolutely put off. They think of a touch-feely tree-hugging hippie sort of thing. Yet more and more people are now realizing that we have become increasingly materialistic and that we need to reconnect spiritually with the natural world. I agree – I think there is a yearning for something beyond thoughtless consumerism. In a way, our disconnect with nature is very dangerous. We feel we can control nature – we forget that, in the end, nature controls us…Spiritual evolution is about meditating on the mystery of creation and the Creator, asking who we are and why we are here and understanding how we are part of the amazing natural world – Shakespeare says it beautifully when he talks of seeing ‘books in the running brooks, sermons in stones and good in everything.’ I get a sense of all of this when I stand transfixed, filled with wonder and awe at some glorious sun set or the sun shining through the forest canopy while a bird sings, or when I lie on my back in some quiet place and look up and up and into the heavens as the stars gradually emerge from the fading of day’s light…Once when I was alone in the forest, I suddenly thought that perhaps there was a spark of that spiritual power in all life. We humans, with our passion for defining things have named that spark in ourselves as our soul or spirit or psyche. But as I sat there, embraced by all the wonder of the forest, it seemed that that spark animated everything from the butterflies that fluttered past to the giant trees with their garlands of vines.
As she and Doug continue their conversation she confides with Doug that she truly welcomes the recent convergence of science and religion and spirituality.
On death and dying Jane responded,
Well, when you die, there’s either nothing, in which case, fine, or there’s something. If there’s something, which I happen to believe, what greater adventure can there be than finding out what it is? I sometimes think that what’s happening in the world is just a test. Imagine Saint Peter at the gate to heaven getting out a computer printout of our time on Earth and checking to see if we used the gifts we were given at birth to try to do good!
Being Jewish, Doug shares the famous Jewish story about Rabbi Zusha who was crying on his deathbed. When asked why he was crying, he said, “I know God is not going to ask me why I was not more like Moses or more like King David. He’s going to ask me why I was not more like Zusha. Then what will I say?”
It’s all absolutely fascinating, isn’t it? says Jane. Unfortunately this adventure will have to wait till I’m dead…
Doug responds,I’ve had my brain challenged, my heart opened, and my hope renewed.
Then Janes takes her laptop over to the window and shows Doug her favorite tree since childhood, her beech tree in the backyard…
He says, “Maybe someday when this pandemic is behind us I can join you for a sandwich under Beech.”
“We can always hope,” says Jane.“Well,” says Doug. “I think that has to be the perfect quote to end our conversation for the day.”
In the last paragraph of the chapter Doug writes,
After we waved goodbye and I closed may laptop, I thought of Jane on the other side of the world. For this day her work was over, but I knew that it would start again the next – Zooms and Skypes, taking her message of hope around a world that needed that message so desperately. “Good luck, Jane,” I thought. And I felt another hope rise in me, that she would have the strength to continue for many more years. And I knew that there would be a day when she would begin her next great adventure, binoculars and notebook at the ready. And that indomitable human spirit in all of us would finish whatever she could not.
With that, let us end our session for today. Peace and hope to each of you.
**
There will be a zoom coffee hour group discussion on Sunday, February 20 at 11AM. For those who can’t make it in this time-slot we will be recording the session to be viewed at your convenience. Here are the four questions we’ll be taking a look at during the session as well as getting your feed-back on how the series was for you.
4 tough questions?
1. Is hope a realistic approach?2. How bad could it possibly get?3. How do we counter-act the negativity?4. Is there hope for the future?
Hope Quotes
Here are a collection of “hope quotes” that I didn’t use in the eight-part series, but they are still good quotes that you might want to add to your file.
A strong mind always hopes, and has always cause to hope. Thomas Carlyle
Critical thinking without hope is cynicism. Hope without critical thinking is naïveté. Maria Popova
Hope has a cost. Hope is not comfortable or easy. Hope requires personal risk. It is not about the right attitude. Hope is not about peace of mind. Hope is action. Hope is doing something. The more futile, the more useless, the more irrelevant and incomprehensible an act of rebellion is, the vaster and more potent hope becomes.
Rev. Chris Hedges
“The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.” ― Barack Obama
“TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.” ― Howard Zinn
“A great hope fell
You heard no noise
The ruin was within.” ― Emily Dickinson
“To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.” ― G.K. Chesterton
“Those who make us believe that anything’s possible and fire our imagination over the long haul, are often the ones who have survived the bleakest of circumstances. The men and women who have every reason to despair, but don’t, may have the most to teach us, not only about how to hold true to our beliefs, but about how such a life can bring about seemingly impossible social change. ”
― Paul Rogat Loeb, The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen’s Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear
Studs Terkel 1912-2008 Oral historian and Chicago based broadcast journalistHope Dies Last: Keeping the Faith in Difficult Times (2003)
Interview in The Sun MagazineMichael Shapiro: Just one last question: Are you still hopeful about this country?Studs Terkel: You know what, whether I want to be or not, I have to be. It’s as simple as that.
Joys & Concerns
When one of us is blessed we are all blessed.
When one of us experiences sorrow we all feel the pain.
Congratulations and Happy Anniversary to Jim and Dale Holden on their 28th wedding anniversary that they recently celebrated!!
Congratulations to a new local business that opened last week-end, The Shirewood Smokehouse on upper Military Street (Where Nan’s convenience store was previously located). Stop by to show your support and try some amazing smoked meats.
the smoker is named “Marge”
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 our members and friends in the Gardiner Health Care Facility, and Madigan Estates.
Prayers for refugees in Eastern Europe, Central America and for those along our southern border
Concerns regarding the new covid variant Omicron
Prayers for the easing of tension on the Ukrainian border between Russia, NATO and US
Prayers for all those struggling with discouragement, the winter blues or depression this time of year.
Prayers for the family of Leola Bishop during this time of loss and grief
Prayers for truckers, protesters and law enforcement involved in the stand-offs in Ottawa and other Canadian locations. We pray for peaceful and non-violent actions.
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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