Tears.
My heart is broken open... Jane Goodall's prayer
is
also my deep prayer.... ❤ Molly
BY JANE GOODALL
I have spent many years learning about chimpanzees and been
amazed at the many similarities between them and us (biologically we differ in
the composition of our DNA by only just over one percent). But in one way there
is a profound difference because, although chimpanzees are remarkably
intelligent, we can hardly compare even the brightest with the human who can
design a rocket that can reach the planet Mars, or with an Einstein or a
Shakespeare.
So how shocking that we, the most intellectual creature that
has ever walked the planet, is destroying that planet. It is the only home we
have and yet, with no thought for future generations, we are destroying the
environment all around the globe. Clear cutting forests, draining wetlands,
creating vast areas of monoculture crops were once the grasslands and meadows
held sway. We are mining for fossil fuels or minerals even in the most fragile
ecosystems. We are contaminating the land and the water and the very air we breathe
with agricultural, industrial and household chemical poisons as well as
plastics that never break down.
Our human waste and that from factory farmed animals is
washed into rivers by the rains and ends up in the increasingly polluted
oceans, adding to the devastation caused by over fishing. Greenhouse gases
(CO2, methane and oxygen nitrate), mostly the byproducts of destroying the
forests, and of the reckless burning of fossil fuels and industrial
agriculture, are trapping the heat of the sun. Climate change is wreaking havoc
on plant and animal life as a result of warmer climates and more extreme
weather patterns. Ice is melting and ocean levels rising, and as permafrost
melts vast quantities of stored CO2 are released into the atmosphere.
We are doing all this, and much more. No wonder we are losing
biodiversity. No wonder we are in the midst of the 6th great extinction of plant and
animal life. Everywhere Mother Earth is crying out for mercy, for help. Praying
that we show compassion for the suffering of so many living beings in the plant
and animal worlds, for the humans living in poverty, enslaved, abused, forced
from their homes by war or poverty or climate change, and for generations of
beings as yet unborn. For we are using up the finite natural resources of our
planet faster than they can be replenished – and our population is still
growing.
Today, let us join a growing number of those who are
working to save the wonders of the world. Let us pray for a growing awareness
of the fact that each one of us must do our part in creating a better world,
for though the small choices we make each day – what we buy, what we eat, what
we wear – may seem insignificant, the cumulative effect of billions of people
making ethical choices, will start to heal the natural world. And let us pray
that those of us who have, do something each day to help those who have so
little, that they too are able to make ethical choices rather than choices
based on the need to survive another day.
I believe in the power of prayer. It serves to strengthen my
resolve, it helps me to keep on fighting for the environment even when at times
it seems that nothing can prevail against the greed and corruption of many of
those in positions of power. And then I pray that we may find a way to reach
their hearts. For, whatever the odds against us, we must go on with the
struggle to save as much as we can of that which we love – the beauty of the
forests and woodlands, the grasslands and moors, the mountains and the oceans,
the parks and gardens and roadside verges where wild flowers are allowed to
grow to provide nectar for the bees and butterflies.
So on this day, I am praying to the great spiritual power
that I feel so strongly in the wild places, to give me the strength to play my
part, to continue spreading awareness that each one of us has a role to play,
that each action is important no matter how small it may seem. This is my
prayer.
Please go here for the original: http://news.janegoodall.org/2017/09/01/world-day-of-prayer-for-the-care-of-creation/
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