Blogs - Chief of Pray Blog

To Jane Goodall:
You’re Not Getting Older, You’re Getting Better

Jane Goodall said that she had 40 years of success, and a lot of what she accomplished she wouldn't have been able to do when she was younger. Jane is the conservationist lady with the chimpanzees and she’s my kind of woman.

I admire Goodall; not because she represents achievement after forty, and not because she’s made a huge contribution to animal welfare. I admire Jane Goodall because she’s a woman who is unafraid to be unconventional. Isn’t that the bonus that comes with getting older?

My girlfriend Debbie, was inspired by the “you’re not getting older you’re getting better” theory. Clairol Loving Care hair color coined that phrase in 1971, and it still rings true today. Debbie put together a list of why she’s better at 56, than she was at 26.

“I can express my opinions and not edit them according to whom I am speaking to.

I can see my mother, when I look in the mirror and feel happy about the vision.

I can discuss politics and current events, because I have read and studied it.”

What’s your list look like? If you’re 26, why are you better now than at 16? If you’re 86, does your list continue to grow? My list is full of unconventional things; they look lame next to Jane Goodall’s examples. Jane’s work was criticized by some because she named individual chimpanzees instead of numbering them. Claiming to see individuality and emotion in chimpanzees, she was accused of "that worst of ethological sins," granting humanity to animals. My big foray into the unconventional, is wearing a fanny pack over a nicely fitting t-shirt.

Maybe, to be fair, I should cite Prayables as my unconventional accomplishment. As a young woman, I would not have been able to start a purely open and loving community where all faiths, practices and beliefs are welcome. Even now, I sometimes have to gulp when I’m talking to certain people about a prayer movement that allows for many definitions of God. Jane and I are in sync it seems.

When asked if she believed in God, Goodall said: "I don’t have any idea of who or what God is, but I do believe in some great spiritual power. I don’t know what to call it. I feel it particularly when I’m out in nature. It’s just something that’s bigger and stronger than what I am or what anybody is. I feel it. And it’s enough for me."

Machinery

Show me my place today.
Let me see that I am not
just witnessing this world.
I am part of it.
All of it.
I am not separate
from Your air or Your animals.
I am not separate
from Your oceans or forests.
I am certainly not separate
from Your humans.
So open my eyes
and show me the cogs that join us.
Let me witness my own rotation
as a cause of spinning gears.
Teach me at last to sustain
and be sustained with perfect respect
for the machine of Your masterful creation.

-Abigail Wurdeman