A Prayer For World Peace, Jane Goodall and Feeroozeh Golmohammadi(illustrator), Hong Kong: Minedition, 2015

We pray, above all, for Peace throughout the world.

I happened upon it in Northshire Books a couple of months back, this illustrated prayer of Jane Goodall. These are the opening words. They come from a remarkable woman who has spent the majority of her life seeking deep knowledge about chimpanzees, adjusting her whole life to respectful observation and interaction with our evolutionary cousins. It isn’t just research, though, it’s a labor of love – meaning good things for another species and sacrificing to bring them about. And from this devotion the rest of humanity caught a glimpse of the holiness of another species; from this, all people were offered the chance to value and honor life beyond their own.

I think this is how we learn to pray for peace above all: becoming aware of the holiness of others and valuing it enough to stand up for it.