Remembering Those Who Died - Jane Goodall's Challenge To Us For 2026

As we come to the end of one year and the beginning of another, it seems important to us as humans to think back on the old year in anticipation of the new. We do this in many ways, both personally and corporately. We review the most significant accomplishments of the year globally and individually. We consider the news events that most impacted us. We count down the songs we enjoyed and remember the books we found most captivating.

One of the most compelling annual remembrances to me is recalling the lives of those who died. Personal losses are always close to our hearts and community services of remembrance, sponsored by churches, hospices, and funeral homes, afford us the sacred opportunity to formalize our bereavement. Some of us will call aloud the names of those we miss at more private family gatherings, replete with stories we cherish of their lives with us.

As I recall those we lost globally in the year past, the life of Jane Goodall, English primatologist, anthropologist, and conservationist, comes to my heart. Jane was born on April 3, 1934, in Hampstead, London, UK. I learned of her death on October 1, 2025, in Los Angeles, California, by way of an e-mail from National Geographic. They were offering free access to a 1963 article in their magazine about her life and work at Gombe Stream Game Reserve in Tanzania. I certainly had heard of Jane Goodall and even remember the National Geographic magazine in my childhood home that featured her early work in the Gombe Stream Game Reserve, though I do not recall reading it as I was eight years old at the time of its publication.

But for whatever reason, in an unusual move on my part, I stopped my preparation for Sunday worship on a Saturday evening in early October to read the lengthy article from National Geographic. I am so glad that I did.

My heart had been heavy over repeated assaults on the dignity and value of women reported in the news. And here was the remarkable story of a young woman who courageously followed her dreams against all odds.

The twofold aim of her work at the time of the article’s writing was,

1. To learn about the ways of life of chimpanzees before the encroachment of civilizations crowded out nonhuman competitions.

2. To help us as humans understand ourselves, as we better understand the growth of early human cultures.

Sixty-two years later, these aims are still critical regarding respecting nonhuman life and what it can teach us, and deepening our understanding of our humanity.

A point in the 1963 National Geographic article that seemed both ironic and triumphant to me was that as a single, young woman, Jane was not allowed to go alone to engage in this research, even with the recommendation and support of the eminent paleontologist Dr. Louis Leaky. So, her mother accompanied her. I felt sure it would have been her father or her brother or her uncle or a male friend, but no, it was her mother!

Living as a patient, respectful, thoughtful, and brave outsider in the chimp community for 65 years, Jane, in time, became an insider. She kept copious notes in her journals of how the chimps behaved, day in and day out, and began to note their nature as being mostly gentle, playful, and curious, though chimps could have a dark side. She observed a chimp fashioning a straw of sorts by biting the leaves off a branch and poking it down a termite hole to gather dinner, suggesting that humans are not the only tool makers. She noted that they settled squabbles by loud protest rather than touches. She watched as a chimp would touch the lips of his punishers in the gesture of appeasement.

In the later years of her long and productive life, she translated and expanded the lens of focus of what she had learned from her work with the chimps to other important causes. According to the Jane Goodall Institute, Jane Goodall became “a global advocate for human rights, animal welfare, species and environmental protection, and many other crucial issues.” Her staunch belief was in the fundamental need to respect all forms of life on earth, and she was a great believer in and advocate for hope.

Though she never thought of herself as a feminist role model, according to an article she wrote for Time magazine in March 2018, she has been perceived as such by many and is so for me. She notes that when she was a young girl, she dreamed of being like Dr. Dolittle, Tarzan, and Mowgli in The Jungle Book, because they did the sorts of things she wanted to do and girls were not allowed to do. Her only female hero growing up was her mother, who believed in her completely and told her, “You’ll have to work hard, take advantage of opportunities and never give up,” a message she took to heart and shared with girls and women around the world.

Goodall took issue with some of the early feminist movement approaches of adopting male traits to succeed, and rather confidently emphasized the strengths in more feminine traits. Though questioned by scientists for naming the chimps she observed and assigning so- called human emotions to them, she persisted and was ahead of the science that now studies animal emotions. Believing that females have important perspectives to share in our common goal of creating a better world, Goodall was grateful for the ways in which women, including indigenous and marginalized women, are now raising their voices in solidarity.

Of all the many important things that Jane Goodall said in her remarkable lifetime, this seems most important to me as we stand on the threshold of 2026:

“We have the choice to use the gift of our life to make the world a better place.” - Jane Goodall

I appreciate that she honors our agency as humans to choose how we will respond to our lives. And I am grateful that despite the obstacles she faced in a field of work dominated by men, she persisted. I am most grateful that she engenders hope that we as humans can work together to make the world a better place.

It is my prayer that we will make her challenge our intention in the year before us.

Happy New Year!

Rev. Candace McKibben