The Invisible Garment by Connie Kaplan – Principle 8: Goodness

I remember seeing a story on the news a few years ago. A young boy had fallen into the gorilla habitat at a zoo. The fall apparently knocked him unconscious. His parents and a crowd gathered round watched, holding their breath as the female gorilla approached the child. To everyone’s amazement, rather than harming him as they feared, she picked him up tenderly, and took him into her living quarters where she tended him until the zoo keepers (with whom she was familiar) came to take him. Who among us watched that story without shedding just a few sweet tears? I wondered, if she hadn’t known and trusted the zoo keepers who came for the boy, would she fiercely have protected him? Did we anthropomorphize the gorilla, projecting human maternal qualities onto her? Or did we simply bear witness to Goodness, emerging in the animal kingdom? I think it was the latter. I think when we see Goodness, it moves us to the core of our being. Perhaps more than any other principle, it reminds us of who we are.