In a time when radical changes are occurring in our inner and outer landscapes, we need to surrender ourselves to the ways in which we are bound to one another and the cosmos. With January’s events in Minneapolis, we are weary from all we hear on the news and social media, and we experience a paradoxical state of anxiety and worry and yet the belief in and hope for restoration. This is the time to embody resilience in our thoughts, emotions and actions. We must also reject the myth of resilience being an individualistic endeavor.
No one is resilient alone or in all times and situations. Rather resilience is a dynamic process in which we can take turns being resilient for one another. Author and activist, Soraya Chemaly, teaches us to lean into our greatest assets for resilience which are: interdependence, collective versatility, and shared care. She tells us to ignore the messages that glorify self-sufficiency and limitless positivity and instead lean into shared care and being resilience for one another. When one of us is feeling immobilized by anxiety or sadness, others can take up the cause for a time and then switch so that all have time for rest as well as action.
Last week’s interfaith demonstrations in Minneapolis, where over 100 Unitarian Universalist (UU) clergy and hundreds of UU laypeople were present, protesters held the vision and hope for one another. Those of us participating in the February 12th Faith in Action Day in Olympia will be doing the same as we support legislation that upholds the inherent worth and dignity of every person and the democratic process that should represent all.
Resilience is not bouncing back from an experience or pushing through it. Rather it is allowing the experience to change us. What happens to us becomes a part of us. Resilient people do not ‘bounce back’ from hard life events, rather they find healthy ways of integrating those experiences into their being. That is why, as Chemaly reminds us, we must think about our resilience as related to community. Community is often where healing occurs. It is the container for transforming from pain and worry to the knowledge that this too will pass and we will manage in the day to day until change comes.
To be resilient is to proclaim that our love and legacies of love shall endure and make changes in our lives, our families, communities, and our world. May we embody resilience each time we persevere. May our resilience create ripples of possibility for those who seek us. As beacons for sanctuary and liberation. ~ Rev. Rebekah Savage