Several weeks ago my dental hygienist chatted with me while I was there for my regular appointment. My acquaintance with her is limited to an every-six-months visit, so I was startled when she calmly revealed she’d had a double breast mastectomy just two months earlier. I couldn’t believe her cheerful spirit and the energy this woman exuded as she went about her tasks. I left the office marveling at such a resilient spirit.
A few days later I was looking at remarkably healthy pole-beans growing on my friend’s back yard deck. When I commented on their verdant green, Judy smiled and told me how the bean seeds had been in a jar in her basement for at least ten years. “I decided to take a chance and see if they would grow,” Judy explained. Alive and vibrant, the plants were now stretching upward toward the sunlight.
On the way home I remembered something I’d written in Boundless Compassion:
When primatologist, Jane Goodall, was interviewed in 2013, she referred to a scientific discovery showing the extraordinary ability of Earth and humans to sustain life. She spoke about “the scientists who drilled down into the permafrost and brought up the remains of an Ice Age squirrel’s nest. In the plant material, they found three living cells and from those living cells they managed to recreate the plant, which was a meadow’s wheat. It’s 32,000 years old, but it’s now growing and seeding and reproducing. That’s the resilience of nature, the incredible human brain, and the indomitable human spirit.”
The morning following my visit with Judy, I watched a segment of Steve Hartman’s “Kindness 101,”on CBS. In the length of a few minutes Hartman, along with his young daughter and son, shared a story about “Justice” in which a nine year old girl named Sarah persistently researched the hidden story of Edwin T. Pratt whose work toward desegregation had gifted her city. That brief episode filled me with a renewed sense of the good in our world—the persistence of humans to assist us in sustaining hope when negative events submerge us in emotional distress.
Inner strength is certainly much needed these days with so much hurt and pain due to homicides from gun violence in the USA, particularly the recent horrific killings of the children and teachers in Uvalde, Texas. Grief counselors know that when children die their parents do not “get over” the loss; they do somehow manage “to go through it”—and gradually learn how to exist with their heartache. A father some years ago described his son’s death to me as “having a net in your heart torn open and there’s no way to mend it.” This parent’s resilient spirit did enable him to slowly trudge through his pain, eventually reuniting with inner peace as he adjusted to the ongoing anguish from his son’s death.
This coming Sunday those of us who are Christian will celebrate the major feast of Pentecost. We will be reminded of the bereft disciples of Jesus and their severe loss. We will then be invited into their radical re-birthing of hope by reflecting on how the Spirit of Love arrived and resuscitated their inner strength. How about you? In what ways have you experienced the benefits of a resilient spirit?
Abundant peace,
Joyce Rupp
