I have been thinking a lot about resilience lately. What with the war in Ukraine, climate change with its unpredictable weather patterns, and Covid 19, along with its capacity to morph into different variants, I have been reflecting on what the invitation is for me, in these times. Clearly, the invitation is to call on my reserves of resilience.
I have come to appreciate that resilience grows with us as we face into life’s challenges. We are given opportunities to filter our life experience because it carries grace and learnings which ground us in our present reality. The texts of our lives are sacred and I learn yet again to trust life and to trust my resilient spirit.
Doreen Kostynuik, a spiritual director in Canada, helped me to grow in the belief that it is the divine impulse in us that gives us direction in life. Over the years I have come to recognize that such authentic authority “authors” life. This divine impulse in us becomes our lode star and invites us to a disposition of seeing the entire world as charged with Divine energy. As we cooperate with this Divine energy we become co-responsible for the unfolding growth and transformation of the world in which we find ourselves.
Such energy is the substance of resilience and becomes a tool for transformation. The words of Leonard Cohen come to mind:
I greet you from the other side of sorrow and despair with a love so vast and shattered it will reach you everywhere.
We are awakened to more of hope and a tenacious strength of spirit that empowers us to tend and sustain it.
Life is a thin thread
A movement, a colour, a word
Life is the unbearable light, swift and sure,
The soft, pink and orange hues as the sun comes up over the horizon
Only to slip away in eventide;
Life is the fine, balanced point of the ballet dancer holding us in a moment of time;
Life…the fine, filigree branches laced together against the cloudy sky of a winter’s day;
Life…the intentional step of the body having suffered a stroke,
One foot in front of the other, the other in front of the one foot,
only to return from her daily walk in full radiance.
Christina Cathro is a New Zealander and a Sister of Our Lady of the Missions (RNDM). She holds an MA in Formative Spirituality from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh and a Doctor of Ministry from the Toronto School of Theology.
Christina is an educator. Besides teaching, her ministry has included being RNDM novice director in New Zealand, and serving as spiritual director, retreat leader, and group facilitator in several countries. She has additionally served on both the RNDM Canadian and New Zealand Leadership Teams.
To all her involvements, Christina brings a passionate sensitivity for beauty and transformation. She carries a strong sense of the Spirit working with, in, and among us, to create a world where all of life is able to flourish.
I love the image of this woman “step by resilient step” walking into “full radiance!” Very moving! Thank you dear Christina!
Your analogies about life in your closing poem are breathtaking, and I find myself often returning to them for inspiration.
Your words, “I have come to appreciate that resilience grows with us as we face into life’s challenges” bring my thoughts to plants and how gardeners are taught to “harden off” seedlings that we have started in the protected environment of an indoor plant stand or greenhouse. Hardening off involves exposing the young plants to the harsher elements of sunshine, wind, heat and cooler night temperatures over a period of 2 or more weeks, slowly increasing their time in the elements over this period. As the plants endure these challenges, they adapt to these outdoor conditions and eventually, thrive in them. Until I read your piece, Christina, I hadn’t made the connection to my own “hardening off” too. Thank you for this insight!