Resilience

You can also hear me preach this sermon on Facebook Live on my page.

The scriptures referred to are Philippians 2:1-13.

Victor Frankl was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who was sent to a concentration camp by the Nazis. While there, he noticed something about his fellow sufferers: those who had a reason to live—their loved ones, their work, their faith—tended to survive; those who didn't were more likely to die. Having a purpose in life is essential to life. If the meaning of life is lost, a person will not last long. But if you have a reason why to live, you can endure any how.

A while back some psychologists realized that their focus was almost entirely negative. They were primarily cataloging mental illnesses and studying all the ways that people's mind went wrong; they were not really thinking about the elements that made up good mental health nor the skills it takes to achieve and maintain a good balance mentally. But now they have a great deal of data about the factors that make up happiness. And they have studied resilience, the ability to bounce back from a tragedy or disaster. And I think that we could use a little wisdom about that as we rebuild our homes and community.

There are 6 key elements of resilience according to Jurie Rossouw, CEO of RForce: vision, composure, reasoning, tenacity, collaboration and health.

Your vision is your goal, your sense of purpose. A lot of people just drift through life. Those who have a purpose in life show a 23% reduction in mortality, have a 19% reduction in cardiovascular events, like heart attacks, are 44% less likely to have a stroke, are 2 ½ times more likely to be free of dementia, and tend to live longer. As Christians our goal is to know and become more like Christ. (Philippians 3:10-11) As Paul says in today's New Testament reading, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus...” Paul then goes on to remind us that while he was equal with God, Christ didn't hesitate to let that go and humble himself, becoming a obedient servant of God, even to the point of dying on the cross for us. Our goal is to embody that self-sacrificial love that we see in Jesus. That is our purpose in life and we must make everything in our life congruent with that. Which means we need to prioritize it above everything and jettison that which gets in the way or detracts from or diverts us from achieving that goal.

Another element of resilience is composure, the ability to regulate your emotions, stay calm and in control. Part of this is not letting yourself be overwhelmed by a negative interpretation of events. Your phone says your insurance company is calling. Do you panic, automatically assuming you will get bad news? Or do you remain neutral, answer and find out what they are actually calling about? The first reaction causes your blood pressure to rise, your cortisol levels to go up and makes you suffer over something that may not come to pass. 1 Peter 5:7 tells us to cast our cares on God because he cares for us. Once again in Philippians 4:6-7 Paul says, “Do not be anxious about anything. Instead, in every situation, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, tell your requests to God. And the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

The third element of resilience is reasoning. When people ask me how I can continue to live in a place that has hurricanes, I tell them that they are the only natural disaster that gives you plenty of warning. Earthquakes don't give you much of a warning. Tornadoes give you maybe minutes. With a hurricane, you have a week to prepare. You can see if you are in or on the edge of the cone and on the basis of that, plan your strategy, whether you stay or leave. You have more than enough time to get the water and food and other supplies you will need during and especially afterwards. You can get reservations to a distant hotel or call on far-flung family or friends to stay with. You can find hotels and even shelters that will take pets. A hurricane is something you can anticipate and plan for.

But reasoning doesn't just mean doing what is obvious. Being creative is essential when things are in a state of flux or you don't have what you counted on. You need to be able to think outside the box, to come up with new uses for things that weren't created for that purpose, or go back to an older technique or technology when the current technology fails. On The Takeaway, they were interviewing ham radio operators who can communicate with folks in Puerto Rico when cell phones or official radio systems were knocked out. One guy said part of their slogan was “Semper Gumby—Always be flexible.”

Being resilient means being resourceful: having a wide variety of tools in your mental toolbox so that you can handle almost anything you encounter. If there is more than one way to do something, learn each one. If one technique is not working, switch to another. One thing I have found helpful is recognizing that, when dealing with people, the logically correct way to present information to a person or a group or to obtain it from them is not always the psychologically correct way to do it. Most people are not Mr. Spock or Sherlock Holmes. They can't turn off their emotions. In fact, science has shown that people with damage to the areas of the brain that make us emotional make worse decisions than those with emotions. You have to take the whole person into account. To motivate someone, you need to know not only their actual needs but their desires and fears as well.

In the Bible, this is called wisdom. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” says Proverbs 9:10. Some people don't like the idea of fearing the Lord. Then think of it as having a healthy respect for God, the same way a wise sailor has a healthy respect for the wind and the sea. He doesn't avoid them but he takes them into account in all he does because they are greater and more powerful than he. We need to take God into account in what we do, especially when it comes to how we treat everyone who was made in his image and for whom his son died.

Tenacity is the 4^th key element of resilience, according to Rossouw. If you are going to bounce back after disaster strikes, you need to be persistent. If you give up, then and only then have you been defeated. Jesus preached tenacity in prayer. (Luke 18:1-8) “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be open to you.” (Luke 11:9) Paul spoke of perseverance in the Christian life. In Philippians 3:13-14 he wrote, “Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have attained this. Instead I am single-minded: Forgetting the things that are behind and reaching out for the things that are ahead, with this goal in mind I strive forward toward the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

And being persistent doesn't always mean doing the same thing over and over. Perseverance can also mean trying a lot of different things. Tenacity and flexibility are not opposites.

It also means learning from your mistakes. Learning what doesn't work is valuable too.

Which means you may have to change or modify your objective, if not your ultimate goal. Don't cling to unrealistic expectations. If you have to rebuild, your new home is unlikely to look exactly as your old home did. I would like to walk as I did before my accident. I may never achieve that. But I can always endeavor to walk a bit better than I have been. Sometimes the least naive aspiration is to simply do better. You may never sing like Bryn Terfel or Renee Fleming but you can sing better than you did. A little improvement is better than stagnation or regression. Don't let the best become the enemy of what is better. Momentous change is often the result of a lot of little changes and gradual progress.

The fifth element of resilience is collaboration. There is no such thing as the self-made man. No one has raised themselves from infancy. No one gets ahead without help in the form of family, friends, teachers, mentors, supporters, advisers and collaborators. Smart people know this, acknowledge their debt to others and in turn, support others in their efforts to do well and do good. As it says in Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, “Two people are better than one, because they can reap more benefit from their labor. For if they fall, one will help his companion up, but pity the person who falls down and has no one to help him up. Furthermore, if two lie down together, they can keep each other warm, but how can one person keep warm by himself? Although an assailant may overpower one person, two can withstand him. Moreover, a three-stranded cord is not easily broken.”

Thank God that the Veterans of South Florida and Episcopalians and Lutherans and many others have called me offering help. I don't think we could have done this if we were all on our own. God is love and we are created in the image of God which means we are most like God when we are acting together in love.

Finally, the last element and most vital part of resilience is health. We need to take care of our needs or we will cease to function like a car will without gas or oil or regular maintenance. We need to eat nutritiously, sleep well and long enough and get regular exercise. No surprises here. But we often neglect the essentials. Well, with the stores open and all the food people have donated, it is easy once again to eat well. And right now, everyday life is giving us all quite a workout. What's hard is being able to take a rest.

And quite frankly, it can be hard to get to sleep or stay asleep right now. Worries and fears and pain and sorrow and discomfort can make it difficult for the mind to calm itself enough and the body to relax enough for sleep. Psalm 127:2 says, “It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.” Psalm 3:5 says, “I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the Lord sustained me.” Psalm 4:8 says, “In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.” Knowing God is there for you and in control can help you sleep.

Ever since my accident I have made it my practice to pray myself to sleep. I pray for everyone and everything I can. And it helps to list all the things you are grateful for, at least 3 to 5 each night, whether large or small. In the midst of so much that is wrong, we need to consciously bring to mind the things that are right with us. You are alive. You are able to hear (or read) and understand my words. You are able to pray. You know people who love and support you. Maybe the weather was good today for what you had to do, or someone was nice to you, or you learned something useful, or something made you laugh, or a good memory rose up and made you smile. Thank God for every little blessing.

Paul was imprisoned often, beaten 3 times with a rod, whipped 5 times, stoned almost to death, endured 3 shipwrecks and was tormented by some affliction, either spiritual or physical, which he called a “thorn in the flesh.” (2 Corinthians 11:23-12:10) And yet he was able to write from prison that “I have experienced times of need and times of abundance. In any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of contentment, whether I go satisfied or hungry, have plenty or nothing. I am able to do all things through the one who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:12-13)

Tragedy and disaster figure into every life. If we don't wish to be permanently broken, if we want to come back and keep going forward, we need a vision of the God of love seen in Jesus and the goal of becoming like him. We must learn to stay calm, use our heads, be persistent, collaborate with others, and maintain our physical and spiritual health.

And don't think that being resilient means you never cry or get stressed out or feel sad. Jesus did all of those things. Being resilient is about bouncing back. A ball can't bounce back if it doesn't hit bottom or run into a brick wall.

Those are the 6 elements of resilience that Rossouw enumerates. I want to add one more: a sense of humor. Isaac Asimov thought that jokes rely on a sudden shift in our perspective. A seemingly serious question is answered by a silly pun. A child's viewpoint punctures the pretensions of adults or upends the traditional way of looking at something. Or you suddenly see something you've taken for granted in such an odd way that you laugh. Contrary to what some puritanical types think, the Bible approves of laughter. Proverbs 17:22 tells us that a merry heart is good medicine. Isaac's name means laughter. The psalms often depict God as laughing. Jesus frequently uses ridiculous pictures in his parables such as people walking around with beams of wood in their eyes, camels trying to squeeze through the eyes of sewing needles and hypocrites removing gnats from their drinks and then swallowing camels. These are so familiar we forget how the first people who heard them must have reacted. And in Luke 6:21, Jesus says, “Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.”

Because the history of the world is a comedy, in the classic sense that it has a happy ending coming up. Say that and the world's serious thinkers will think you are absurd. In fact it is the world which is absurd. Its values are topsy-turvy, treasuring temporary things like money and possessions above eternal things like people. The serious thinkers can't see the comedy because unlike us, they either don't know the ending or don't believe it will happen. And indeed, most comedies look like tragedies if you walk out before the end. Usually in comedies things get worse and worse for the hero until the end where he manages to suddenly pull it all together, triumph and get what he has wanted and worked for all along. God wants the world that he created as a paradise be set right again. One day God will flip the present status quo, the last will be first, the first will be last, evil will be defeated, good will be rewarded, a prince will marry his lovely bride and it will all end in a glorious wedding feast. (I think the fairy tales cribbed their imagery from Revelation.)

Jesus told us things would get better if we held out till the end. To do that you need resilience. For that you need Jesus. He turned the worst thing in the world into the best thing for the world. He bounced back from betrayal, torture and death. With his help we can bounce back from anything. Even this.