“Grief and resilience live together.”
— Michelle Obama, Becoming
It’s time to unwrap another gift . . .
Today, I offer you the simple gift of RESILIENCE.
This year, I feel like I have exercised my “resilience muscles” like never before. I thought I was getting “good at” dealing with disappointment, loss, and heartache by now. But I’m not, actually. And this weekend . . . reminded me of that.
I have a collection of writers I tend to read whenever I need a boost of resilience. Mary Oliver, Kate Bowler, and Margaret Renkl to name a few. They remind me – like the Michelle Obama quote I used at the beginning of this post today – that grief and resilience, loss and love . . . go hand in hand.
A few years ago, Margaret Renkl gave the baccalaureate address at the University of the South (you can read the address here). Here are a few of her words from that address . . . which struck me as a particular “resilence boost” yesterday.
“The years have shown me that hardship is only one part of life, and not remotely the largest part. Hardship always lives side by side with happiness. Pain always finds its fullest partner in joy. Love takes many forms, some of them surprising, and people are almost always kinder than we expect. The world is beautiful. And most people are good.”
— Margaret Renkl
And, as you may expect from Margaret Renkl, she went on to suggest that we overcome our feelings of despair by getting closer to nature and by falling in love with the world.
Stay strong, my friends.
Keep flexing those RESILIENCE muscles.
(Like Margaret says . . . the world is beautiful and most people are good.)
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I’ll continue adding a few more Simple Gifts for you to open before the New Year, so stay tuned. (There is no schedule. The gifts will just . . . appear . . . from time to time.)
If you’d like to re-visit my blog-advent-calendars from 2023 and 2024, you can follow these links:
Thank you so much, Kym, this post could not have come at a better time for me. My resilience muscles have been in full flex for a while, and I needed some encouragement! Now, if we could only have a positive, well publicized, and massive human murmuration moment. The world needs one.
Beautiful. I love Becky’s idea of a massive human murmuration (I think they – human murmurations – are happening more than we realize… start by Googling the Chanhassen Standoff from 12/13!)
It’s often hard to remember that most people are good when the ones that aren’t are so good at being evil. But the natural world really is beautiful. If anyone can help with resilience, it’s Margaret Renkl. Thanks for the reminder.
Thank you, Kym. It would be nice if our resilience wasn’t tested so often!
This lifted my heart a little this morning. Thank you!
The world is beautiful and most people are good — that is a mantra for resilience if I ever heard one!
Sometimes I feel like my resilience is at an all time low. And then I spend time with a friend or a read something lovely like this or I sit with Fred and George in my lap and I get a boost. Thank you.
Margaret Renkl is a treasure. I appreciate the gift that reminds me that the world is full of good people.