The common usage of the word resilience suggests “the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties.” The current push to reopen the country after shutting down to stop the coronavirus exhibits this desire for a quick recovery, especially at the economic level. The problem is not just that the choice between open or closed is a false dichotomy; there are many nuanced paths between the two positions. The greater issue is that those who worry most about the economy, and want to rush back to save it, may cause a much greater loss of human life and still fail in trying to force the economy to recover quickly.

In thinking about presidential politics people still say “it’s the economy stupid.” Yet, we are in a very different time now and the whole world, not just the economy, is often upside down. Seeking a quick recovery involves a dangerous rejection of guidance from public health experts; it also means missing an opportunity to develop a greater sense of resiliency. 

The word resilience means “to rebound, to leap or spring back.” There is also a connection to the word salient as in “salient point,” the tipping point at which the heart of a human embryo seems to leap towards life. Seen that way, the point of resilience is not simply “going back” to a state that existed before; nor is it seeking a “new normal.” True resiliency involves both springing back up and arriving at a new starting point in life.

In botany the term for the deepest root of a plant or tree is the radicle.  This radicle stem is the first root to emerge from the seed and its appearance marks the moment of quickening life. Thus, the embryonic leap of the human heart parallels the radical impulse of the primary root that breaks through the seal of the seed in order to spring forward into life. 

Human nature, like great nature, harbors a deep, but often untapped, capacity for resilience that leads, not back to how things were before, but rather leaps forth with new ways of envisioning life. Only then can the meaning of a life crisis be found in a process of inner growth rather than a simple return to the spell of normalcy. What I am calling radical resiliency involves using the hidden energy in a crisis to generate creative vision and new starting points that quicken the pulse of life at all levels. 

In economic terms, resiliency may mean a quick return to growth after a financial crisis. However, in humans, resiliency involves a capacity to awaken further and grow wiser during a crisis. 

We live in a time of multiple crises, radical changes, and increasing adversity in terms of both nature and human culture. The pressure caused by each major crisis reveals existing fault lines, great inequities and painful injustices in all of our health, safety and social welfare systems. There is much more involved than simple survival. Any hope for long-term resilience requires that genuine visions for transforming society be found and fashioned while we are in the crux of the crisis.  

Only when faced with obstacles, stress, and even environmental threats does resilience emerge. Recent psychological studies show that children who do not face adversity early in life tend to lack a capacity for resiliency. As an old proverb succinctly puts it, “Smooth seas make bad sailors.”  That also implies that resiliency can be learned and that people can become wise old salts when it comes to facing waves of adversity and finding meaningful ways of resetting the course of life. The issue in a crisis is not simply survival, but also transformation of the survivors.   

The soul is the only thing in a person that cannot be overwhelmed. The soul is also the seat and living source of human resilience. Even in the midst of a great crisis or a tragic descent, the soul can find salient points at which the human spirit can awaken further and a quickening of life can occur. Whether it is a crisis, a conflict or a great loss; creation is the only outcome that satisfies the soul.