“A large crowd followed Jesus, because they saw the healings he was performing on the sick.” When he “saw the large crowd coming to him, he said to Philip, ‘Where can we get enough food for them to eat?’” “Philip answered him, Two hundred days wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little.” The crowd was “about 5,000 in number.” A boy came forward to offer “five barley loaves and two fish.” Another disciple, Andrew responds, “But what good are these for so many?”
The boy in the Gospel difficulty is being positive, offering help. Jesus too. Philip and Andrew, however, when faced with the same difficulty, have a negative response, pessimistic and helpless. If their negativity is circumstantial, Philip and Andrew are not unusual. It is possible for any of us to respond negatively to a difficulty depending upon factors at the time. What happens to a person that they become not circumstantially negative but substantially negative? A negativity that is so base that a person decides life and their loved ones would be better off without them. Risk factors affecting a base decision for suicide include physical and/or mental illness, isolation, substance abuse, loss, depression, worthlessness, and fear of so many things, including, of being a burden. An additional risk factor for suicide may be increased screen time negatively affecting one’s mental health, especially of youth, specifically age 10-24 for whom suicide is the second leading cause of death. Suicide risk factors also include social ills perpetrated against us in the form of debt wages, student loan debt, and the mental health fragility that accompany them that can be exploited by Big Pharma and its prescription drugs. And yet, some people experience all of the aforementioned risk factors but do not kill themselves. Why? What moves one person through difficult times in life, even when they are experiencing these many risk factors, that, unfortunately, has another person take their life? Some medical professionals studying suicide are no longer looking at nor answering questions about its risk factors. Instead, they are looking at and asking questions about healing skills. One healing skill, resilience, is becoming a primary focus of suicide research and prevention. In the last 10 to 15 years, studies suggest that resilience prevents suicide. Resilience is suggested for the treatment of at-risk persons and also for the general population. Building resilience is shown to reduce stress related disorders which can devolve into suicide. Resilience means “to rebound” or “to leap again.” It concerns our skillfulness in moving through stresses and adversities. Stresses and adversities are plentiful in our culture. In addition to the job, wage, loan, and health concerns and their exploitation, there is Covid isolation and its lingering sicknesses, gun violence, voter disenfranchisement, and political fractures including fascism. Amidst all these stresses and adversities resilience is witnessed. We take action to feed our family, action to feed our community family, 5,000 people or more, action to nurture our youth into being of service; to be like the boy in the Gospel. Amidst pessimism and seemingly impossible odds that boy decided to step forward and offer healing help. We can help youth to be healers in our time. All the stresses and adversities of life can pose a challenge to the degree they strike at our core, at our life. How can I look at that which is pitted against me and not strike back at it as an enemy but receive it as that which needs my healing skill? How can I face my challenges so they do not weaken or defeat me but nurture me in a more meaningful life? Doing this work is hard. It can be done, but it is hard and in being hard builds resilience. Especially in the young ones around us who are being influenced in personal and social superficiality, pessimism, or helplessness. For our youth and for ourselves – we get active, we get creative, we face difficulty, we fail, we laugh, we improvise, we cry, we make connections, we get challenged, we love ourselves, we love others, we get beaten back, we rebound, we pray, we hope, we call for help, we offer help, we have set backs, we get carried, we leap again, we are resilient.
“My dear, In the midst of hate, I found there was, within me, an invincible love. In the midst of tears, I found there was, within me, an invincible smile. In the midst of chaos, I found there was, within me, an invincible calm. I realized, through it all, that… in the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.” (Invincible – Albert Camus)
Prayer: Spirit, together we push through with the resilience of life.
Question: How have I been resilient in the past and what is challenging me to be so now?
July 25, 2021 Gospel John 6:1-15 Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time