This reflection was inspired by the challenge in Mark McDonnell’s article: The Quest for Justice, A Corporate Stance, in which he proposes that the corporate stance of our congregation should be a defence of the rights of the child.  This brought to mind two books I read within the last few years on the subject of resilience.  They were written by Stefan Vanistendael who is a researcher working for the Bureau International Catholique de l’Enfance, based in Geneva.

1.  Growth in The Muddle of Life: Resilience: Building on People’s Strengths.    

Resilience is the capacity to do well in spite of difficult conditions in life, and to do this in a socially acceptable way.  This is the only way in which the poor and the oppressed have survived.  Based on research, five interlinking areas are proposed for fostering resilience in children:

*  Social support networks and at the heart of them the unconditional acceptance of the child as a person by at least one significant adult.  Such acceptance can make a child much stronger in the face of adversity.  This does not imply acceptance of the child’s behaviour.

*  Capacity to discover meaning in life - related to the spiritual life and to religion.  A search for meaning needs to have firm roots in reality.  Sometimes religion can have a direct positive influence on child resilience.

*  Skills and the feeling of having control over what happens in life.  Such skills must be related to local context and culture.  The child must be able and willing to use them.

*  Self-esteem or some positive idea about oneself.  Bring out some positive qualities in the child which may not be noticed by adults because they are hidden behind unacceptable behaviour.     

*  Sense of humour or a climate in which humour can grow.  Recognise the imperfection, the suffering, but integrate it positively in life, with a smile.  Some elements of humour are: tenderness towards imperfection, mature acceptance of failure, shift in perspective, paradox.

Resilience grows in an interaction between the child and its environment.  Resilience is no substitute for social policy, but it can inspire one.

Why are some children healthy in spite of the difficulties they have to live with?  Why do some children at risk of certain problems not develop the problem they are exposed to?  Can we detect in so-called problem children some areas of possible strength on which they can build their lives?  This calls for a shift in perspective: we start looking at the strengths and how to use them.  Rather than totally absorbed by putting a plaster on a wound, we recognise that the real healing must come from the healthy part of the body surrounding the wound.  Resilience is not a clinical tool which is neutral in its functioning; in real life resilience demands a moral reference.  For example, how do we design a programme for youngsters who make more money in prostitution or drug dealing than they can make in an ordinary job?  The diary of Anne Frank illustrated the importance of a trusting relation and the importance of an open, mature religious faith.

Towards a synthesis for action: possible building bricks for resilience: six criteria.

*  Selected areas must be simple enough to be understood and to be used.

*  Areas must be usable across cultures and across stages of development of the child.

*  Areas must be practically relevant.

*  Areas should not be plainly contradicted with by research or by field experience.

*  Variables mentioned in research can be synthesised.

Resilience in a broader perspective.

Some warnings:  All the areas mentioned as relating to resilience carry a risk of degeneration.  E.g. child abuse often happens with an adult who is close to the child; self-esteem can lead to arrogance.  The need for some good role models in the everyday life of the child is essential.  We must cultivate resilience and foster it in a specific cultural context. 

Social policy:  We will always need some special services and protection for children at risk.  What can we do so that people find it easier to solve their problems, or if need be, to live with their problems?

A Christian view:  The brokenness of life can be transformed in new and unexpected life.  Life is stronger than death.  The image of Thomas meeting Christ after the resurrection: all the wounds of Christ are still there, but they are turned into new and unexpected life.

Resilience as an inspiration:  It opens our eyes to the positive yet hidden potential.  Resilience helps us move away from despair, cynicism and unrealistic illusions.  The rich reality of love includes intelligence and will, patience and endurance, empathy and real interest in others, capacity to forgive and to receive forgiveness, a sense of distance and intimacy, a capacity to live with failure and imperfection.  Nobody needs to carry all the burdens of the world, but we are all invited to carry with others at least some of them.  We can only live life to the full to the extent that we can accept some limits and make some choices.  Resilience suggests thinking of health as the capacity to solve problems or to find constructive ways of living with unsolvable problems.  It is not a question of bouncing back, or total cure, or a return to a prior state without wounds.  It is an opening to new growth, a new step in life, in which the scar remains present but is integrated into this new life, at a more profound level.

[Originally written in French: La résilience ou le réalisme de l’espérance: Blessé mais pas vaincu. Geneva 1998.]

2.  Resilience and Spirituality: The Realism of Faith.

This is an excellent study on the topic of resilience and its relationship with spirituality, which can be of interest to believers and non-believers alike. Its treatment is up-to-date, topical and urgent, taking into consideration global issues of war, poverty, hunger, refugees, sex abuse, and how these affect the most vulnerable in society. There are numerous references to current literary and media personae of the English-speaking world, including Harry Potter, Billy Elliot, and the more traditional Huckleberry Finn and Cinderella.

The study contains the message of the Wounded Healer, as well as the kernel of the Christian paradox – death to life, growth through fragility. Jesus came to show that life could be different; it need not be the status quo or ‘like father, like son’. In the end, acceptance and love make a difference. Love heals. The more we believe that God loves us unconditionally the more chance there is of transformation. The transformative and therapeutic effect of forgiveness is a message worth telling.

The question is raised about resilience outside the law: must resilience always be ethical or within the law? Educators would normally say yes, but knowing that that is an ideal. Those who have suffered are encouraged to look at the wider perspective. “My problem is huge when seen in my little world, but it is small in the context of the larger world.”  Comparison is drawn between resilience and resurrection: the Resurrected Jesus with his wounded body is proof that what is injured can be transformed.

The study contains an excellent exposition of spirituality.  We live daily lives in a material world in time and space. But within this material world there are sometimes suggestions of another, deeper reality, e.g., when moved by the beauty of nature or music. This non-material reality has traces in our experience and is what some people call the spiritual. When this spiritual reality takes on a personal element, we call it GOD. Our individual or community lives are transformed when we try to live in relation to this spiritual reality – either in the wider sense or more precisely with God. This process of transformation is called spirituality. Religion is part of that spiritual life in the case of some communities with a certain tradition. Christians believe that God revealed himself in an even more personal way in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the concrete example of God’s love and compassion for all people.

Spirituality can be explored in various ways: by reflecting on personal experience; by prayer and mediation; by the study of scripture; or more concretely by engaging with the lives of those who suffer; whatever form it takes, some form of act of faith in life is called for. The author is insistent that faith, hope, and love all have to be realistic.

The question that I was left with, taking the image of Harry Potter, is this:  Do we dare to walk through a seemingly impossible obstacle (wall) to take the train that is waiting for us on platform nine and three-quarters, to take the journey to the future? 

[Résilience et Spiritualité: Le Réalisme de la Foi. Geneva 2002. Not yet published into English.]

I leave you with a beautiful quotation from Stefan’s first book, quoting Orthodox monk Anthony Bloom who offers a wonderful description of celebrating the gifts of the youth and looking for the beauty often hidden under loud voices and trendy clothes:

Unless we look at a person and see the beauty there is in this person, we cannot contribute anything to him or her. One does not help a person by discerning what is wrong, what is ugly, what is distorted. Christ looked at everyone he met, at the prostitute, at the thief, and saw the beauty hidden there. Perhaps it was distorted, perhaps damaged, but it was beauty nonetheless, and what he did was to call out this beauty... This is what we must learn to do with regard to others. But to do so we must first have a purity of heart, a purity of intention, and an openness, which is not always there so that we can listen, can look, and can see the beauty, which is hidden. Everyone of us is in the image of God, and everyone of us is like a damaged icon. But if we were given an icon damaged by time, damaged by circumstances, or desecrated by human hatred, we would treat it with reverence, with tenderness, with broken-heartedness. We would not pay attention primarily to the fact that it is damaged, but to the tragedy of it’s being damaged. We would concentrate on what is left of its beauty, and not what is lost of its beauty. And this is what we must learn to do with regard to each person.

Brother Dominic Sassi (Rome)