Our Resilient Country

( I am repurposing a previously written Resilient Wednesday from last July and am striking out the outdated text from last year’s version and making the updated version in bold text. I’m saddened that I have to repeat this article.)

What an amazing country we live in. Just last week this past weekend our nation’s ability to address the worst of us and the best of us came to the forefront. We were tested and will probably pass but we are getting tired of the tests.

The horrific shootings in Charleston Orlando were punctuated not with violence and protests, but with prayers, forgiveness and the singing of Amazing Grace by our President “We Shall Overcome” by the Gay Men’s Choir of Washington in front of the White House.

Then our Supreme Court affirmed the right of all people to marry the person they love and that all the rest of us have to do is to respect and support that love. At the same time that the dead were being identified and the wounded were in surgery in Orlando, LGBT communities across the country were honoring the victims and their own hard work for equity in Pride Parades.

Sometimes when I talk with people about the idea that resilience is hardwired into our biology, they don’t seem to grasp this idea. They believe that we don’t deal with our challenges and stress very effectively and that all we can do is try to manage them, and presumably our lives, by just hanging on as best we can. They don’t get that we are built to recover from adversity.

Last week our nation No doubt, the events of this past weekend will show that we can adapt to change and even in the face of tragedy find ways to become stronger. There is work to be done in terms of equity and justice but we give ourselves the chance to make those improvements.

I guess the question at this point is whether we can find ways to achieve these goals without having to go through destroying ourselves with bullets, bullying and hate. I hope I don’t have to repurpose this article again but I suspect I will have that opportunity.

© Richard Citrin, All rights reserved, 2016

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