Developing Resiliency

On Saturday I went to a Kansas City Royals baseball game with six sisters to celebrate Sr. Janelle Maes’ birthday. As we passed by corn and soybean fields en route to the stadium, it was amazing to see how green and sturdy the crops looked despite the recent scorching heat and lack of rain. What is the secret to their resilience? It is an important question to consider, because with the rising rates of suicide and violence in our culture, we seem to be losing the quality of resiliency.

I can think of at least two lessons plants can teach us about resiliency. First, they are deeply rooted in the soil and thus can find reserves of water deep underground. Benedictines believe that being deeply rooted is so important that they take a vow of stability. Our consumer culture, on the other hand, promotes restlessness through the notion that life has got to be better somewhere—anywhere—else, where we are sure to find a better job, a better house, a better spouse. Plants tell us that to become resilient, we need to stay put so we have reserves to deal with the inevitable struggles of life.

Second, plants live within a supportive community. Strength in numbers provides support in the midst of wind storms, for example, and allows sharing of resources. Peter Wohlleben, a German forester and author, noted in the March 2018 Smithsonian Magazine, “All the trees here, and in every forest that is not too damaged, are connected to each other through underground fungal networks. Trees share water and nutrients through the networks, and also use them to communicate. They send distress signals about drought and disease, for example, or insect attacks, and other trees alter their behavior when they receive these messages.” Similarly, humans become more resilient in the face of disease and dwindling resources when they live within a supportive community.

Setting down roots and living in community are key aspects of developing resiliency. They are also keys to the Benedictine way of life, and our witness of how to live such a life is a gift to the world in great need of a resilient spirit.