Resilience – 2 GALS 4 PEACE

If Only for a Minute

Alice Pearce was born an only child in October of 1917 in New York City. When she was nine, while playing in a park on a swing, she lost her grip, slipping out of the swing, and painfully landing on her chin. The impact was so intense that the growth of her chin was permanently affected. Her parents turned to a variety of dentists and bone specialists but there was nothing more they could do for her. The fall from the swing would leave her with a devastating undeveloped chin. Later, when Alice graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1940, she said, “When I got to Sarah Lawrence, I looked in the mirror one day. I took inventory of myself.…

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September 23, 2023

Peace

The Winds They Blow

There is nothing like waiting for a storm to pass to give us time to reflect. As life deals its blows and twists and turns, it is helpful to just take the time to think, to be mindful, and to turn inward. Along these lines, the act of taking a long look in the mirror can be inviting and can also be a little intimidating. Yet, it can be fascinating to look into your own eyes and feel what you see and see what you feel. In a different vein, one of the things that has been helpful in our lives lately has been the use of humor. It has smoothed out some hard times and eased the transition from…

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July 8, 2021

Social Justice

Handling The Fear

This week, we again saw a horrific display of who Donald Trump really is, what he supports, and what he represents. We saw the devil in clowns clothing at work, an abuser with no emotional control. Trump’s actions were those of a five-year-old oppositional defiant child having his first haircut. Although not new, his lies and remarks at the debate continued to support his white supremacy platform of chaos and violence. In the fashion of Hitler and David Duke, Trump spouted, “Stand back and stand by,” to his armed and dangerous Proud Boys “peace keeping” militia. Russia and China were probably quite pleased with his performance and could always stand to profit from this type of political fistfight. In the…

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October 2, 2020

Peace

Take A Breath

As protests march on and the virus expands, we are reminded that, despite this, life goes on. We lose loved ones, we are faced with new challenges, and our resilience is endlessly tested. The locusts are coming. Florida has a 110-degree heat advisory. There is an earthquake in California. And, the Saharan dust storms are sweeping the country. We say, bring it on for we will dig deep and muster up our resilience! The word resilience is an interesting one. It was originally a scientific term taken from Latin and, in 1640, was used to mean springing back. It was first used in English by Francis Bacon. In physics, resilience is the ability of a substance to absorb energy and…

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June 26, 2020