Roots in the rock: Notes on resilience

Sometimes resilience doesn’t look like toughness at all.

Sometimes it looks like tenderness that refuses to give up—like a twisted pine taking hold where nothing should grow, bending but not breaking in the wind.

The twentieth-century mystic Etty Hillesum—whose wartime journals have become a testament to spiritual resilience—wrote from within the horror of the Holocaust. She called this inner posture a choosing of love over fear. It was not sentimental for her—it was radical, fierce work. She believed that even in the darkest conditions, we can become small lamps of love, holding space for what is human and whole to survive. That same spirit of resilient love still asks something of us today.

When I was twelve, a librarian handed me a book that changed the way I understood both loss and love “Bridge to Terabithia.” The story of two children who create a hidden kingdom that helps them face loss with courage taught me early that resilience is not only endurance but also imagination and hope. When tragedy comes, the young boy builds a bridge—both literal and inner—inviting his sister, and all of us, to cross into that same courage and love.

This story has stayed with me through every storm since, reminding me that resilience is the courage to build bridges after the waters rise.

That same spirit of bridge-building lives quietly here in the Valley, where resilience shows itself in countless ways: in the now-flourishing willows, ever since fencing protected them from moose and elk; in the fundraisers that provide meals for those impacted by the current closure; in the quiet, steady work of Crossroads, offering food and practical support to neighbors who need a hand extended.

Resilience, it seems, is a communal art. It’s the way we remember that our lives are bound together. It’s the strength that comes from choosing love over fear, again and again, even when the world feels uncertain.

What if resilience meant learning again to pause, to listen, to be human together?

At Ojo Caliente, legend says warring tribes once laid down their weapons to soak in the healing springs. Even enemies understood there were places where everyone needed to heal. What if we remembered that now?

In these unsettled times, we’re all asked to find our own bridge—to build it, to cross it, and sometimes to hold it for others—choosing connection over fear and difference. My upcoming community gatherings on resilience and rooted courage are offered in that spirit: quiet spaces to breathe, reflect, and remember what still connects us.

The mystics across space and time have powerful wisdom for our own day. The word catastrophe means far more than disaster or collapse. Its ancient meaning calls for the sacred labor of turning the story. Elders draw from the depths to reweave a new path forward, so that what once sustained can do so in new form for the flourishing of all.

However you cross your own creek this season, may you know this: resilience lives in you already—the bridge between tenderness and strength, in the simple act of showing up for the next sunrise, so we may weave a new future grounded in love.

Someday, when our descendants look back, may they marvel at the gnarled but grace-filled trees that took root in unexpected places—because we found the strength to choose this radical, fierce way.

Elizabeth Jameson is an ordained Episcopal priest, writer, retreat leader, and soul companion. For more information about two upcoming gatherings she will lead this fall in Estes Park, click here or here.

The Courage to Be: Finding Ground When the World Shakes, Tuesday, Nov. 4, from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. in the Hondius Room at the Estes Valley Library, and online/hybrid.
Living from the Center: A Retreat for Rooted Courage and Spacious Love, Wednesday, Nov. 12, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., United Methodist Church, Estes Park, and online/hybrid.