Comment by Harborough churches: Resilience, Remembrance and Restoration

Viewpoint by Derek Williams, who is active in the Harborough Anglican Team and is communications officer for Churches Together in Harborough

You can often find life lessons in novels. For example, in the Dr Who story Wheel of Ice by Stephen Baxter (available in Harborough library) an ancient alien artefact called Arkive has a three-word motto and mission: Resilience, Remembrance, Restoration. That’s a brilliant rule of life for anyone, and an excellent motto for everyday Christian living.

Resilience is usually thought of as steady resistance against adversity, although the word technically it means the ability to bounce back. As Covid restrictions ease we hope to bounce back to “normality”. But resilience in the sense of restraint is still needed to care for vulnerable people for whom any infection can be life-threatening, and more generally to help us in life’s other troubles.

We’re all affected by the arbitrary slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that spoil our plans, crush our hopes, threaten our security and damage our wealth or relationships. Resilience enables us to work through such difficulties without collapsing under their weight.

In the New Testament Paul tells the Christians in Ephesus to “Put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to go on standing.” To do that, we need the help of others, and of God.

One way of maintaining resilience is remembering positive times and achievements. There have been times of fun, of joy, and of victory over adversity in the past. There can also be small things to be thankful for even in hard times. Remembrance can rekindle hope and sustain us in the present.

So Christians remember the example of Jesus who “for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, scorning the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:1-3). If we remember that, the writer says, we can better persevere along the path ahead.

The third word in Arkive’s motto, restoration, reflects the universal desire to build a better world and a better life. Restoration draws on the best of the past but doesn’t seek to imitate it. (In the novel, Arkive wishes to go back in time to seek forgiveness for an ancient failure – we can’t go back, but we can admit failings, seek forgiveness, and actively work to ensure mistakes are not repeated.)

In Christian thought, God’s ultimate purpose is for the world’s brokenness to be restored to its former glory, and for individuals to be renewed in body, mind and spirit. We’re each a work in progress as God seeks to weed out all that makes us less than we should be, and through his Spirit make us more like the people we could be. If, that is, we co-operate with resilience, remembrance,

and restoration.

Derek Williams is active in the Harborough Anglican Team and is communications officer for Churches Together in Harborough