Resilience: The Truelove

The Truelove by David Whyte

There is a faith in loving fiercely

the one who is rightfully yours,

especially if you have

waited years and especially

if part of you never believed

you could deserve this

loved and beckoning hand

held out to you this way.

I am thinking of faith now

and the testaments of loneliness

and what we feel we are

worthy of in this world.

Years ago in the Hebrides

I remember an old man

who walked every morning

on the grey stones

to the shore of the baying seals,

who would press his hat

to his chest in the blustering

salt wind and say his prayer

to the turbulent Jesus

hidden in the water,

and I think of the story

of the storm and everyone

waking and seeing

the distant

yet familiar figure

far across the water

calling to them,

and how we are all

preparing for that

abrupt waking,

and that calling,

and that moment

we have to say yes,

except it will

not come so grandly,

so Biblically,

but more subtly

and intimately in the face

of the one you know

you have to love,

so that when we finally step out of the boat

toward them, we find

everything holds

us, and confirms

our courage, and if you wanted

to drown you could,

but you don’t

because finally

after all the struggle

and all the years,

you don’t want to any more,

you’ve simply had enough

of drowning

and you want to live and you

want to love and you will

walk across any territory

and any darkness,

however fluid and however

dangerous, to take the

one hand you know

belongs in yours.

Today my poetry group is considering poems of resilience. Resilience is a word which, like so many others, has been socially constructed to reflect a certain hardness of endurance, non-porous. However, as I learned in studying developmental psychology, resilience is a quality of living which defies precise definition. Remember the most difficult times in your life especially those shared by others and think about the various responses. Reflect on the reasons why some shut down while others open up, why some become very still and calm and others frenzied. The behaviors may be quite disparate but the essential energy, as the Truelove reflects, is love, of someone, something, or life itself. Resilience like grief is not a smooth line or even graceful curve. Resilience like grief can appear or disappear, propel or submerge. The resilience we seek in these times might be the very grace which lifts us, causes us to keep our head above water, allows us to take one step at a time. 

I used to use The Truelove as inspiration at weddings to speak to the marital commitment. I had never thought of it from the perspective of someone who had paused to reflect on grace through or in spite of hardships.  It dropped into my life unexpectedly this week. When read in our current context, it speaks to me of a kind of radical willingness to love no matter what. 

If you have ever been to the Hebrides you know the wind which knocks you off your feet and the sea mist which newly and majestically baptizes you. If you have had enough of “drowning” I invite you to take the hand of love.