Sometimes a word just visits you and you are unsure where it came from or why. Does this ever happen to you? Over the last few days I have been visited by the word ‘endure‘. Endure. It is a strange word that keeps floating just below the surface of my mind and periodically swimming up for air inviting me to ponder. In searching for its definition I saw what could, at first glance, be conflicting meanings. The first: endure…to suffer(something painful or difficult) patiently. The second: endure…to remain in existence; to last. My brow is furrowing just writing those words. 

The presence of endure came to me at first while I was reflecting on the beauty of a frozen Minnesota lake while experiencing some mighty cold temperatures. Bone chilling, mind numbing, motor stopping cold. In the early morning, I watched as the Sun was rising creating a kind of Monet-like, foggy wash over the distant trees. It was a magical scene. As the Sun rose over the trees the fog seemed to evaporate and a long shaft of rainbow-hued light shot down over the trees. It was almost as if there were two suns rising. The rainbow hovered over the lake for some time until it was eventually outshone by the ever-brighter Sun. 

Seeing this, a message pierced my mind: “This is what endures.” I have no idea where the message came from or why. All I know is that ‘hearing’ it brought an overwhelming feeling of connection with something Greater. I felt my body ground itself, realizing the depth to which I had been holding myself in tension as I anticipated the inauguration on Monday and all that might mean. Standing and looking out at that body of water that had become solid,so solid, on which I had walked the day before as the ice crystals formed on my eyelashes, a deep sense of peace washed over me. 

This experience helped me to begin to think about all that truly does endure…all that stands throughout changing and difficult times…all that holds when the world seems to be unraveling. No matter the number of years we have walked the Earth, we have all known the experience of having change that threatens to undo us. Change brought on by loss and sorrow and injustice and uncertainty. Change from which we often think we will not survive. This is perhaps where that other definition of endure comes takes shape. We all have had times of ‘suffering’ that can only be done with patience. 

And so it is that those of us who are walking into these next weeks and months and years with a trepidation that pulls at our spirits might begin to pay attention to what ‘remains in existence’ to what ‘lasts’. Certainly the incredible beauty and strength and power of Creation gives us cues. And the relationships that lift us up and remind us that we are mostly miracle and that love and kindness always win. Being on the lookout for what endures seems to me to be an intention I can give myself to as I seek to be the best human I can be in a world that aches for our noticing. 

We are in for some difficult and terrible days, I fear. Yet all around us there are glimpses of what endures. We need only open our eyes and our hearts to do the work that needs to be done. As wise and wonderful Mary Oliver wrote:

“I tell you this
to break your heart,
by which I mean only
that it break open and never close again
to the rest of the world.”

May we be about the work of holding onto what endures with all our might. With all our broken yet beating hearts.