Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

First published August 28, 2019 in Illumine: Collective Light online magazine

By Prof. Popinjay

    If you have a belly-button, you have problems. I don’t mean your navel is causing problems for you. Problems are an irrefutable part of life whether you have a belly-button or not. Maybe it’s best if we just abandon the belly-button concept for now.

      Umbilical contemplations aside, we also have wars, disasters, terror, domestic problems, the Waffle House; sometimes even a combination of these. For some, hardships include not being able to find the remote-control and running out of mayo half way through making a sandwich. Poor you. Call the Waaambulance, diaper baby.  Us grown-ups have real problems. Perhaps your “Pride and Prejudice” marriage turned into “Three Men and a Baby”. Perhaps your time as a U.S. Marine wasn’t nearly as fun and fancy-free as the recruitment officer made it out to be. Or perhaps simply an undertaking to which you’ve sacrificed so much blood, sweat and tears has ultimately left you with just tears and fears and jeers and a lack of peers or gored by a steer; plenty of other rhyming afflictions!

      How do we cope with these hardships? Do we list from port to starboard, spiralling downward into a swirling maelstrom of shame and depression, forsaking our fellow shipmates to instead engorge ourselves on sweetmeats, fancy wenches, and grog. Or do we brace the mizzenmast and lay into the storm in hopes of finding calm waters and a bounty of booty? Perhaps “hardship” isn’t a literal “ship” at all and these nautical terms are completely inapplicable. Whatever terminology we use, Resilience is the cruise we should sign up for.

      While an actual cruise might be useful, Resilience is not a Caribbean ocean liner. It’s a healthy method of coping with difficult times in the hopes of regaining spiritual, mental, and even physical strength. Want to cast off depression? Limit your Edgar Allan Poe recitals to only once a month and develop resilience. Want to increase your mental faculties and make healthy life decisions? Cut back on the Spongebob episodes and go find resilience. Want to bench 500 pounds? Work your way up from lifting potato chips to something a little heavier like chicken wings. Resilience! Suddenly, Nike’s slogan telling you to “Just Do It” is less inspiring. Having a sense of humor about our issues certainly helps, but for most these are not laughing matters and just deciding to be resilient amid life’s difficulties is the most ludicrous and laughable aspect of all. That’s the Cosmic Irony, laughing with you, saying “Do you see yet, how much you need Me?”

     The notion of someone just rising to the challenge is a myth, like flying squirrels. Aside from this guy I know named Batman, rarely does someone just take on their demons alone and emerge with a shiny trophy. Instead, more often we succumb to the level of our training. But when your Ken doll husband turns into Chucky, who is trained for that? Fortunately it’s never too late to get back into training so fire up your Flashdance 8-track, roll up your pink ankle warmers and turquoise unitard and strap in for a montage!

     First of all, being resilient doesn’t mean you’re a stoic indomitable Stonewall Jackson who doesn’t have time to bleed or cry or snuggle a kitten. Resilient people recognize that pobody’s nerfect, but diligently strive for nerfection pevertheless. They seek out accountability and encouragement (and free coffee) from friends, counselors, support groups and Jesús, that mysteriously profound cashier at their local grocery store. Like a broken bone which, if set correctly, will mend even stronger than before, post-traumatic growth can strengthen confidence, foster healthy relationships, and yield a greater appreciation for life. Are you equipped to set that bone yourself? Or will you let Jesús help? You’re hardships are not unique to you and there are many who are waiting to give support. Seek them out!

     Now consider: When life is out of control, over what do you still have control? It’s likely more than you might think.  In his book “The Grace Awakening”, Charles Swindoll states “I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.” Let’s suppose you’re at bat, the bases are loaded, the pitcher is loaded, the quarterbacks are all loaded, everybody’s loaded! I’m trying to set this illustration up as best I can but I’m not a big sports fan so bear with me. Now suppose you get beaned by a bad pitch and the blind umpire calls it a strike. You’ve got a few choices. You’re not in control of the pitcher. You’re not in control of the umpire. You certainly weren’t in control of that ball. What you do have control over is a large wooden club! That ball and the pain it caused was the 10%. The 90% is waiting to see just what you do with that bat. If the tools are there in your hands, why use them to make things harder on yourself? Knock it out of the park and score a hole-in-one! Recognizing what we can control in hard situations is vital to being resilient.

Finally, by now it should be obvious that learning from our mistakes and failures is an essential part of resilience which helps us grow and become enriched. But what if the things we view as failures aren’t really failures at all. Many times we can feel an irrefutable call leading us into a major life choice be it a marriage, a career choice, or a ministerial undertaking. Of course aspects beyond our control will affect any one of these, and when the Divinely ordained and ideal situation dissolves, we are in real danger of blaming it on our own inadequacies and even losing our faith. What we must realize is despite whether the situation ended well or catastrophically, we are always in position to be prepared for the next important phase of our lives provided we stay open to good and faithful guidance. Our experiences, terrible as they may be, have made us the apt candidate for not only helping others who face similar hardships, but to lead us into new undertakings we never thought possible! Put THAT in your belly-button!