Our Great Resilience

On my office wall, I have a sign from Newtown, Connecticut that I got after my work helping the community respond to its school massacre. It reads: “Our collective strength and resilience will be an example to the rest of the world.”

I remember the first time I saw this sign. It was on my initial visit to Newtown to meet with the town’s chief executive about how I could help the community move from trauma and despair to healing and hope.

When I walked into the town hall, the chief executive’s office was on my right, but for some reason I first turned to my left and saw this sign hanging on an interior glass wall. A second sign hung there, too: “We are Sandy Hook, We Choose Love.”

At the same time, we need only to look at Nashville to see how a community is coming together after recent massive storms. It is the same response we witnessed after the Boston Marathon bombings. Houston, too, demonstrated its grit and determination after its latest historic flooding.

 Each of these and many other stories in our memories tell us—show us—what we must do now. In looking forward, we must remember.

 For even as we are instructed to engage in social distancing, not to touch one another, and for some of us to go into isolation, we must not turn away from one another. We must be turned outward—always.

Our stories of progress amid setbacks are filled with people stepping forward and turning outward in acts of compassion and support. They show us the power of one person reaching out to another, and then another person reaching out to someone else, and so on. Even without any orders or direction from above, we see local communities naturally come together to take collective action—organize to call people who are alone, bring food to the hungry, build shelters.

 We have been here before. Our memory reminds us of this. Each new challenge requires a new response. But let us also look to our past and remember that we can take action, come together, and overcome what besets us today. We can spread our knowledge, bring solace, and foster hope in even the gravest times.

 Let us draw on our great resilience now—and let us fear not.