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Seven Ways to Build Resilience by Chris Johnstone

March 18, 2021November 28, 2020 by Alan Heeks

Raising resilience has been a focus of my work for several years, and Chris is one of my inspirations. Sometimes I wonder if the troubles of our times will keep growing faster than our capacity to handle them, but Chris’s book offers us all the chance of a big step-up in our resilience. Chris is … Read more

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Faith, Hope, Resilience | Saturday November 9

A reflective day With Alan Heeks and Simon Lockett How can we find our steady centre in these uncertain times? Where do we place our faith and our hope? What would spiritual resilience look like, for us and our communities? This day of exploration and support will include times of prayer, meditation and sharing, with periods outside for walking contemplation as a micro pilgrimage, and for communing with Nature as a micro vision quest: recognising the power of space and silence. Our venue is Garn Farm, a conservation smallholding and woodland near Longtown, in a beautiful valley overlooking the Black Mountains. We’ll have a warm indoor group room with woodburner and kitchen, and wonderful spaces outside. See more at www.warmthandwonder.co.uk. Alan Heeks has many years’ experience exploring Nature and faith as sources of resilience, and is deeply interested in how communities can deepen to help us adapt to climate change. Simon Lockett is a pioneer in re-introducing pilgrimage to Herefordshire, and has a long-standing love for contemplative prayer and spiritual connection with the natural world. Practicalities Cost: £40, concessions £25. Bring lunch to share. Timing: Arrive 9.30am for 10am start. Finish 4.30pm. Venue: Garn Farm, near Clodock, Longtown, Herefordshire HR2 0PD. There is some overnight accommodation at Garn Farm: contact Alan about this. Bookings/enquiries: Contact Alan Heeks, , 07494 203014. Group size limited to 12 people.

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Spiritual purpose and community

Why we all need collective power YouYou may wonder why I see community as important in the field of spiritual purpose. It’s a belief that has only emerged for me in the past few years of mounting turbulence. It’s now very hard for lone individuals to sustain their spiritual beliefs, as well as a healthy, realistic view of life in general. Why? Because what we experience as ‘reality’ is largely a fabrication, manipulated by social media, big business and the elite. I don’t see this as a conspiracy: it’s simply in their interest to convince us that we’re isolated, vulnerable and dependent. We know that people’s beliefs and behaviour are very heavily shaped by the society around them, so even if you minimise your direct exposure, you’ll be affected by the collective, unless you live as a recluse or in an off-grid community. A meditation and sharing group at Hazel Hill Wood What I see growing in parallel with the rise of fake news and false reality is a deep need for spiritual purpose. This grows partly from a reaction to manipulation by the materialist system, but more deeply from the climate crisis, which as Jem Bendell (Deep Adaptation) and others have observed, is at root a crisis of spiritual meaning and purpose. If our familiar world is unravelling, what are we here for? What spiritual purpose means for me is having a reason for living which tries to serve the highest good of all, which gives me a sense of meaning, and lifts me beyond self-centred concern with my material needs. You’ll find a new Spiritual Purpose section on my website which explains this more fully. It also shares the vision for the Searching Spirit Centre, a spiritual community helping people to explore this theme, which I hope to co-create in the next few years. Get in touch if you’d like to get involved (). You may see spiritual purpose as an individual choice, a personal path: to some extent I agree, but these days collective exploration and support has a key role to play. I’m an advocate of Joanna Macy’s Work that Reconnects approach: she too regards groups as vital in enabling us to work through our climate distress, and find our personal and collective path. Another reason why the community aspect is important is in putting our spiritual purpose into practical action. The scale of the issues ahead for us all is beyond the capacity of individuals and nuclear households. We’re all going to need to share material resources, and lean on the collective power and emotional support that communities can provide. For many people, it seems the word spiritual is confusing or alarming: perhaps because they confuse it with organised religion, or because the word is used in so many different ways. My other major project currently is about Community Resilience, and if I’m working with a community group, I’d avoid naming the spiritual aspect, but explore it with them implicitly. There’s plenty of evidence that groups of all kinds are more together and effective when they have a strong shared purpose. Most community groups aim to serve the greater good of their locality, and the wellbeing of the people in it. Serving these aims amid mounting challenges is what I’d call a spiritual purpose. Whilst the Searching Spirit Centre will be open to working with community groups, my guess is that its clients will mostly be pioneering individuals, of any age, but hopefully many young people, who can then act as catalysts within larger groups, helping them to find their collective power and inspiration in these times of crisis and opportunity.