And still I (We) Rise....

It's been a long time since I've written a post. What can I say? Life gets in the way of writing. I know, I've said before, if you're really serious, life should be writing. Well, unfortunately for writing, I happen to be serious about a lot of things. I need to focus!

Today, or at least, this morning, I can focus on writing and our word, for a long time, has been "endurance." Thank you for enduring the wait :)

For me endurance is all about being in it for the long haul. Maybe it's a relationship and you just don't give up. You work at keeping it together. It's easy to enjoy the good times, but you have to endure - and make better - the not so good times.

Endurance is also about yourself. How you "hang in there" for the long haul. How you buoy yourself up in the dark days of winter. How you find peace, when everyone around you seems to be raving mad. Where you find the resources, that deep well of strength, to get you through a negative diagnosis, a separation, a death....a something.

We talk, we write, we paint about the indomitable human spirit - How we take on challenges to test and strengthen our endurance; how we build our tolerance on a daily basis; how we resist in small measurable acts until Justice or Peace or Love has been restored.

I once said to a friend that I have a fairly high tolerance for pain. I thought that it might have come from two basic situations in my childhood. 1. If you live in a family that struggles daily to survive, you don't add to their struggles by suggesting that you are in pain, or some distress. You keep it to yourself and work it out, somehow. This concept was supported by the nuns in the Catholic schools I went to. 2. If you were in pain at school or some type of distress, you were told to, "offer it up for the souls in purgatory." Through your suffering you might free up one poor soul, paying the price for a venial sin, and send them to heaven.

A pious thought, maybe, but a giant endurance builder. Then again maybe I believed all those, "stiff upper lip" movies we watched - Once more into the breach and damn the torpedos - full speed ahead!!

The pictures? Building the endurance muscle!

Have a tolerable day!!