BOOK LAUNCH: October 1
Your Ark of Resilient Living

INTRODUCTION

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I recently spent a few nights away from home. My hotel pillow and I didn’t get along very well. It was made of foam rubber, which returns to its original form no matter how it has been pressed and pushed. Just as I got it comfortably shaped, the pillow would keep me awake by bouncing back to its original shape!

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“How can I bounce back from the hard times?”

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All of us know the hardships we experience produce a barrage of negative emotions that diminish our quality of life.  We must find a way to regain a quality of life that brings joy and satisfaction.

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Your Ark in the Storm: Everyday Practices for Resilient Living offers help after hardships have buffeted you with loss, failure, or suffering that has lingered far too long. In these pages you will find resources from Scripture, psychology, and ethics to enhance the skills of resilience and faith development. You can gain the capacity to bounce back, to navigate with resilience the hard seasons of life, and to launch again your voyage to well-being.

Streams in the Sea of The Ark  

This work blends the streams of Biblical stories, positive psychology, contemporary theology, modern ethical issues, and the struggle of fictional characters to create a flowing river of hope which carries us through our turbulent and troubling times.

Five streams ebb and flow in these chapters.

• The inspired narrative of Noah in Genesis 5:28-10:32 provides the framework for the book.[i] These words had a high purpose in supporting the faith of the Hebrew people during and after the Babylonian Exile. The narrative exists outside of actual historical events as a timeless portrayal of profound truths about God, humanity, and hope. Though Noah and the Flood were not historical in the modern sense, I will treat the epic story as if it occurred to heighten applications for our lives today.

• The idea of resilience is vital for our emotional health. The term describes our capacity to adjust to the changing situations of life. A resilient person can gather inner resources to adapt and meet challenges during stressful, difficult, or threatening episodes. Mental health professionals believe this quality is essential for emotional health in our complex and dynamic world. From Noah’s story, I will highlight several skills which promote resilience. 

With resilience, we are like a foam pillow, able to bounce back to our original shape or to an even better one.

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Let me emphasize that, if you have gone through an event of violence, injury, or emotional abuse which threatened your well-being, I encourage you to contact a licensed counselor, social worker, or psychologist. The skills of resilience mentioned in this book are a starting place, of course, but applying them to the challenge of recovery can be helped with a therapist by your side.

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• Theology marks every word of the Flood story. I find Open-Relational theology[ii] offers a coherent and practical perspective about the nature and work of God. God is ever-present to the universe, all-loving in relationship to every creature, dynamically evolving within time and space, and continually creative with potentials for well-being. You’ll be presented with other key concepts which impact your daily life, including God’s essential nature of love, God’s pervasive action in the universe, the inherent agency of humankind, and the collaborative nature of each moment in shaping an open future. Throughout the book, I use these perspectives to interact with the many theological views presented in the Flood story and the New Testament.

• Current ethical issues impact how we recover from hardships. Resilience is personal, but our personal experience is lived in community. The culture and community surrounding each of us influence how our faith develops and grows. Looking carefully at key issues—such as equal rights, climate change, and patriarchy—is important for the growing Christian.

• Another portion of this work follows Emma as she moves from an elementary-aged child who encounters the disturbing reality of this ancient tale to a woman discovering the answers she needs. Her questions, opinions, and insights as she matures reflect what we might ask about how this story from long ago may apply to living with resilience in the 21st century. Emma and other fictional characters live in today’s world, which I term the This phrase describes the worldview which forms the metaphorical ocean of understanding for many people today. The framework of modern thought is dramatically different than the worldview of the Bible. To navigate the challenging storms of life, we must receive the wisdom of Scripture’s ancient world and integrate it with modern ideas.

• The final component relates to applying this material to your growth. I call this “Your Semaphore,” using an old nautical term for the 19th-century system of flags which allowed communication between ships before radios were used. You’ll find in the semaphore section practical ideas for applying the ideas of each chapter. Investing a few minutes to do the activity can bring greater depth to the exciting, personal work of emotional and spiritual development.

Your Captain

            I’ll be the captain of the ship across forty “days” of learning, inspiration, and adventure. In this role, you should be aware of my cultural background and the biases that I hold (I hope lightly) in my writing.

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My identity has been formed as a white cisgender man, raised in the middle class, surrounded by the Midwestern culture of the 1950-1970 era, rooted in an evangelical Baptist upbringing, educated through college and seminary, now happily married, and blessed as the parent of four children and eight grandchildren. I’ve sought to keep the inherent biases from these life experiences open for examination and transformation across the years and in these pages.

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I have drawn from fifty years of Christian ministry to offer insights about building resilience. A passion for helping people led me to wonderful learning experiences and a vocation of ministry with four churches, hospital chaplaincy, and professional counseling.

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I will not pretend I have personally suffered too much traumatic loss. I grieved as normal with the passing, in some cases sudden, of my parents, siblings, and in-laws. I worked through the fatherhood struggles of raising four children in the boisterous American culture of the 1980s and 1990s. I faced some caustic church culture, which led to a change in vocational setting and spiritual deconstruction.

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            In these pages, I share some of my stories and adventures in overcoming hardships and spiritual development. I hope you’ll benefit from my experiences so your faith and strength will grow to meet the challenges you face.

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I have crafted these ideas in forty chapters as an obvious echo of the “forty days and forty nights” of the flood. They generally follow the unfolding narrative from the dark days before the flood to the rebuilding of a new society. Don’t feel rushed to finish—some of the learning exercises may take a while.

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I hope these chapters build the skills of resilient living and draw you closer to the God who inspired the storytellers and writers of long ago and moves ceaselessly and lovingly among us today.

[i] I use “Inspired” to indicate the work of God and the scribes to produce a resource appropriate to follow God in their time. Further, it includes God’s encounter with each reader in their time and context. An excellent resource is Peter Enns, How the Bible Actually Works, (New York: HarperOne, 2019).

[ii] See Appendix A for the history and basic concepts of Open-Relational philosophy and theology. The concepts appear throughout this work.

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