Once you see the word, you start seeing it everywhere: resilience. If 2020 was the year of turmoil, 2021 might well be the year of resilience. There’s the need for individual resilience amid the pandemic or natural disasters, and there’s a push to build a broader resilience in communities and countries – helping them weather climate change, political dysfunction, or economic shocks.

In that spirit, this week we launch our newest project, Finding Resilience. It seeks out where resilience is operating and chronicles how people are finding it in themselves and their neighbors. In doing so, we’re also making a statement: Resilience is not about teeth-gritted willpower. Nor does resilience accept the tragic or unjust conditions that kindle it. Resilience is essential to progress. 

In some cases, maybe a solution emerges. In others, the challenges might remain. But resilience is about finding growth and meaningful victories even amid tribulation. It is the beginning of change. Take our recent stories about seniors finding renewal and the Bronx leaning on a deep sense of community during the pandemic. Or our “Stronger” podcast on women who reinvented themselves despite the pandemic’s disproportionate economic impact. Today, former Monitor Editor Marshall Ingwerson weighs in with a column on collective resilience after Hurricane Ida. 

Our founder, Mary Baker Eddy, said the Monitor must “bless all mankind.” In Finding Resilience, we hope to offer evidence that the strength and confidence to move forward is already in all of us. You can find our Finding Resilience stories in the weeks ahead here.