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With all the tough news that’s coming at us right now, as well as the profound challenges we each face at this time, how are we expected, as individuals, to be happy, to be healthy? Well, perhaps we’re not. I’ve been reminded this week of the words of the Indian philosopher J Krishnamurti, that “It’s no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” It’s a bit like when you’re sent on a self-help course to de-stress, even as you continue to be asked to burn yourself out on your boss’s behalf! So I was grateful to hear the author and work-place expert Bruce Daisley speak yesterday on this programme about the word ‘resilience’. It’s used - over-used - now, he says, not just in workplace webinars and school classes, but in politics, too, to place responsibility on us as individuals to stay strong, and keep going, no matter what. “It’s the invocation that people reach for when anything goes wrong,” he says. But what he’s found through research is that in the end you simply cannot go it alone; resilience itself arrives only through collective strength and support. Which brings me back to being well-adjusted to a sick society. If it’s not the answer, just to try to adjust ourselves to stay cool as the climate heats up, or to be on the happier side of the widening gap between rich and poor, then it matters what we believe a healthy society looks like in practice, so we can adjust ourselves actively, towards that end, together. I was intrigued to hear Daisley cite research into teenagers during the first lockdown who began re-joining their families for evening meals. As a consequence of that reconnection they slept better, had lower depression rates, and yes, built resilience. It’s a snapshot, but an interesting one. We don’t all have access to family meals or clubs or churches, but for me the Christian notion of the ‘kingdom of God’ is one version of the ‘healthy society’ that helps here, specifically because it’s about connecting with those who might otherwise be left behind or alone; a reaching out to neighbours. Our human connections being likened at their best to a body of many parts, joined in love. For my own family, during two difficult Covid years, it felt like it was God’s love, flowing to us through others like life-blood, that really kept us going. You’ll have your own memories, I’m sure, of how others helped you, and you, them - in ways that might yet equip us together to summon true resilience for this tricky path that lies ahead.