"Endurance Training for Life"

Those of you who are at home in nature are probably less astonished than I am about lizards living in our atrium. They're not just living there – they're living well! No lost tails for our contented creatures. They thrive, pristine and secure, unaware of the danger all around them.

Not so for the rest of us. Our lives have grown less secure in recent times. September 11 was the demarcation of a new era. Peace, along with peace of mind, vanished as we entered first the war on terrorism, and now the war on Iraq.

"For the first time in American history," commented American novelist Don DeLillo, "we have a much greater sense of our own peril, of our own mortality, a sense that the future is not secure. We've always owned the future, at least in our lifetimes, and now we don't anymore." A lifetime is too long for the future now. Everything has changed – and threatens to change further – sometimes drastically, in an instant, before we can do anything about it.

The events of the past year and a half have taken their toll on everyone. Some people have been affected more directly than others. Some are grieving loved ones, lost in a terrorist attack or a military maneuver. Their lives are changed substantively; their losses seem incalculable to the rest of us.

But we have all lost something: the ability to feel safe. And we are all a little more exposed to danger, real and imagined, during war. Those who protested their hearts out and prayed it would never happen are grieving too. In community, people are uneasy with each other, as times of trouble invariably weaken and divide us.

If you feel shaky, I know why. These are shaky days. It's time to remember what we can do to get strong again. I've been hearing a lot about strength training recently, at the gym, where I've been going to spin class – a sweaty workout on a stationery bicycle, accompanied by extremely loud music. One of my cycling instructors is a triathlete, always preparing for an "ironman" competition somewhere. She comes in from her weekend training sessions with harrowing accounts of ascending Latigo Canyon – so steep, if you stop pedaling forward you'll slip down backwards, or so I hear – and of getting dehydrated in the desert and rained on in the mountains.

She is just as strong as can be. And she leaves me with the impression that strength comes from the simple determination to meet every daunting challenge that comes along, even when every part of you wants to give up. Strength does not come from sprinting, she says, it comes from persisting.

If you want to be strong, you must practice endurance. It's a good concept for these times. Just when we think we've had all the bad news we can take, we see another hill ahead of us. Just keep going and pay attention to your form.

Where all this will lead doesn't really matter. There are no "ironman" competitions in my future, but I like the idea that I am training for life, building strength, and pushing myself forward instead of falling back. After a cycling session, I feel like I've accomplished something, even though I haven't gone anywhere at all.

These days of war and worry challenge our resilience. We may think we are losing strength, but the opposite may be true. Just keep working at it, even when you don't know why; what matters is not to give up. Endurance builds strength.

These days I am trying to ground myself in what is good and fundamental in life to stay strong and centered. When worry and despair threaten to take over, I remember what gives my life strength and meaning: people, work, faith, growth. The fundamental good things in life are always with us, whatever the challenges to our spirits.

The human bonds we nurture, with loved ones and with strangers, nurture us and help us feel secure. Let them slide, and something slips inside us. Belonging to a community keeps those bonds active, even if we live alone.

Doing good work is a fundamental good thing too. "Shake off this sadness, and recover your spirit," wrote Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno. "Throw yourself like seed as you walk, and into your own field … from your work you will be able one day to gather yourself."

Work has many meanings and purposes. For Unamuno, it is creative and life giving. It helps us to overcome sadness, pain and death. Work lasts, it goes on, it gives back to us.

The events of the past two years have often made me feel inadequate as a minister. Who am I to make sense of these mind-numbing catastrophes and speak to you on Sunday mornings of hope and unity? Despite the worst moments of not knowing what to do, my work – the fact that I have to do something – somehow pulls me through. "Start then, turn to the work," Unamuno writes. Sometimes all you have to do is start and the work will take care of the rest. Work helps you find the strength inside.

Another fundamental good thing in life is our faith. Unitarian Universalism is an optimistic faith, insisting on the goodness of human nature and trusting in life itself. Reality doesn't always match our idealistic notions – in the world or in ourselves – so we are aware of the inconsistencies and the challenges of being who we are.

That is nothing new. Our practice as Unitarian Universalists is to struggle honestly with what is negative – in the world and in ourselves, understand it and make it better. Our optimism grows out of experience and self-knowledge, it persists despite disappointment and failure, it gets stronger because it is challenged every day. Even these days. Keep at it, and don't forget to pay attention to your form.

Another fundamental good thing to remember right now is that we can always grow and learn. We can even grow and learn from things that frighten us and make us want to shut down. Those lizards living in the atrium make me a little uneasy – actually, more than a little uneasy at first.

"What are we going to do about the lizards," I asked Howard Westley, because I thought he would know about such things. Howard laughed and said, "What do you mean, 'do about' them," he replied. "You aren't one of those people who believes in extermination, are you?" Well, no, not exactly, but I hadn't been planning for peaceful coexistence either. Now that is exactly what we have.

Another member, Dorothy Steinecke, sent me information about the species we have living with us. Before long I knew a lot more about southern alligator lizards and all the good they do. I couldn't have known how much inspiration I would take from their example.

The southern alligator lizard has a distinctive survival strategy. When a predator comes after it, the tail breaks off – leaving the predator with something to catch while the lizard escapes. Over time, the tail grows back. It's not as beautiful or vividly marked as the first tail, but it restores the lizard to its whole self again.

This is how the lizard was meant to live. "Whole" does not mean unscathed or untouched by danger, except for our pampered friends in the atrium. To be whole is to endure, to survive – a little beaten up and less beautiful, perhaps – but to live on anyway.

The lizard is a good example of how to live in a dangerous world. Don’t expect to keep your tail. Trust that another one will grow back. The times may be hard on many of us, but the fundamental good things in life prevail over all that makes us worry and fret. This is the time to remember all that gives us strength: our human bonds, our work, our faith, and our ability to grow, change and keep on living. To despair is to forget what sustains us. But the fundamental good things haven’t gone away – they are still there, and we can call on them, over and over again. And we will get stronger as we face each challenge ahead.