Midweek Faith Lift
September 24, 2025
Tenacity and the Power of Strength
Rev. Deb Hill-Davis
Spiritual Passages
September 15, 2025
There was a woman who found a folded sponge all dried and compressed, and tucked inside the hardened fold was a message she'd been seeking. She carried the hardened sponge to the sea and, up to her waist in the deep, she watched it unfold and come to life in the water. Magically, the secret of life became visible in the bubbles being released from the sponge, and to her amazement, a small fish, trapped in sleep in the hardened sponge, came alive and swam out to sea. From that day on, no matter where she went, she felt the little fish swimming in the deep, and this -- the swimming of the little fish that had for so long been asleep -- gave her a satisfaction that was somewhere between peace and joy. Whatever our path, whatever the color or grain of our days, whatever riddles we must solve to stay alive, the secret of life somehow always has to do with awakening and freeing of what has been asleep. Like that sponge, our very heart begs to unfold in the waters of our experience, and like that little fish, the soul is a tiny thing that brings us peace and joy when we let it swim." - Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening, p. 5
Humor---Profound Curiosiy---
If you're in a vehicle going the speed of light, what happens when you turn on the headlights?
You know how many packages say, "Open Here." Where do you go if it says, "Open Somewhere Else?"
Why do we drive on parkways and park on driveways?
If someone has a mid-life crisis while playing hide & seek, does she lose because she can't find herself?
Just before someone gets nervous, do they experience cocoons in their stomach?
Affirmative Prayer for today: Infinite Presence, Divine Energy of Love fluttering in my consciousness, awaken me to all that is possible for me as I walk in strength, courage and tenacity in this present reality of my life. Amen.
We are, dear ones, on the hero’s journey of claiming and realizing our true spiritual strength in stability, courage and now, tenacity. We have been developing our spiritual backbone that supports and sustains us throughout our journey of life. We have cultivated the faith that clarifies our convictions and the strength, which is the courage of those convictions. Now we come to tenacity, which is our capacity to keep going, even when we would rather not. Tenacity, perseverance, persistence or stamina is an essential part of the energy of spiritual Strength and without it, we would flounder in a directionless quandary. In other words, we’d be a mess and stuck in the mud of indecision or trapped in a dried out sponge like the fish in the opening story.
Tenacity matters! Persistence matters in the realization of our heart’s desires, in overcoming fears. It takes a certain level of relentlessness to continue in the face of seeming failure and insurmountable obstacles. In Divine Audacity, Rev. Linda shares the story of how WD-40, a product we all use, came to be. It was developed in 1953 by a start up company that was experimenting with a rust prevention solvent for the aerospace industry. They failed many, many times, 39 to be precise. And finally, on the 40th try, WD-40, which stands for Water Displacement- 40th Try, was born! Who knew?!?! In researching persistence, Walt Disney’s name also comes up. He was apparently afraid of mice….hence the creation of a very friendly “Mickey Mouse” to persist in overcoming that fear! Disney was the first voice of Mickey Mouse, so he truly persisted!
Tenacious also means sticky and one of the descriptors in Dictionary.com describes it as “clinging” to a particular material, such as lint….or think cat or dog hair, as tenacious! So we have first hand experience with the stickiness of tenacity, the adhesive quality of persistence. When we desire to persist in love, despite all that seems to be opposed to love, we need that quality of stickiness or adherence that clings to love like cat hair clings to my black sweater! This is true no matter how and where we are calling on love, self-love, love of others, love of ideals such as mercy, freedom and peace. We have to be sticky about it even when we don’t want to be, even when we doubt if we can stick to love or hope rather than be stuck with fear.
No one knows that more clearly than the individual who is staring down an addiction, wanting to get unstuck from it. Undesirable things like fear, judgment, addictions, resentments, are all very sticky. It requires incredible tenacity to outlast and persist in healing from these addictions. Just ask anyone who has tried to stick to a “healthy” eating plan to lose weight. Personal testimony….as soon as I denounce sugar, revisiting all the reasons it is unhealthy and bad for me, I find myself in the Community Room eating carrot cake, cookies or brownies along with my healthy lunch. Somehow, they all seem to stick to me!! And I know I’m not alone!! Lots of things, qualities and patterns that we don’t want seem to stick to us, so how do we get unstuck? How do we persist in what we DO want??
It is the spiritual power of Strength that offers us tenacity in a different way, a healing way. I have noticed my own human patterning practices when exploring or doing something new. I now pause and pay careful attention to where I choose to sit when attending a meeting, a presentation or conference because I will invariably go back to that same spot every time, all week long, even if I don’t really like it very much! I have to very consciously choose to sit in a different place and then remember that place the next time. Remember that “proof of pattern” that we talked about last week regarding courage?
Well, it works in us all the time and we have to be really aware of the patterns we are following because they stick. Look at where you are all sitting right now….in church. You followed your own pattern and went to “your place.” We all did! Think about the pattern you typically follow to drive to church and park. Then think about how frustrating it has been all summer to find a new pattern around all the construction, barriers and constantly moving obstacles we have had. We have all had to persist in finding a new pattern, almost every Sunday!
Developing the tenacity to persist in a new pattern, to cultivate a new way of thinking or looking at the world requires the strength that we typically realize in prayer and meditation. It is much more complex than just finding a new route to drive! It is a hero’s journey because it requires us to leave behind the current emotional and behavioral patterns and venture into new, unknown space. When we do that, we can feel stuck, like nothing is really happening, but we persist in faith and in prayer to find our spiritual strength. We read in Wholeness and Holiness, p. 52 by David Riccho:
The Heroic journey does not preclude pause, silence, inaction, or a dark night in which we lie in stillness and wait for what comes next. A period of powerlessness on the journey is not a cause of despair or a sign that nothing is happening. This time of immobility is not stuckness. It is not hesitation or reluctance. It is incubation, hibernation while we gather new powers.
When we are practicing a new tenacity of love, we are practicing the Presence of Spirit and gathering this new power of Strength that empowers us to stick to the Truth of our conviction that the power of love is the only Power.
This past week, again, Jim Trenberth sent me a link to a reel of Canon Rev. Stephanie Spellers, an Episcopal priest, who was speaking about the power of prayer. She was exploring the question of just how prayer works, whether it works. And she described her friend Pat, a recovering alcoholic, who in the early stages took a half-full bottle of scotch to a friend to get rid of it for her. The friend had a sacred prayer space near which was a shelf where she had placed the bottle of scotch as well as other objects that represented prayers she was holding for people. It was a powerful, visible altar of holding in prayer all that had been entrapping those for whom she was praying. It was a powerful statement of what it really means to pray for someone, to make space in your own heart for their “stuckness” such that it loses all power. That is how prayer “works” and it is very powerful.
Ultimately dear ones, we are praying to persist in love, in growth in consciousness of the power of love. Rev. Richard Rohr, in his Sept. 15 blog, “A Choice for Love” writes this:
Love, like forgiveness, is a decision. It’s a decision in our minds and in our hearts. And we’d better make it early in the day, because once we’re a few hours into low-level resentment, anger, or disappointment, it’s too late. When we’re not choosing love, we’ll use any excuse to be unhappy or irritated. We’re already unhappy, and then something gives us an excuse to externalize it. The exact object for our unhappiness is actually arbitrary. Unhappiness just needs an object—as do happiness and love. We have to recognize ahead of time when we’re not living in love. This is surely why a morning prayer or practice is so important—to allow us to choose to love each and every day.
May we set that pattern each day that empowers us to stick to love. As it states
in 1 Corinthians 14:1 "Make love your aim."
Blessings on the Path,
Rev. Deb