The Endurance of the Human Spirit
“In the midst of winter, I finally learned there was in me an invincible summer.”
- Albert Camus
There is love and there is hate and there is peace and also war and there is joy as well as sorrow. Our world is full of differing beliefs. Earth is filled with those who argue about the simplest things. But one of the unifying factors that brings everyone together is our endurance, the perseverance of the human spirit. We have come so far in history, together, through difficult trials and circumstances, through the endurance of our race, a concept that seems almost lost to our current generation.
I see this personally as a college student and as someone with social media. The world is full of doubt and having a Facebook page makes this much more evident. My generation sees the terrible things that happen across the world much faster than ever before. My generation attempts to come together against some of the “evil” things of this world, but we disagree (me, personally, due to religious convictions) about most of what we would consider to be bad.
To be honest and open, I get discouraged so very often after getting off Instagram and I feel the weight of our brokenness and disunity when I read the news in the morning. One of the concepts our culture and our societies have seemed to leave behind is the endurance of the human will.
One of my favorite authors, William Faulkner, was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1950. In his acceptance speech, he said,
… the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat… I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking.[i]
Faulkner believed in the power and heart of common man. Reading his speech, I am reminded of just how strong people can be. In times when it seems like someone has reached the end of their path, they find the indomitable strength in their spirit to push through the wall that stands before them. It doesn’t just apply to individuals, but to groups and nations of people, human beings are resilient beings, even if they have reached a place where it seems there could be no return. Like Faulkner points out, even in a time of trouble, man may still find the strength to push through due to the little voice that encourages perseverance.
I think Gerard Manley Hopkins, a poet, saw the same sort of endurance in a more personal manner. Hopkins struggled with finding joy in life, authoring what are known to be the “Terrible Sonnets,” a collection of sonnets that reflect the despair he often faced. The first stanza sounds like that quiet voice spoken about by Faulkner,
Not, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist — slack they may be — these last strands of man
In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.
But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me
Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan
With darksome devouring eyes my bruisèd bones? and fan,
O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee?[ii]
A quick survey of this stanza shows that it starts with an utter rejection of “despair.” Even as he faces hopelessness and is tempted to give up hope both in his own life and of humanity, he suggests that “I can.” He could and would continue on, in a determined manner. The rest of the poem explores this “I can,” and what it might mean for his life, even if it is something as simple as longing for the sun to rise or as deep as making a decision against suicide. In a more personal manner, Hopkins demonstrates that will to go through that which is common to all men, even if it is a quiet “I can” (the inexhaustible voice Faulkner points to) in the midst of despair.
I’ve faced a lot of pain and little mishaps in my own life. I find myself at times throughout the day needing to hear my own encouragement just to be able to do the next thing on my list or get to the next place that I have to get to. In a week, I face the five-year anniversary of my older brother’s death. As a person in this world of pain and disunity and someone who has faced immense suffering of loss in my own life, I find myself in the same sort of attitude at times: that I ought to abandon hope.
I love the way that Cormac McCarthy illustrates the endurance of human spirit. In The Road, McCarthy uses the image of fire to show how that attitude of weathering “storms” should be passed from generation to generation. The story centers around a father and son who try to survive in a ravaged landscape, the father is a man of good morals who attempts to pass those values to his son, teaching him to uphold goodness and carry on. The son was taught to withstand and persevere by the image of fire, lit, one that he would have to keep burning. In a conversation between the two, starting with the father, McCarthy wrote,
“You have to carry the fire.”
I don’t know how to.”
Yes, you do.”
Is the fire real? The fire?”
Yes it is.”
Where is it? I don’t know where it is.”
Yes you do. It’s inside you. It always was there. I can see it.”[iii]
The endurance that sits within each and everyone of us exists as a fire which must be kept burning. As we carry on through trial and tribulation, we have to seek, I have to seek to keep that persistence, carrying the fire daily.
In the same manner that Dante found his way through Hell, metaphorically, I think we all face some sort of Hell-like experience that seeks to squash that voice that remains within us. But the persistence of the human spirit always seems to persevere and end in Heaven as Dante did, fleeing the place of despair that suggests that one “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”[iv]
The fact remains true that we all remain as those who carry the fire, as those who are encouraged by that voice within us. But it is different for Christians as we don’t have to rely only on our own strength and guidance in times of desperation, but we are encouraged by a changeless, loving God who remains with us and encourages us in those times. As Dante was not alone in his journey, guided by Virgil, Christians are not alone on our journey through the “Inferno.” We can be encouraged to persevere through the trials of life through friends and our faith.
I think we often take for granted those things that God has put in our life to help us persevere through trials and despair. I take for granted those friends that have been put in my life that encourage me to push through tribulation. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian, wrote about Christian community, but he did so after surviving life within a concentration camp. In his work Life Together, he acknowledges the fact that friends who can push us towards a better faith only exist because of God’s grace, “The physical presence of other Christians is a source of imcomparable joy and strength to the believer… It is grace, nothing but grace, that we are allowed to live in community with Christian brethren.”[v]
Bonhoeffer, who survived life in a concentration camp, estranged from Christian fellowship, places this great value upon such community for the sake of strengthening one another. How much more can I endure throughout life with such great community without the threat of endless separation and death?
I know that at the end of my trial, if I continue, I will gain from that experience. James 1:2–3 tells us, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.”[vi] Christians have an added benefit of being able to persist due to the Word being spoken to them in despair by a God who never abandons His children. Deuteronomy 31:6 reads, “Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread… for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.”[vii]
And so, I end this long article encouraged by the fact that I know humans will endure through trial and tribulation, encouraged by seeing the perseverance of the human spirit. Believers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, though, have an added benefit in having friends to encourage them to pursue the steadfastness promised at the end of trials and by having a God who will speak to them in times of desperation as One who will never abandon His children.
I end in seeking the same truth set forth by Faulkner, Hopkins, and McCarthy in my meager and mediocre attempt at poetry, ending instead with that hope promised by the Christian faith,
Despite the dark enveloping my world,
And those problems that still seem to persist-
Followed me as all of my life unfurled,
Before me, such that I couldn’t resist.
But in the dark and gloomy, cold, hard night,
I felt encouraged by my God above-
Who spoke in my despair and shed His light,
So that I might endure with His great love.
Endnotes:
[i] Faulkner, William. (2014). The Sound and the Fury: An authoritative text, backgrounds and contexts, criticism. (M. E. Gorra, Ed.) (Third Norton Critical Edition ). W. W. Norton & Company.
[ii] Hopkins, Gerard. M. (n.d.). Carrion Comfort by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Poetry Foundation. Retrieved November 4, 2021, from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44392/carrion-comfort.
[iii] McCarthy, Cormac. (2006). The Road. Vintage International.
[iv] Alighieri, Dante. (2003). Inferno. (A. Esolen, Trans.). The Modern Library.
[v] Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. (1954). Life Together. Harper & Row Publishers.
[vi] Sproul, R. C. (2015). The Reformation Study Bible: English standard version. Reformation Trust.
[vii] Sproul, R. C. (2015). The Reformation Study Bible: English standard version. Reformation Trust.
