By The Rev. Edward Horstmann
On August 1, 1914, Sir Ernest Shackleton and a crew of twenty-seven men left London, England on a ship called Endurance. Their goal was to establish a base camp where the Weddell Sea meets the coastline of Antarctica. From there a group was to set out to accomplish the first crossing of the continent. But their plans were thwarted when the ship became trapped in ice. Over a period of months, the vessel that had transported Shackleton and his crew over eight thousand miles was caught between two great plates of ice moving against one another and eventually sank into the Weddell Sea.
An expedition that began with great ambitions had to be transformed into a rescue mission. The likelihood of the crew’s survival was a long shot. No one knew where they were, and they were hundreds of miles from the nearest whaling station. But by dragging their three lifeboats over pack ice for many days, and then navigating dangerous seas, they found their way to an inhospitable outcropping of land called Elephant Island. This became a provisional shelter for most of the crew while Shackleton and five others set out for help. Using one of the lifeboats, this small group sailed over 800 miles to South Georgia Island, crossed a mountain range on foot, and presented themselves to the manager of the Norwegian whaling station located there. So bedraggled in appearance were these men that a man who witnessed this encounter turned away in tears.
Shackleton was able to secure a ship that returned him to the crew of the Endurance, 128 days after he and his team had left Elephant Island in search of help. Not one person perished during this epic journey; all returned safely to England. And the story of Endurance and its crew stands out as one of the great adventure stories of all time.
On March 5, 2022, as people around the world watched the latest updates of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the enormous humanitarian crisis that has developed from that aggression, the story of Endurance resurfaced. A scientific expedition had sought to discover whether the ship could be found, and perhaps photographed. The answer to both questions turned out to be yes. Shackleton’s ship rests nearly 10,000 feet below the surface of the Weddell Sea, in a state of remarkable preservation. For me the most stirring image from those photographs is a picture of the ship’s stern: there, clearly visible in the ocean depths, are letters on the hull spelling out a single word: Endurance.
Without endurance Shackleton could never have made it possible for his men to return home alive. Without endurance the crew members would not have survived their time on Elephant Island, scanning the horizon each day for the sight of sails that would signal the arrival of rescuers.
Endurance was the name of a ship, and the spirit of a crew in search of home, and this word may have special importance for us. For two years people across the globe have had to find the inner strength necessary to manage life in a time of pandemic. By tapping that reservoir of sheer grit, we have found ourselves supporting and encouraging one another beyond what we might have thought possible prior to 2020. Some of the most remarkable practitioners of stubborn perseverance have been medical caregivers, teachers, frontline workers, and scientific researchers, whose labors have helped to bring us to the threshold of a much healthier time.
But now new challenges arise. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has created a massive displacement of people from their homes and aspirations. Those affected by military onslaught are having to access a spirit of endurance to manage day-to-day survival, or to leave their homeland to seek safety elsewhere and start life anew. The fate of Ukraine is uncertain, but this much is clear: all those affected by this conflict will have to access the deep and nourishing strength that we associate with that single word, endurance.
I think of endurance as a spiritual energy, a gift of God, that makes it possible for us to face threatening circumstances one step and one breath at a time. It gives us the capacity to outlast those forces. And it is fed by life together in community. In the words of a proverb: if you want to walk fast, walk alone. If you want to walk far, walk together.
“Love endures,” wrote St. Paul in his letter to a Christian congregation in the Greek city of Corinth two thousand years ago. He was describing love that persistently reaches out to welcome those in need of home, that will comfort and care for the disinherited, and will stand against those things that contradict God’s love. If love will endure, rather than those forces that diminish life, that is because we will give ourselves to its life-giving power.
God loves us, and needs us; God is with us, and for us. That is my simple creed and from it I take heart that God has woven into our lives the tender toughness we need to love the world as God loves the world. Love endures: let’s show the world why that ancient affirmation is still true.
