Good morning…
On my own, I did not understand the material assigned for Sunday’s discussion of Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankel. I needed our small group to help spark wise thoughts, make real connections, and weave random words into a warm cloak of wisdom.
About ten or twelve of us talked through the chapter, finding our way to these final words on page 134.
“In the concentration camps, for example, in the living laboratory and on this testing ground, we watched and witnessed some of our comrades behave like swine while others behaved like saints,” notices Frankel. “Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions.”
“Our generation is realistic, for we have come to know man as he really is,” Frankel concludes. “After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also the being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord’s Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.”
Hear O’ Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One (Deuteronomy 6:4, NIV).
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one” (Matthew 6:9-13, NIV). The footnote reads: “some late manuscripts end – for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”
We each have both potentialities within ourselves, behaving like a swine and behaving like a saint. Which one is actualized depends on our daily decisions, not on our conditions, AND extending beyond our decisions, God, yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
Whatever conditions surround me this day, Father in heaven, please help me to behave less like a swine and more like a saint.
…Sue…
