“We stumbled on in the darkness, over big stones and through large puddles, along the one road leading from the camp. The accompanying guards kept shouting at us and driving us with the butts of their rifles. Anyone with very sore feet supported himself on his neighbor’s arm. Hardly a word was spoken; the icy wind did not encourage talk. Hiding his mouth behind his upturned collar, the man marching next to me whispered suddenly: “If our wives could see us now! I do hope they are better off in their camps and don’t know what is happening to us.”
“That brought thoughts of my own wife to mind. And as we stumbled on for miles, slipping on icy spots, supporting each other time and again, dragging one another up and onward, nothing was said, but we both knew: each of us was thinking of his wife. Occasionally I looked at the sky, where the stars were fading and the pink light of the morning was beginning to spread behind a dark bank of clouds. But my mind clung to my wife’s image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look was then more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise.”
“A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth – that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which Man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart:
“The salvation of Man is through love and in love.”
Vicktor Frankl’s mother Elsa and brother Walter died at Auschwitz. His wife was moved to Bergen-Belsen, where she died.
The only other survivor of the Holocaust among Frankl’s immediate family was his sister, Stella, who had emigrated from Austria to Australia.
Some of Vicktor Frankl’s unusual conclusions touch our hearts:
“Love is that capacity which enables man to grasp the other human being in his very uniqueness.”
“The uniqueness envisaged by love refers to the unique possibilities the loved person may have.”
Have you ever grasped another human being in their uniqueness? If so, you have loved.
What are their unique possibilities? This is love.
Frankl’s kind of love meditates on their object of love. How are they motivated? What characterizes them in particular? Distinctiveness? Needs? Can I walk in their shoes for a day? Can I identify with them?
Merriam Webster defines “identify.”
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to cause to be or become identical
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to conceive as united (as in spirit, outlook, or principle)
Frankl’s kind of love is not for Pleasure:
- “The more one aims at pleasure, the more his aim is missed.”
- “The self defeating quality of pleasure-seeking accounts for many sexual neuroses.”
- Normally pleasure is the side effect of attaining a goal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanukah frankl stuff
A friend lost a loved one to death. He asks only “why?”
Does God answer this question?
Well, God:
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thinks about you.
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seeks to discover your uniqueness
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has become “identical” to you — to understand you.
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is pleased to simply converse with you in a deeper way.
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has no ulterior motive.
My answer to those who ask “why?” —
In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old. Isaiah 63:9
Persist in asking God till you find Him; His very Person.
He Himself answers all questions through one appearing.
The truths found in God Himself will heal your broken heart. love ya
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