Viktor Frakl's Man's Search For Meaning...

I picked up a book while sitting in Nancy's office at the American Indian Alternative School yesterday called Man's Search For Meaning by a psychiatrist, who endured years of "unspeakable horror in Nazi death camps. He writes about suffering, which can in no way compare to John's... yet who could imagine worse than discovering that your 20 year old son has brain cancer?

"The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity - even under the most difficult circumstances- to add a deeper meaning to his life." Viktor Frankl

The suffering that those endured in the Concentration camps can really in only small ways compare to John's mental and sometimes physical suffering and of course add to the the spiritual suffering.... Yet John was always treated with tremendous love and respect and the outpouring was tremendous, whereas those facing living death in the death camps were totally demoralized and worked and starved to death! The suffering was just to the point of beyond human endurance, yet Viktor made a comment at the beginning of the sharing of his years in the death camps that "textbooks tell lies"... in other words all the studies that say that man cannot survive without sleep, unable to brush their teeth - they had healthier gums than ever before! All the comforts they thought they needed to sleep or to keep clean - they didn't and the dirt in wounds did not become infected even though they could hardly ever clean themselves. On and on... We are much stronger and can stand up to hardships much more than we ever thought possible. To see John in his calm strength face all that would terrify me... I knew it was the power of prayer giving him the peace that he needed!

Jesus, how powerful is the human person given such terrible suffering, but with you there to assist him he can make it into something life changing! Jesus, we trust in you! Amen and Halleluia!

Bless-bless, Barb the humble and fervent
"This young woman knew that she would die in he next few days. But when I talked to her she was cheerful in spite of this knowledge. 'I am grateful that fate has hit me so hard,' she told me. 'In my former life I was spoiled and did not take spiritual accomplishment seriously.' Pointing through the window of the hut, she said, 'This tree is the only friend I have in my loneliness.' Through the window she could see just one branch of a chestnut tree, and on the branch were two blossoms. 'I often talk to this tree,' she said to me. I was startled and didn't quite know how to take her words. Was she delirious? Did she have occasional hallucinations? Anxiously I asked her if the tree replied. 'Yes.' What did it say to her? She answered, 'It said to me, "I am here - I am here - I am life, eternal life.' " Viktor Frankl