Journal of Sacred Work

(Note: Friday’s Guest Meditation was written by Catherine Self)

“The core principle of high purpose…is that all great
performance…flows first and foremost from an understanding of our meaning or
purpose (mission)…”    – Erie Chapman, 1999.

   Of all the stories and lectures I have heard on the subjects of purpose and
meaning, the life story of Victor Frankl (left) has been the most compelling. In his
book, Man’s Search for Meaning,
Frankl details his journey from despair to survival and hope. I ask you to join
me in walking a journey inspired by his story, for it adds an important
foundation to our understanding of what it means to live with a sense of high
purpose…

   Imagine yourself tonight at home, the dinner dishes cleared,
your family gathering together to finish the evening’s tasks – homework,
reading the paper, sorting the laundry. Suddenly you hear at your front door a
loud and insistent knocking. You rush, startled and somewhat alarmed, to open
the door only to face the hostile faces of men in uniform holding rifles ready
to fire. You and your family are hurried to gather coats and things of value under
a wave of cruel shouting and demeaning commands. With painful prodding you are
forced into the back of a truck where you come face to face with the neighbors
who are just like you.
   The truck travels over rough roads in the dark, carrying you
to a train where you are herded onto cattle cars. Desperately you have clung to
your family members and those precious things you were able to hurriedly grab
as you left your home – the home you know now you will never see again. The
train moves slowly at first, then gathers speed as it travels into the dark,
jostling you as you stand shoulder to shoulder with others in the car. Day and
night the train moves – you’ve had nothing to eat, no way to rest your weary
body or relive itself of its needs. Quiet sobbing fills the air.

   When at last the train comes to a stop you struggle to focus
in the sharp light that now streams through the opening door and with horror
recognize that the rumors are true and this place exists, a place surrounded by
barbed wire and guards with more rifles. With mocking disdain you are directed
to move into long lines, forced to drop your treasured belongings. And without
warning… “Men to right! Women and children to the left!” You reach for your family only to feel the sharp sting of a rifle butt on your
shoulder. Mothers hold tightly to their little ones, not knowing that at the
next turn even they will be ripped from their mothers’ arms.
    Your dignity is stripped as naked and shorn you are led to
showers of disinfectant and handed thin, dirty clothes striped black and
white. Some receive shoes, many more do not. Days run into night as hard labor
in the biting cold becomes your new reality. Bodies of friends and strangers
pile up in surreal angles, many from starvation, many more from deadly gases.
    As barely imaginable as is this story, Frankl not only
survived but, incredibly, discovered a sense of meaning and purpose even in
that place of horror and death. He tells of noticing that when a fellow
sufferer uttered the words “I give up,” death inevitably claimed that life
within hours.
    Frankl was not willing to give up. Clinging to his own hope
and vision for one day being reunited with his beloved wife, Frankl sought to
convey hope and love to those around him. At times, Frankl’s sense of meaning
was expressed in handing his one portion of bread to someone who seemed hungrier
than he. On occasion, Frankl felt purpose as he offered a hand up to another
who had fallen into the cold mud.
    Frankl reminds us repeatedly in his story of Nietszche’s statement that “he
who has a why, can bear almost any how.” Unlike Frankl’s marking of
time by the guards’ coming and going, our days are measured by clocks,
responsibilities, and choices.
    Like Frankl, we come in contact everyday with
others who have proclaimed, at least emotionally or mentally, “I give up.” The
loss of meaning creates a human being who sleep-walks through life. These are
the individuals who never found their why or lost it somewhere along the way.
They live for Friday and dread Mondays. They count the years until retirement and
hope that then they will be able to
truly begin living.
    Meaning is what tells us we count. The key to Frankl’s survival
was his constant focus on the vision of what could be – his desire to write his story, his passion to see his wife. As you move through your
day today, I invite you to reflect on Frankl’s story and the following
questions –

Do I have a strong vision about the power of love?
Do I really believe in what could be?
Do I know what my purpose is in life?
Have I claimed my sense of meaning and mission in my work?
Do I have a strong enough why to endure almost any how (including
days of low staffing and missing supplies and people in pain who may lash out
at me)?

A final note…

What keeps us alive, what allows us to endure?

I think it is the hope of loving,

or being loved.

…We weep when light does not reach our hearts. We wither

like fields if someone close

does not rain their

kindness

upon

us.

– Meister Eckhart (1260-1328)