Search for Meaning--Love

Sometimes getting the flu or a cold is brilliant.  Our bodies force us to slow down, sleep extra, and simply have a time out!  I'm in a time out now, and in addition to some brilliant movies I've been watching, I am reading Viktor Frankl Man's Search for Meaning. I was telling my husband about the book and as he doesn't read much and he asked if they'd made a movie about Viktor's story, a Holocaust survivor.  I wasn't sure yet knew we could get another amazing book I'd read, The Boy In the Striped Pajamas, in movie form on Netflix, so we watched that.

I am always inspired by the courage and resilience that comes out of tragic events.  And, I am forever haunted by the horrors of the Holocaust.  In 1995 I backpacked through Europe and toured Dachau and Sachsenhausen, both concentration camps, in addition to the Anne Frank House.  Walking in the footsteps of that horrific past was soul altering.

Reading Viktor Frankl's account of Auschwitz reminded me of my time in Europe. Reminded me of the family my friend and I stayed with in Berlin asking us "When would we Americans ever let the Germans forget?"  Reminded me of how moved we all were when the mother of that family visited Sachsenhausen with us, having had Polish relatives who had been involved in the Holocaust. Reminded me of Anne Frank's diary, wherein she states, "In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death."  I have always wondered if she would have changed that courageous sentiment having been interned at Auschwitz and then dying at Bergen-Belsen 3 weeks prior to the camp being liberated.

Somehow I think Viktor Frankl answers my wonderment in his book, in his story, in his indomitable spirit.  I especially like Viktor's section on the Meaning of Love:

Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him  By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized.  Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities   By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true.

A poignant lesson.