Today’s Word from Pastor Jim…
Life is hard for everyone, be kind to those you meet this day!
Viktor Frankl had been married for nine months when his family was taken on a Nazi prisoner train to Theresienstadt. He would spend the next three years at in four concentration camps including Theresienstadt and Auschwitz. His wife Tilly, his father Gabriel, his mother Elsa, and his brother Walter all died in hellish captivity.
Viktor Frankl wrote Man’s Search for Meaning over a nine-day period. The book was released in German in 1946. The English translation of Man’s Search for Meaning was published in 1959 and became an international bestseller. Millions of copies were sold in dozens of languages. In a 1991 survey conducted for the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club, Man’s Search for Meaning was named one of the ten most influential books in the US.
On this Saturday in September, I would encourage you to read this book as I share with you a few quotes from Man’s Search for Meaning.
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
“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 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.”
“The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.”
“Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue.”
“Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.”
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
“Freedom, however, is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness. In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.”
Blessings to you on this day! I hope to see you tomorrow at worship and at our Rally Day Barbeque at 11:45.
One beggar, telling another beggar where to find bread, I am your,
Pastor Jim
If you would like to email Pastor Jim direct please send a note to: [email protected]
