Day Two "The Concentration Camp Parable"

If I was thrown into a concentration camp because, say, for my faith or ethnicity, I don't know that I would be wise enough to take the high road (a la  Victor Frankl at Auschwitz who used the experience to write about human search for meaning in existence) but I do know that I'm wired to believe, both rooted in my personality and in my faith, that I'm likely going to be among those who 'get out'.  I will be released due to a clerical error [grace, not works, to put it in terms of my faith in Jesus].

Day Two of treatment was definitely that for me.  An easy day to write about grace and transformation. But I had read the warnings on the medications--nasty possibilities, some of which I may well be still in for and, honestly, some of which my fellow travelers were experiencing the very day I was being excused from most of the real suffering.

Easy for me to be grateful now.  Victor Frankl wrote some of his best stuff on scraps of paper (apparently toilet paper and the spaces of smuggled newspapers were favorite mediums).  I write on a Mac Air notebook computer with lightning speed and amazing access to much of the best that been written throughout human history.  More resources are available to me now than were available to kings and queens of previous generations.  You'd think I could do better than this.  Really.

But I'm grateful for grace because part of grace is that even my not doing better is covered in grace my response to days like today is covered by the grace of the Cross (try to block this out if you're of a different faith persuasion; followers of Christ sometimes lapse into jargon).  Way different from Frankyl here. I get that that (though he had his own jargon).  But my training was boldly eclectic (take what you can from the best of those who've went before).

So my response is framed in terms of Frankl:

“LET US FIRST ASK OURSELVES WHAT SHOULD BE understood by “a tragic optimism.” In brief it means that one is, and remains, optimistic in spite of the “tragic triad,” as it is called in logotherapy, a triad which consists of those aspects of human existence which may be circumscribed by: (1) pain; (2) guilt; and (3) death. This chapter, in fact, raises the question, How is it possible to say yes to life in spite of all that? How, to pose the question differently, can life retain its potential meaning in spite of its tragic aspects? After all, “saying yes to life in spite of everything,” to use the phrase in which the title of a German book of mine is couched, presupposes that life is potentially meaningful under any conditions, even those which are most miserable. And this in turn presupposes the human capacity to creatively turn life’s negative aspects into something positive or constructive. In other words, what matters is to make the best of any given situation. “The best,” however, is that which in Latin is called optimum—hence the reason I speak of a tragic optimism, that is, an optimism in the face of tragedy[…]”

Excerpt From: Viktor E. Frankl, Harold S. Kushner & William J. Winslade. “Man's Search for Meaning.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/rT4xC.l

An easy (not terribly tragic) optimism for me today because I 'get' that I benefit from a long list of privileges including:

• deep relational connections with a gracious Father God and a few of his followers
• meaning in my work that often witnesses life changes and growth into grace (though not always strictly spiritual)
• working with colleagues and interns in many ways superior to me in some of their emerging giftedness yet willing to learn and receive guidance from me as well
• access to technological and intellectual resources (which can be turned inward and backward in mindless internet surfing, pornography, or mindless television viewing) but can also be a way for us to 'stand on the shoulders' on the wisest of those who went before and participate in my own search for meaning
• and a Day Two of CLL treatment that has been virtually free of significant side effects