carry your camera...

I am imagining that it isn’t often in a person’s life that they actually get to see the odometer on their car turn to 111,111. And I also suppose that it isn’t often that a person actually has their camera on the seat beside them when they see their odometer turn to 111,111. So I thought I’d share the moment…since you may never personally see it. (I did pull off the road first!)

When it happened, I actually started to think contemplatively about life. Seems strange, I know. On one hand, the event itself seems rather insignificant. If we think real hard, it may mean as little as “I need an oil change soon”…or even, “I need a new timing belt in a few thousand miles!” But for me, the event catapulted me into a bit of "intro-" and "extro- spection." (to use a little special spelling license.)

My creativity has been reduced to what seems like a dry, cracked, barren piece of land inside my heart for the past several weeks. Or it sort of feels like events in life have pulled the cork out of somewhere deep inside me, and whatever was inside has drained away. As I write this, I am rethinking how to explain. Actually, a more accurate way to describe it is that it seems like my internal blender has been turned on PUREE as I try and assimilate “life” over these past weeks. Twists, turns, distress, distraction, personal, impersonal…humanity at its unspeakable worst, and humanity at its near-holiness. I have felt these so closely that I lay awake at night. And I have felt them so distantly that I feel guilty that I am able to sleep!

The bottom line is that there is only one thing in life that makes sense to me right now. And that is a loving God, and I must cling to Him. Because in light of the depravity of the human heart that I see (and I include my own), I must have a hope. I have to find water for the dry, cracked ground…another cork for the hole. A way to make sense of life on PUREE.

Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him--mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp. Dostoevski said once, 'There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.' These words frequently came to my mind after I became acquainted with those martyrs whose behavior in camp, whose suffering and death, bore witness to the fact that the last inner freedom cannot be lost, namely that everything can be taken from a man but ... the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. It can be said that they were worthy of their sufferings; the way they bore their suffering was a genuine inner achievement. It is this spiritual freedom--which cannot be taken away--that makes life meaningful and purposeful.
from: Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

for those giving me light...

'Untitled'

To my granddaughters who visited the Holocaust Museum
On the day of the burial of Yitzak Rabin, November 6th 1995.

Now you know the worst
we humans have to know
about ourselves, and I am sorry,

for I know you will be afraid.
To those of our bodies given
without pity to be burned, I know

there is no answer
but loving one another
even our enemies, and this is hard.

But remember:
when a man of war becomes a man of peace,
he gives a light, divine

though it is also human.
When a man of peace is killed
by a man of war, he gives a light.

You do not have to walk in darkness.
If you have the courage for love,
you may walk in light. It will be

the light of those who have suffered
for peace. It will be
your light.

-- Wendell Berry
From: A Timbered Choir, The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997