ISBC 26 - Shifting the Point of View
ISBC 26 - Shifting the Point of View
Chapter26 of Hope: A User's Manual
…in dark times, we may not prevail, but we can remain faithful to the values and principles we hold dear. We can keep the faith. Who will we be in this world? What story will we write? No matter how dire our circumstances, those questions still shine through. As Viktor Frankl realized in the death camps during the Holocaust: “Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”1
I heard several different things in this chapter but this paragraph with the Victor Frankl quote really stood out to me. I am not sure that it is necessarily at the heart of what MaryAnn was getting at in this chapter, but I kept coming back to it whenever I started to reflect on this chapter. I kept circling around this paragraph - acknowledging dark times and the reality that we may not see the results or change we hope but yet continuing to walk the path that we are called to walk. I often share in the congregation I serve about how the Way of Jesus isn’t simply that one-time thing when someone prays a prayer in a revival and poof is saved. But instead the way of Jesus is daily, hourly, even moment-by-moment choices of how we will follow. Which path will we choose, especially when we can’t see where either path fully leads? Even if one isn’t a Jesus follower, the moment-by-moment choices remain.
Looking at this photo, which path would you choose? Why?
Grace, Peace, Love, and Joy,
Ed
McKibben Dana, MaryAnn. Hope: A User's Manual (pp. 117-118). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition and Maria Popova, "Viktor Frankl on the Human Search for Meaning," The Marginalian, February 5, 2017, https://www.themarginalian.org/2013/03/26/viktor-frankl-mans-search-for-meaning/.