Psalm 70: Finding Meaning
Monday, December 8, 2025
O Lord, come quickly to help me . . . come quickly to help me, God.
Being human always points, and is directed, to something or someone, other than oneself – be it meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself – by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love – the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself . . . (Cameron 151)
As I reflect on his words I wonder how those who physically survived a death camp can ever smile again. I wonder how they move past the fear that must haunt them. I wonder how they manage to move through days of freedom without falling into fits of dark despair. I wonder how they begin again.
In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as a meaning of sacrifice . . . In accepting this challenge to suffer bravely, life has a meaning up to the last moment, and it retains this meaning literally to the end . . . My comrades’ . . . question was, “Will we survive the camp? For, if not, all this suffering has no meaning.” The question that beset me was, “Has all this suffering, this dying around us, a meaning? For, if not, then ultimately there is no meaning to survival; for a life whose meaning depends upon such a happenstance – as whether one escapes or not – ultimately would not be worth living at all”. (Cameron 151)
O Lord, come quickly to help me . . . come quickly to help me, God.
And so we pray . . .
Good and glorious God, we struggle to find meaning in the highs and lows of our lives and so we gather up all that we have and all that we are . . . to offer it back to you. For you are our only place of refuge . . . you are our only source of meaning . . . you are the only salvation worth seeking. O Lord, come quickly to help us . . . come quickly to help us, God. Amen.
A re-post from November 13, 2011.
Images from: http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/frankl/frankl.html and http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/questionofgod/voices/frankl.html
Cameron, Peter John, ed. “Meditation of the Day.” MAGNIFICAT. 11.11 (2011): 151. Print.
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