"Having known Viktor Frankl, I think Elizabeth
Clark-Stern did a great job portraying his wit and wisdom."
̶ Jeffrey K. Zeig Phd,
The Milton H. Erickson Foundation
VIKTOR: I have come to
believe that it is death itself that makes life meaningful. All
the losses along the way give us the opportunity to learn we can
be stronger than we thought, take a new path, try a new skill,
love again. We make a friend of our own free will and create a
life of beauty from the rubble, like pearls of great price on a
golden chain. Nothing is ever lost.
EDITH: Sentimental tripe,
Dr. Frankl. Everything is lost for the Jews.
VIKTOR: If it takes all
night, I will convince you otherwise.
EDITH: To find meaning
---here?
VIKTOR: Most
particularly, here.
---Timeless Night:
Viktor Frankl Meets Edith Stein by Elizabeth Clark-Stern
We constitute a
most universal club: humans seeking the meaning of why we are
here, what is our purpose, what do we really want, how do we
transcend suffering, find meaning in injustice, overcome
cynicism and self-doubt?
Answers seem illusive, yet we keep asking. Some grow
weary of the quest and seek safe harbor in dogma, an
understandable choice, and yet, as Bill Moyers once said of the
“congregational polity” of his Baptist roots, in true religion,
each person must forge their own relationship with God and
struggle to make meaning in a world of paradoxical truth.
The breadth and
depth of humanity’s meaning seekers never ceases to engage and
surprise. As soon as we think we know what it looks like, who
belongs to our “tribe”, someone comes along who is an unlikely
candidate. A person who seems devil-may-care in all other ways,
drops his voice and stares into space, suddenly humbled by a
most universal question: “Why did she stop loving me?” This
leads to the nature of love itself, the complexity of our need
for one another, to the question of an inner life where none of
us is alone in psyche. Judgments melt as common denominator is
revealed.
In her
beautiful book, Close to
the Bone: Life-Threatening Illness and the
Search for Meaning ,
Jungian analyst and author Jean Shinoda Bolen writes about the
meaning search in one of the most challenging arenas of human
experience: confronting the
life-threatening illness in ourselves or those we love.
She evokes Viktor Frankl, who observed the full range of choices
available to humans in the concentration camps. Some gave up,
some took on the role of their captors and oppressed others;
some found a deep compassion for others and made sacrifices to
keep others, even strangers, alive.
In facing
illness and possible death, we know that some are able to face
it with assertiveness and courage, while others are passive,
hostile, irascible. How are we to make meaning of this? What is
the meaning of choice and free will in such a context? How does
the existence of death influence our attitude about life?
Dr. Bolen uses
story to dramatize this journey. Inanna, Queen of Heaven and
Earth learns that her sister, Ereshkigal is suffering and in
mourning in the underworld. Inanna is compelled to descend to
Great Below, to be a witness. The proud and powerful goddess
enters naked and bows low, looking into the baleful eyes of
death. She is struck down, her body left to rot on a hook.
The
once-powerful Queen is humbled, as we are all humbled by endless
cat-scans, x-rays, blood tests, and surgeries that leave us
feeling like meat on a hook. Inanna symbolizes the part of us
that is successful, ego-satisfied, master of our world. Her
sister, Ereshkigal, is the part of us consigned to the
underworld of life, not top of the class, smartest, fastest,
much adored. She is the bad patient all doctors and nurses
dread, whining, fearful, blaming, self-pitying. She is the
person in our lives, or the part in ourselves, we most want to
avoid. And yet, to find meaning in the mending of our souls, we
are called, as Inanna was called, to enter the underworld and
make peace with our inner Ereshkigal.
We are aided in
this by a third character in the myth, Ninshubur, Inanna’s
messenger, warrior, faithful servant, messenger, minister,
general and adviser. She accompanies Inanna to the gate of the
Great Below, and when she learns of her Queen’s fate, Ninshurber
cries her lament loudly, beats her drum in the assemblies and
seeks help from the father gods.
The first two gods cannot be bothered, but the third
feels compassion for Inanna and acts immediately – in a curious
way. He cleans under his fingernails and brings forth the dirt
and lint and fashions two small creatures, neither male nor
female, small as flies, who can pass through the gates of Hell
unnoticed. These tiny flies find Ereshkigal and mirror her very
particular woes: “Oh, my back!’ “Oh, my belly!” “Ahh my
breast!”. The little fly-creatures respond, empathetically
moaning, groaning and sighing with her. Ereskigal feels seen,
understood, and cared for. Her petulant, wrathful behavior
transforms to gratitude and generosity.
She offers the little fly-like beings riches and jewels.
They ask only for the piece of rotting meat hanging on the wall,
and thus Inanna, is restored to life, able to ascend from the
Great Below to the Great Above.
Each of us must
find meaning in our own way.
My search has brought me to the meaning-source himself,
Viktor Frankl. Surely the enduring popularity of
Man’s Search for Meaning
is a testament to the universality of our club, as broad and
deep as humanity itself.
I discovered
that Viktor Frankl and philosopher/Carmelite nun Edith Stein
travelled parallel paths in phenomenology, psychology,
philosophy, and human rights.
They were also in the concentration camp at the same
time. They could have met…
In my new play,
Timeless Night, they
are troublemakers tossed into an old storage shed in Auschwitz.
They have one night to get to know each other, to tell stories,
to learn, to explore, to laugh, to remember, to feel. With the
dawn comes liberation or extermination. They don’t know which,
but have opinions and theories about that, and everything else.
A teacher once
told me, “All death scenes are life scenes.”
Nothing is
lost.
And so the
journey continues.