Two highlights from Lindsay Stevens' address on hope:
Holocaust survivor and "logotherapy" psychologist Viktor Frankl describes the hope that sustained him in extreme circumstances:
"My mind clung to my wife's image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look was then more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise.
I did not
know whether my wife was alive, and I had no means of finding out (during all
my prison life there was no outgoing or incoming mail); but at that moment it
ceased to matter. There was no need for me to know; nothing could touch the
strength of my love, my thoughts, and the image of my beloved. Had I known then
that my wife was dead, I think that I would still have given myself,
undisturbed by that knowledge, to the contemplation of her image, and that my
mental conversation with her would have been just as vivid and just as
satisfying. 'Set me like a seal upon thy heart, love is as strong as death.'
"Man’s
Search For Meaning"
"Forgiveness made
me free from hatred. I still have many scars on my body and severe pain most
days but my heart is cleansed. Napalm is very powerful, but faith, forgiveness,
and love are much more powerful. We would not have war at all if everyone could
learn how to live with true love, hope, and forgiveness. If that little girl in the picture (NB strong images in this Youtube link- ed) can do it, ask yourself: Can you?"
Kim Phuc 2008
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