the book of the week is "Man's Search For Meaning" by Viktor E. Frankl

The recent horrors of the Russian school hostage massacre have only served to remind us that there are those amongst us who are truly evil. There is a special place in hell for people who harm children.

But what of the survivors? How will they cope? How will they come to be at peace in such a violent world, especially when they have such violent memories? Reading Viktor E. Frankl's "Man's Search For Meaning" may be one way to cope. For those of us lucky enough to live lives relatively free of violence and hardship this book helps us to remember, we should not take life for granted.

Already a psychiatrist when he was forced into a Holocaust death camp, Frankl was uniquely situated to observe the suffering of his fellows and that is exactly what he did. The daily ritual of death and punishment, starvation, un-ending work revealed all manner of human behaviors and Frankly took note of them all. In one of his sadder memories, Frankl relates how men would commit suicide of sorts by simply refusing to get up for work. They would stoically light a cigarette and lay in bed enjoying it, knowing full well the Nazi guards would not tolerate insubordination. No amount of pleading from their comrades would convince the men to get up. By the time Frankl and his companions would return from a days' work, the smokers' bunks would be empty, the men exterminated.

But for all the cruelty and death Frankl witnessed, he also witnessed the coping skills of the survivors, the ones who made it through each horrid day, day after day until liberation finally was at hand. They did get up to work, they did survive the senseless rounds of killings, the beatings, the hunger, the cold. They survived it all.

But how?

Frankl posits a simple but profound idea: a man who has 'meaning' in his life, can survive hardship. Even in the face of untold hardship man, if living with meaning, can find the strength to cope. When you have meaning in your life, you have life. When the meaning leaves your life, when you can longer find meaning, you light a cigarette and you die.