Keeping a Clear Eye

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When I was working (I’ve been happily retired for 17 years.), I often got into a funk on Sunday evenings. I generally enjoyed my work but had this vague aversion to returning to the workweek, when my time no longer belonged to me and my family.

One of my solutions was to make Sunday evening “movie night.” My wife, Amparo, agreed with the idea so it became a kind of date night for us. It was something to look forward to during the week and blunted Sunday’s funkiness.   

My Sunday feelings were not unique, I have learned. In his book, “Man’s Search for Meaning,” famous Holocaust survivor and psychologist Victor Frankl refers to what he calls “Sunday neurosis.”

He describes it as “that kind of depression which afflicts people who become aware of the lack of content in their lives when the rush of the busy week is over and the void within themselves becomes manifest.”

Emptiness

But the “neurosis” about which he writes wasn’t about returning to work but about the emptiness that is discovered when people have time to think about it. I wasn’t conscious of any “lack of content” in my life. I would just like to have had more time off of work.

And just for clarity, we’re not talking here about “clinical depression,” an illness which haunts the lives of millions of people. My Sunday problem was a sadness that I believe is common, caused by a myriad of circumstances and problems that affect about everybody at one time or another.

I believe Frankl put his finger on something in modern life, however, that he learned from the horrors of the Auschwitz “laboratory:” To be human, we need our lives to be meaningful. He noted that the people who had meaning – religious convictions, strong social bonds, a strong sense of personal dignity and responsibility – in the concentration camps were more likely to survive the brutal conditions.

Victor Frankl

I realize that there are people who would scratch their heads at this. They never think about such topics, it seems, and barely think about the future, let alone their own demise or what life may be about. I assume that once experiencing profound sadness at a loss or some personal crisis, many eventually come to wonder about life’s meaning.

It was certainly on the minds of Frankl’s fellow prisoners. Writes former Harvard University professor Gordon Allport in the preface of Frankl’s book: “Hunger, humiliation, fear and deep anger at injustice are rendered tolerable by closely guarded images of beloved persons, by religion, by a grim sense of humor, and even by the glimpses of the healing beauties of nature – a tree or a sunset.”

This blog is principally for people who have given up on God and/or religion. More broadly, it’s for “people searching for God,” including believers and non-believers. Living in today’s world, we all need reminders of why we’re here, why we exist and what difference we can make.

Growing Hostility

People searching for God have to cut through all the distractions, hype, growing hostility toward religion and all the detritus of their former religious lives and problems and answer for themselves one question: What is life about? Then, in my view, we have to live lives that reflect that meaning.

My friend, retired psychologist Ted Wolgamot, who writes a weekly reflection on Scripture (drtedsweb.com), recently quoted a passage from Francis of Assisi that I had never read or heard.

“Keep a clear eye toward life's end,” wrote St. Francis. “Do not forget your purpose and destiny as God's creature. What you are in his sight is what you are and nothing more. Remember that when you leave this earth, you can take nothing that you have received...but only what you have given; a full heart enriched by honest service, love, sacrifice, and courage.”