Follow Your Bliss: Find Your meaning

I was chatting with a congregant Helen Redhead in the gym. As many of you know she has recently begun competing as a power lifter, she is making great progress. She was telling me some new training that she was involved in. it was something like “Stone lifting”, a bit like you would see in the Highland Games. She has since told me that they are called “Dinny Stones”. I think the idea of getting dressed up was as exciting as competing to Helen. It was great to see her so thrilled and excited, to see her “Following her Bliss.” She told me afterwards that she was going to meet a mutual friend for lunch. She was going to share about past struggles of her own that she had overcome, a wonderful example of her finding meaning from a place that was once suffering, by helping someone else who was experiencing a similar struggle and was looking for hope. Just as she was leaving I thanked Helen for writing this weeks sermon, which is on “Following your bliss: finding your meaning”

I will begin with “Follow Your Bliss”

What does it mean to “follow your bliss”? Well according to Joseph Campbell it is a sacred call to action. It is a call from your soul to light the fire within you to do what destiny asks of you, to bring yourself fully to life and therefore to become a light in the lives of others. Following your bliss is about doing the things that bring meaning and fulfilment despite the troubles that may accompany it. It is about meaningful living despite the very real suffering present in all life. As Campbell says by “following our bliss doors will open up for us where we could only see barriers before.”

Following our bliss is about saying yes to this call and beginning our own heroic journey. In doing so synchronicity will seemingly be abound and luck will follow. By following our bliss we seemingly become guided by something more than ourselves. This is what Campbell observed and it has certainly been my experience, since I began following mine, which is of course this ministry.

Following our bliss though is not an easy ride, quite the opposite actually. Yes, there maybe moments of triumph when all are for us and no one seems to be against us, but there will also be moments of suffering and betrayal when everyone and everything seems to be against us. As Campbell observed that like all heroic journeys there are tests and trials along the way. There are monsters and dragons to slay on the journey although most of these are the ones we carry with us. It is our fear of the adventure that is our greatest enemy. It is this that stops us taking the first vital step.

Human history is littered with figures who have been drawn out of themselves, have followed there bliss and begun their adventure thus inspiring others to do likewise. Some have done this on a mass scale, figures like Nelson Mandela, and many others have done so on a much smaller, but no less important scale. All have had to face their trials and tribulations and all brought so much light to our world. They were not special people though, they were ordinary people just like you and me; ordinary people who followed their bliss; ordinary people who found the courage to be all that they were born to be.

I wonder what it might mean for you to follow your bliss?

I am at my most blissful when singing, especially with folk my heart and my soul are in harmony with. I am singing more at more once again, my soul is calling out for this. I had the most incredible experience this week during “Singing Meditation” as my voice blended heart and soul with that of another, I feel it may lead to more singing and soul stretching. My heart felt so alive, so aroused. Before we began we were chatting and Martin, who was attending for the first time, shared that he had recently found his voice, after nearly fifty years, during a service at Cross Street Chapel in Manchester. It was beautiful how he described this. I shared I had had similar experiences myself at Cross Street all those years ago. I discovered later that another friend, Helen and mine’s mutual friend, had begun to find her voice during “Singing Meditation”. All this was bliss to me, to my heart and soul and was music to my ministry, my purpose, my meaning. I wonder where this may lead. I suspect it will be somewhere wonderful, as we follow our bliss.


“Singing Meditation” was last Tuesday, the 23rd August. It was 22 years ago on that Ethan was born, the little boy who lived six years, but who was the most significant person ever to enter my life. My ministry in many ways is a legacy to his love and life. Certainly my journey through this seemingly unbearable grief is what led me to this work. His mum shared some lovely messages with me last Tuesday, including one in which she told me “You were always good for Ethan, you taught him it was ok to be a sensitive soul.” It broke me that day. I never think about what I gave to him, only what he gave to me. Of course we all still live with the grief of this loss, I have been saved though from despair by the meaning that is my life’s work that has grown from this loss. It has saved me from despair. It has enabled me to help others in their own grief, I have not lost that sensitivity, if anything I feel more deeply as time goes by, as I am sure you have all observed these last few months. Sometimes this makes it difficult, but it is the only way. My life has proven to me that despair is suffering without meaning D=S-M. Despair equals suffering minus meaning.

This leads me to the other question

“How do we find our meaning?”

The equation D=S-M comes from Viktor Frankl. In “Man’s Search For Meaning” he wrote “Man is not destroyed by suffering; he is destroyed by suffering without meaning.” He discovered that if we have a “why” to live for we can endure anything. More than that actually it is this that allows us to thrive, to be all that we are born to be. To not only improve our lives, but to serve our world. This in my eyes has parallels with Campbell’s idea of finding your own bliss, only in less flowery language and imagery.

Like finding our bliss, uncovering meaning is no easy task, how do we do so? Where do we find meaning in our lives? What about those who tell us that life is essentially meaningless? Is there one meaning? Is there one truth?

Now Frankl would suggest that it is for each of us to discover our own meaning in any given situation. That this is our task; that this meaning may not be in the given moment but in some place in the future; that it is to be found in some purpose or meaning yet to come. Again, there are parallels with Campbell’s idea of finding your own bliss. Campbell saw no one meaning, that life itself was meaningless in one sense. Our task is to discover what our bliss is to inspire others to do the same, in so doing our lives become meaning filled. The meaning is not given to us, it is revealed through our lives.

Campbell made his discoveries through studying ancient texts and stories, Frankl developed his observing and experiencing the horrors of the Nazi death camps.

In “Man’s Search For Meaning” Frankl gives an account of his struggle to find meaning when held as a prisoner in the Nazi death camps of the Second World War. He lost most of his family and friends in the camps and yet he never lost hope in humanity.

Frankl was the founder of what has often been referred to as the “Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy” Freud founded the first which was based on the central role of the libido or pleasure principle in human psychology. Alfred Adler founded the second which emphasised the importance of the will to power and the significance of the superiority/inferiority complex in human behaviour. In contrast to these two schools Frankl’s psychology is based on the will to meaning which he saw as the primary motivating force in human life. He named it “Logotherapy” taken from the Greek term logos, which means “word”, “reason”, or “meaning”. Think of the opening words from John’s Gospel, “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.” The word here of course is “Logos”. There is an implication here that meaning has a transcendent origin.

Frankl saw a spiritual dimension beyond the biological and psychological. He saw the suppression of this as the root cause of our human malady. Therefore, the task of “Logotherapy” was “to remind patients of their unconscious religiousness” and to uncover the spiritual dimensions of their lives and enable them to recover the capacity to choose those values which give our lives worth and meaning.

Now this meaning is of course different for everyone, again we see parallels with Campbell here. As Frankl said himself:

“For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.”

Frankl claimed that meaning is discovered through creative and worthwhile activities, by creating something beautiful or doing good – I believe that one of the greatest sadness’s of our age is the fact that the phrase “do-gooder” has become a term of mockery, that it is somehow seen as wrong and suspicious to do good - Meaning can be found through experiencing and sharing in the beauty of art or nature or through loving or ethical encounters with others.

Even in the most horrific and terrifyingly hopeless situations we still have the capacity to choose our attitude towards whatever circumstances we are faced with. It is our response to life’s events that shapes our souls. Remember Frankl developed his theory during the utter despair and horror of the Nazi death camps. As Frankl himself said “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”

There are those that say that life has no meaning, that nothing matters in life. I was once one of these people. These days I see no truth in such statements. These days I see meaning in everything, even in the most painful moments in life. In fact it has usually been through coming through these most painful moments that the greatest meaning has emerged. Not immediately always but eventually as I have been able to give back to others from the experience of the suffering I have experienced and or witnessed. These last few months have proved this once again This in no way justifies the suffering please do not get me wrong, I am in no way suggesting any such thing. To quote Dorothee Soelle, “no heaven can rectify an Auswitz”. No what I am saying is that through living openly meaning can emerge. Meaning can merge from living by the way of the Lure of Divine Love. Such love draws us out of ourselves and meaning emerges as we live from love and our most painful experiences are transfigured into meaning and purpose. The suffering is still as real, but meaning begins to emerge as we are saved from the hell of despair.

We can also know bliss in our lives, by uncovering whatever it is that makes us feel alive. I have witnessed it again in the lives of ordinary people in this extraordinary week. I have experienced it too. Spiritually speaking it has been quite a week, my heart has felt close to bursting at times. That said this week has not been without pain, but even in that meaning has emerged and I have experienced utter bliss.

So follow your bliss, find your meaning. I am not here to tell you what the meaning of life is. I would be cautious of anyone who suggests that they have all the answers to such questions. What I can tell you though is that meaning can and will emerge from you, all you have to do is follow your bliss. In so doing not only will your life be meaning filled but you will inspire others to do the same.

Please find below a video devotion based

 on the material in this "blogspot"

Turn towards the sun, sideways into the light, not away from life

A good friend Rob planted a load of beautiful flowers in gardens at Dunham Road. Gardening is a new love for him; a love born from the grief of the loss of his father, who was an early Covid death. He had nurtured the seedlings and had so many that he was giving them away as gifts. He wanted some to come to the chapel, as it means so much to him. It is where his soul came back to life. He also wanted to thank me for helping him along the way, not least when his father died. He planted the flowers on the second anniversary of his father’s death back in the Spring.

He planted many sunflowers and some are now blooming. I was admiring them early the other morning and thinking of how they always turn towards the sun. How it is a source of everything to the sunflower. They need to turn towards the sun not only to survive, but to thrive. I don’t think I am that different myself, are any of us?

When I think of my friend and his flowers, particularly those sunflowers I see a love born from pain and suffering. The way his father died and the way so many others did and still do, in such tragic isolated ways, without the ability to grieve this love as they would have normally done so. My friend has created something beautiful from that suffering, something meaningful that he can share with others. I see pure joy born from the pain and rich meaning too. Thus, there is no despair, no empty shell, no lingering destructive resentment. Thinking of this turns my heart towards the sun, just like those sunflowers he so lovingly planted do.

I was thinking of this the other morning as I walked down and round to Dunham Massey. I had much weighing heavily on my heart that day, things are would rather not face. Not least the news that my cousin has only a few days to live. I was travelling to see my auntie and uncle that day. Cheryl is now home, where she is being cared for as her life comes to an end.

It was a beautiful sunlit morning in Dunham. I bumped into another friend and his wife, they were out running. I had never actually met her before. We had once spoken on the phone, when he was in his darkest hour, a few years earlier. So, it was lovely to actually meet her, in the sunshine. Things are very different for them now, thank God. There lives have certainly turned around, they turned towards the light and back to life.

As I wandered in the morning sun I was reminded of Mary Oliver’s poem “The Sun”.

Here it is

“The Sun” Mary Oliver

Have you ever seen

Anything

in your life

more wonderful

than the way the sun,

every evening,

relaxed and easy,

floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or the hills,

or the rumpled sea,

and is gone--

and how it slides again

out of the blackness,

every morning,

on the other side of the world,

like a red flower

streaming upward on its heavenly oils,

say, on a morning in early summer,

at its perfect imperial distance--

and have you ever felt for anything

such wild love--

do you think there is anywhere, in any language,

a word billowing enough

for the pleasure

that fills you,

as the sun

reaches out,

as it warms you

as you stand there,

empty-handed--

or have you too

turned from this world--

or have you too

gone crazy

for power,

for things?

Mary had such a beautiful pastoral way about her. Her poems were very real and earthy, there are no bromides and yet there is a deep sense of love and care, and devotion to life, they are spiritual in every sense of the word. There is a sense of the sacred in anything and everything she described. She reminds me how vital it is to sanctify life and let life sanctify me, by simply being alive. Like my friend and his sunflowers. I feel so carried and cared for by Mary’s words in “The Sun” and yet brought to a halt by the final lines which asks if we have turned away from  the world or gone crazy with power for things. Both will be destructive, it matters how we live in this world and how the world lives in us, it really does. It matters how we turn in life, is it in love, towards the sun, or do we turn away from life or perhaps even worse get so crazy with power we try to destroy everything in our way.

As I continued my walk round Dunham I was reminded of another poem of Mary’s, I thought of my friend and his flowers as I remembered a few lines from “Morning Poem”: “Every morning the world is created under the orange sticks of the sun the heaped ashes of the night turn into leaves again and fasten themselves to the high branches…”

How important it is whenever the pain gets too overwhelming, when, to quote another line from the poem, that “heavier than lead” feeling comes, that we keep on turning back to life. That we do not let our ego control the lives of others. That instead we turn to life and play our role in everything. Afterall this is what life needs and in so doing meaning always emerges right there in the ashes of suffering.

Walking in nature brings solace to me, it is not the answer to the troubles both close at hand and in the wider world but my heart and soul needs it in order to return to whatever is my responsibility. In so doing joy is born deep in the heart, even in the very real suffering. The suffering is not transcended, it is transformed into meaning and love. Gosh have I known love this week.

On Tuesday after talking through some very difficult and painful experiences with someone another favourite poet came to my heart, this time as I watched dogs frolicking in the park. This time it was David Whyte and his poem “Tobar Phadraic”, again it is a poem about turning, only this time sideways into the light. Here it is:

TOBAR PHADRAIC

Turn sideways into the light as they say
the old ones did and disappear
into the originality of it all.

Be impatient with easy explanations
and teach that part of the mind
that wants to know everything
not to begin questions it cannot answer.

Walk the green road above the bay
and the low glinting fields
toward the evening sun, let that Atlantic
gleam be ahead of you and the gray light
of the bay below you, until you catch,
down on your left, the break in the wall,
for just above in the shadows
you’ll find it hidden, a curved arm
of rock holding the water close to the mountain,
a just-lit surface smoothing a scattering of coins,
and in the niche above, notes to the dead
and supplications for those who still live
.
But for now, you are alone with the transfiguration
and ask no healing for your own
but look down as if looking through time,
as if through a rent veil from the other
side of the question you’ve refused to ask.

And you remember now, that clear stream
of generosity from which you drank,
how as a child your arms could rise and your palms
turn out to take the blessing of the world.

I love the line, "Turn sideways into the light." It is just so beautiful . it comes from a Celtic myth about a tribe of people who went into battle knowing they would be defeated. They stood facing the enemy and as the enemy charged toward them, they turned sideways into the light and disappeared.

There is much more to the poem of course, but that is perhaps for another day.

“Turning sideways into the light” reminds of another way to face life and conflict; it reminds me that in war no one wins. Yes, one side may lose more, but no one wins. There is so much conflict in life and it grieves my heart. I was reminded of this last Monday and shared deeply about it on Tuesday. To “turn sideways into the light”, suggests another way, one that is relational, what Whyte would call conversational. You do not have to have the confrontational conversation that those who come towards you want. It is about turning down another path, not the one the antagonist wants you down. “Turning sideways into the light” is another way of saying Jesus’ teaching in Matthew ch3 v 38 “But I say to you, do not resist the evil doer…love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” “Turning sideways into the light” is like turning the other cheek. In so doing the hatred and aggression is transformed and disarmed. This takes courage and deep integrity. It is a shift of consciousness akin to Gandhi on the “Salt Marches.” In so doing suffering is transformed into meaning and love. It is a better way that recognises how sacred everything is, not least ourselves. It brings healing too.

So it matters which way we turn in life, it also matters how we turn. It matters what we do and how we do it. It matters whether we turn towards the world or sideways into the light, rather than grasping for power and creating conflict. It matters how and which way we turn. I prefer to be a sunflower always turning towards the light, the warmth of the sun. Rather than someone who charges towards life and others, head down causing destruction. In so doing it enables me to turn to life in a loving way.

It is a curious phrase to turn, or to turn again or even to return. Did you know that to turn or to re-turn was the original meaning of the religious word “conversion”. Conversion is rooted in the Latin word “convertere”, which meant to turn around to transform. Today I choose to turn towards the light and not away from life and in so doing whatever suffering is there begins to be transformed into love and meaning emerges, thus there is no despair. I have felt this powerfully all week, right down in the core of my being, it is why I have known such joy.

This brings back to my mind Victor Frankl and that wonderful and simple equation D=S-M

Despair equals suffering minus meaning...Despair is suffering without meaning.

In “Man’s Search For Meaning” Frankl wrote “Man is not destroyed by suffering; he is destroyed by suffering without meaning.” He discovered that if we have a “why” to live for we can endure anything. More than that actually it is this that allows us to thrive, to be all that we are born to be. To not only improve our lives, but to serve our world. In so doing, despite living with real suffering we can know joy, in even the tiniest of things, our hearts will seek it out, that is what hearts are for.

The question this raises though is how do we uncover meaning? Where do we find meaning in our lives? What about those who tell us that life is essentially meaningless? Is there one meaning? Is there one truth?

Now Frankl would suggest that it is for each of us to discover our own meaning in any given situation. That this is our task; that this meaning may not be in the given moment but in some place in the future; that it is to be found in some purpose or meaning yet to come.

What are the things that hold us and sustains when life seems too much?

Remember Frankl’s equation D = S-M. Despair is suffering without meaning. How do we find and develop meaning in our lives, in spite of the inevitable suffering that will always be present?

Well, that is up to each of us. I know my friend found it in those flowers he has been nurturing ever since his father died, sharing that love and beauty with others. I find it in simply being in life, but also in accompanying others in their grief and suffering, as well as refusing to play the game of destruction. I would much rather live authentically from love and turn sideways into the light.

So many ask why, when suffering occurs. I cannot answer that, at least not fully. All I can do is encourage folk to keep and turning towards the sun, or sideways into the light and walk side by side, to accompany each other. Maybe that is the answer, to not turn away from life, even when it really hurts and to keep on turning towards light and love and truth and in so doing meaning will emerge and the suffering will be transformed into love.

Please find a video devotion based on

the material found in this "blogspot"

D=S-M: Equations and Meaning

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

“The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry

These beautiful words touch me so deeply.

I do not think I am different to anyone else. Some days I despair at the world; some days I despair at all that is life; some days I despair at myself. I ask what is the point of all of this? Can I really make a difference? Is there a place for love in this cold, hard, unfeeling world? Some days I feel utterly gripped by despair. Thankfully I do not feel this way very often; thankfully when I do these feelings do not last very long.

I was visited by these feelings of despair, very strongly, only the other day as I was driving home in the pouring rain, tears rolling down my cheeks. I had watched the horrors on the news I had been in the company of people I love and who love me, but who are obviously suffering and it just seemed like too much. I got home and there was a knock at my door, it was the last person in the world I wanted to see. What did I do? Well I welcomed them in, I sat and I listened. I did not turn them away.

And then it happened. As I sat and listened something inside me changed; as we engaged in conversation something inside me turned right around; as I looked at this young man I remembered why I am here. Meaning began to emerge once again from the nothingness, from the emptiness.

The person left and thanked me for my time. I thanked them; I thanked them for reminding me why I am here.

Mathematics has never been my strongest suit. At primary school I was brilliant at mental arithmetic I think in all my time there was only one occasion when I failed to get 10 out 10 during a mental arithmetic test. I remember my cousin once telling that this was because I was the most mental in my family and in my school. She may well be right. What’s amusing is that the comment has stayed with me all these years.

So yes as a small boy I was brilliant at mental arithmetic, but when it came to mathematics and especially understanding and remembering equations, well that was a whole different kettle of fish. I struggled, it just didn’t make sense. I think even then there was a part of me that didn’t like the idea of reducing things down to simple equations. Never made sense to me; never been the way I have looked at life. Even when I studied history and politics I hated the way that economic and social history seemed so often to be reduced to equations. I would stand back and just think to myself, this just doesn’t make any sense. This is not what life is, what history is. What has this got to do with how we live, or used to live? Is life really made up of equations?

Thankfully the world in which we live is made up of very different people than myself; people who can make sense of such things and who truly know their value. Such things are essential to how much of life works.

Now you may well be wondering where the hummer I’m going with all of this. Well there is a point to my meanderings. There is an equation that does in fact make sense to me. You may have even heard of it.

The equation is D=S-M

Despair equals suffering minus meaning.

The equation comes from Viktor Frankl. In “Man’s Search For Meaning” he wrote “Man is not destroyed by suffering; he is destroyed by suffering without meaning.” He discovered that if we have a “why” to live for we can endure anything. More than that actually it is this that allows us to thrive, to be all that we are born to be. To not only improve our lives, but to serve our world.

The question this raises though is how do we uncover meaning? Where do we find meaning in our lives? What about those who tell us that life is essentially meaningless? Is there one meaning? Is there one truth?

Now Frankl would suggest that it is for each of us to discover our own meaning in any given situation. That this is our task; that this meaning may not be in the given moment but in some place in the future; that it is to be found in some purpose or meaning yet to come.

What are the things that hold us and sustains when life seems too much?

Wendell Berry's poem that opens this blogspot, speaks of this. It begins with the following words.

“When despair for the world grows in me

And I wake in the night at the least sound

In fear of what my life and my children’s life might be”

There is something universal in these words, I’m sure we have all shared this despair from time to time. It is so easy to look at our world and despair and worry about how things are going to turn out, not only for ourselves but those we love and those who will follow us.

There is more to the poem though. When he feels this way Wendell Berry says that:

“I go down and lie down where the wood drake rests

In his beauty on the water,

And the great heron feeds.”

He connects with nature when he feels despair, when life seems too much with him. It is this that allows him to reach beyond himself to something more.

I believe that the most destructive aspect of despair is that although it is a universal experience when it hits it is so powerfully isolating, it has certainly done so to me over the years. Misery and worry always turn me inward and cut me off from all that is loving and meaningful. To once again find meaning I need to be opened up to all that is, mentally, emotionally, physically and perhaps most importantly spiritually.

Wendell Berry is opened up by nature it is this that brings him that sense of connectedness. He says

“I come into the peace of wild things

Who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.

I come into the presence of still water.

I come into the presence of that stillness and that stillness calms my soul.

This brings to my mind words from Matthew’s Gospel ch 6 vv 25-34 and especially the lines “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
29 yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”

I also hear echoes of the 23rd Psalm too:

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever."

I find it hard to live by equations because for me they reduce life down to nothingness and there is danger here for me. I have found something that sustains me in the storms of life, something that gives me meaning in despair. I can’t really explain what that is. For me to even begin would require me to reduce it. All I know is that when I turn back and out beyond me I experience something infinite something beautiful, something that can only be described as pure love, something that makes me feel whole.

I experience it in nature. Especially for me in the birds, particularly those wild Canadian geese. I experience it with others, when engaged in meaningful and open conversation. I experience when walking round the streets of where I live and look at the faces of the people I meet. I experience it alone, when sitting alone in silence, contemplating the simple fact that I am alive and that I can draw breath. Finally I experience it in prayer when I reach beyond myself to that great mystery that I have come learn is at the core of life, even the aspects I don’t like so much.

In such moments “For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”

Now some will say how can you? that life has no real meaning beyond physical sensation. How can you? Look at the suffering in this world. These are good questions and maybe they are unanswerable and maybe that is not good enough for some people, maybe it is not good enough for anybody. All I know is what I experience and that is the Divine Lure of love in my life, I never lose faith in this, even in those darkest moments. When I turn to it I feel my cup runneth over with abundant love. This tells that even in those darkest moments when despair is closing in I know “that this too shall pass.”

By the way I do not believe that this Great Mystery controls everything, all interactions in life, but I do believe that it is there to hold and guide all physical life. Our task is to turn to it and to be open to it. I know that the day I began to do so that my life has been deep and rich in meaning.

That though is me and my thoughts. What I would like to leave you with this week is something to ponder, something to take with you as you finish reading this and carry on with your life. What gives you meaning, what sustains you when you experience the suffering present in life? And what can you do to not only sustain what holds you in life, but also to develop it?

Remember Frankl’s equation D = S-M. Despair is suffering without meaning. How do we find and develop meaning in our lives, in spite of the inevitable suffering that will always be present?

Viktor Frankl explaining D=S-M