The Translucent Woman – Pain, Guilt, Death, Transcendence and Love
in the Thought of Viktor Frankl
I have several “canonical” stories; events in my life that have formed me as a person, and especially as a rabbi. Sometimes I knew I was in the midst of such a moment, other times only upon reflection. I’d like to tell you one of those stories. I’ve told this story before, the story of the Translucent Woman.
A woman sat in wheelchair in the back of the sanctuary at Redeemer Baptist Church (this was about 1995). I could feel her eyes latched on to my words. After the service, her helper wheeled her into a corner of the lunchroom. He came to me and told me she wanted a moment of my time. I sat across from her. She said to me that she had heard of me, and before talking to me, she wanted to listen to me speak. Having listened to me speak, she told me she had selected me to tell me something important.
She was dying, withering away. Did not weight more than 90 lbs. I could see her veins on her arms. Even so, she carried a captivating grace about her. Her eyes were a bright, radiant blue.
She told me that she had not been good person. She paused, I think seeing if I were to give some anodyne of absolution. I resisted temptation and stayed silent. She continued – that she had been manipulative, kept accounts, and used her money to control people. Judgmental. Hid behind her manners. She was angry that disease had indignified her, as if she were some kind of common person. She smiled in self-deprecation as she told me her story of illness, decline, unremitting pain and now facing death.
She told that about a month before she that she had a moment that amounted to a revelation. “My whole life I didn’t understand. It’s all about love. I didn’t understand.” She had tried to tell her children, but they responded with “Yeah mom, okay, it’s all about love. Take your medication.”
She took my hand and said forcefully. “You have to tell me people,” she said urgently. “No one told me. Or I didn’t hear it. Or I couldn’t hear it. It is all about love.”
She asked me, “Do you understand?” I told her I understood and attempted to describe what I knew. I knew the words, but I also knew the meaning of the words, even at only 40 years old. Even now, 30 years later, I don’t know if I would have answered differently. Perhaps God gave me words and meanings that I had not yet earned, for her sake.
She smiled gratefully, and said again, “You have to tell people.” I promised I would. She came back several times, never with family, only with her helper. I received the call that she had passed. I don’t remember her name, but I can still see her translucent skin, her grateful smile, her radiant eyes, her adjuring me, my promise.
It is all about love.
When you listen to someone saying something you really don’t like, imagine for a moment they are a child, worthy of their mother’s love, and you channeling that mother’s love. Now go ahead and disagree. Sometimes when I disagree vehemently, I realize I am breaking my promise. Start with love, then disagree. Sometimes I listen to someone and for whatever reason, they turn me off. If I am mindful, I say to myself, “pretend I love what they are saying.” My understanding changes – what they are saying, why they are saying it, what want to happen once they say it. Habit draws me back to old consciousness, but at least I had a moment when a sliver of grace became known.
Viktor Frankl spoke of the tragic triad, aspects of human experience circumscribed by pain, guilt and death.
He teaches, in our search for meaning, in spite of everything, find a way to love.
He teaches so much more, but I want to start here.
I have been immersed in his thought for a few weeks now, part of country trying to heal from an unbearable pain, finding meaning after experiencing unspeakable cruelty.
I am beginning to see his thought, a beautiful translucent geometric design, pulsating with suffering, tragedy, beauty, hurt and healing and at the heart is love, holding love, teaching love.
My thoughts are getting organized. I’d to tell you what I see.
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