Beccy's June & July reads

First, I delighted in all of your posts! I'm curious, Liz, to know your thoughts about Man's Search For Meaning. I am glad I read it, but I can't say that it changed my life. I did feel that The Hiding Place was a life-changer when I read it, probably in part because it was written without Dr. Frankl's heavy-duty and--to me, sometimes cold--psychological analysis. (It was interesting to me, Mim, that you mentioned it, because it was on my mind all throughout Frankl's book.)

Also, The Hiding Place was really my first (literary) exposure to the atrocities of the Holocaust. But now that I think about it, it wasn't learning about the Holocaust but the character of Corrie Ten Boom's father who had the life-changing effect on me. One of the most touching parts to me is when Corrie asks her father one of those deep questions that children innocently ask. They are riding on a bus with their luggage, all of their possessions in one big bag if I'm remembering right. He knows that the answer to her question is too painful and beyond her comprehension. He gently explains how knowing ugly things about the world is like carrying heavy luggage, and since she is still so small, she can just let him carry that luggage for her until she is big enough to lift it herself. Does anyone remember that?

Anyway, later Troy and I went through Dachau. I felt like a witness to the Holocaust, in a small degree. That was mind-blowing. I wept continuously throughout the tour.

Frankl's descriptions of incidents of Nazi cruelty reminded me of the depravity of the Nephites before their annihilation--they too were hardened, blood-thirsty, past feeling. I truly cannot comprehend being so cruel, so ugly-evil to another human being, though I can see how a person gets to that point through increasingly evil choices. At the same time, there were some who retained charity for others while being tortured. The cumulative effect of the book on me (with The Hiding Place in the back of my mind the whole time) was to bring into sharp and sobering focus the two extremes of what man can become.

Fun genre for July, Rae! I am excited to read Shadow Patriots by Lucia St. Clair Robson. It's about a young woman from a Quaker family who risks her life during the Revolutionary War when she becomes a spy for patriot forces. It is a fictional account of George Washington's female spy in New York that only went by "355." It has rave reviews on Amazon. Incidentally, the heroine's name in the novel is Kate. :)

I hope to finish it before Harry Potter comes out!