PROVISIONS
To make ends meet, put the Lord between them.
—T. J. Bach
I have always lived from hand to mouth but it has been the Lord’s hand and my mouth.
—Samuel Zwermer
PSYCHIATRY
Hello, welcome to the Psychiatric Hotline.
If you are obsessive-compulsive, please press 1 repeatedly.
If you are codependent, please ask someone to press 2.
If you have multiple personalities, please press 3, 4, 5, and 6.
If you are paranoid-delusional, we know who you are and what you want. Just stay on the line so we can trace the call.
If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a little voice will tell you which number to press.
If you are manic-depressive, it doesn’t matter which number you press; no one will answer.
Sign outside a psychiatrist’s office: “Guaranteed satisfaction or your mania back.”
PSYCHOLOGY
Others worship at the shrine of education, but what about all the educated fools? A woman with a master’s degree in psychology said to her boyfriend with a Ph.D., “I hope you won’t mind, but I’m feeling a little schizophrenic today.” “That’s all right,” he replied, “that makes four of us!”
PUBLIC RELATIONS
Public relations is the fine art of making sure that something is no sooner done than said.
—Bob Orben
PUNCTUALITY
A new employee was habitually late. Finally, the foreman called him in. “Don’t you know what time we go to work here?” he shouted. “No, sir,” was the reply, “I haven’t been able to figure it out yet because the rest of you are already here.”
PUNISHMENT
He who does not punish evil commands it to be done.
—Leonardo da Vinci
PURITY – HOLINESS
At fifteen, I prayed, “God keep me pure in money, morals, and motives.”
—Philip Howard
One day a young minister was being escorted through a coal mine. At the entrance of one of the dim passageways, he spied a beautiful white flower growing out of the black earth. “How can it blossom in such purity and radiance in this dirty mine?” the preacher asked. “Throw some coal dust on it and see for yourself,” his guide replied. When he did, he was surprised that the fine, black particles slid right off the snowy petals, leaving the plant just as lovely and unstained as before. Its surface was so smooth that the grit and grime could not adhere to it.
—Our Daily Bread
PURPOSE IN LIFE
Since World War II, an Austrian psychiatrist, Victor Frankl, has written extensively on the relation of the meaning of life to the whole structure of personality. He claims that the need to find meaning in life is more basic to a human being than pleasure or power or anything else. The thesis he repeats again and again is that if a person has a “why” to live, he can endure almost any “how.” But if that dimension of “why” is lacking, then the whole structure of one’s life eventually collapses.
This insight into the importance of meaning was developed by Frankl during the years he spent as a Jewish prisoner in a German concentration camp. Life there was unbelievably harsh and brutal. The prisoners were forced to work long hours and were barely given enough food, clothing, and shelter to survive. As the months unfolded, Frankl began to note that some prisoners soon collapsed under the pressure and gave up and died, while others under the same conditions continued to hope and managed to stay alive.
Using the tools of his psychiatric training, he would talk in the evening to scores of fellow inmates about this, and he found a pattern beginning to emerge. Those prisoners who had something to live for, an objective that gave a sense of meaning to their lives, were the ones who tended to mobilize their strength and survive.
Their objectives varied widely. One prisoner had a retarded child back home and had a great desire to get back and take care of the child. Another had a girlfriend he expected to marry as soon as the war was over. Frankl himself had begun a book and had a fierce desire to survive and finish it and get it published.