My notes read, “President initiates $350 billion dollar tax cut to spark new jobs in a sagging economy as unemployment is on the rise. War in Iraq continues with heavy losses.”

However, the notes are not from 2010 but instead are from a research project I was engaged in during the summer of 2003. Perhaps Paul Harvey said it best when he stated, “In times like these, we need to remember that there have always been times like these.”

Amidst all that changes in our world, it is truth and principle that stays the same regardless of circumstances or time. One of the most enduring examples of the power of the human spirit committed to eternal values comes from World War II.

Victor Frankl was held as a prisoner in Auschwitz during the Holocaust. His family had been murdered and he was starved and beaten. However, when the Allies liberated the camps Frankl was without bitterness, refusing to be held captive to hatred.

He would go on to write Man’s Search for Meaning, a chronicle of what he learned about human nature in the darkness of the concentration camp.

Asked how he lived with such peace and optimism after all he endured he shared his secret, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms, to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Sitting on Cleveland’s shore this past weekend I was awed by the beauty of the Great Lakes and the promise of a community that has endured much in the past several months.

There is much to learn from Frankl’s example, because no matter what takes place in life we can choose our response, we can choose the meaning we give to any event, and therein lays true power.

Emerson wrote, “A man is a hero, not because he is braver than anyone else, but because he is brave for ten minutes longer.” Indeed, there may always be times like this, but our response is an individual choice so may we choose wisely, regardless of where we live or where life has taken us.

In closing, as there are just a few weeks left to summer, I am reminded of something my college president would ask each year as classes resumed, “What five books did you read this summer?” He really wanted to know what did we do to grow and learn.

As Charles Jones put it, “You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.”