“Shine As Lights in the World”
Neal A. Maxwell April 1983 Saturday Morning Session
For many years now—in literature, film, and music—we have witnessed increasing expressions of a profound sense of what has come to be called existential despair, a hopelessness beyond hope. Granted, the human scene also includes many individuals who go happily about life’s labors untouched by these feelings. But the holocausts and the wars have taken their terrible toll of hope among twentieth-century man. Said one eminent scientist, “The most poignant problem of modern life is probably man’s feeling that life has lost its significance, … [a] view … no longer limited to the philosophical or literary avant garde. It is spreading to all social and economic groups and affects all manifestations of life.” (Rene Dubos, So Human an Animal [New York: Scribners, 1968], pp. 14–15.)