| People in our society seem to be undergoing an increasing number of traumatic experiences: Broken relationships, physical, psychological and sexual violence, persistent emotional stress, or the absence of stable and balanced relationships at the beginning of life, etc. Children or adults lose their mental orientation; damaged and suppressed emotions lead to deviant ways of feeling, thinking and behaving. Yet society expects adults to find their orientation on their own in a heterogeneous landscape of values, ideas and meaning, and to discover supportive influences in place of perverting ideologies and meaningless occupations. The mental and emotional compass of traumatised people cannot show them the right direction, and their inner voice, by which they come to know the deepest truth, is reduced to silence. It is against this background that the whole question of personal responsibility arises and fails to find an answer. Within the context of ethical arbitrariness, this failure is often not visible, because anything seems to be accepted, but the individual does not find meaning in his or her life. The ethical challenge requires us to deal with the longing for orientation in a way that makes it possible for people to give meaning to a hitherto meaningless life. It can help to restructure an individual s life, recreate social structures that support the human being, and help people to find that life is a project that sets them free. They will then not have to find refuge in fundamentalist groupings, or declare that their lives have been shipwrecked as they search for meaning, which leads to them becoming permanent victims of fate , forever asking others and society to solve their problems. Dealing with traumatic experiences means giving life back into the hands of the individual human being, helping him or her to take the initiative in determining the course of their lives which is the way God wants each of us to live. |
