The Reluctant Volunteer

(This one is still a work in progress – info on Witold Pilecki story is still in progress. All references from his story are a synopsis from the book The Volunteer by Jack Fairweather. https://g.co/kgs/aBcZJc

I’m making adjustments consistently to better clarify my meaning. That being said, I think it’s still worth reading over, as long as you can forgive me the unfinished explanations and scattered thoughts.)

In Warsaw, November 1939, several Polish military men began to organize a Christian-based resistance organization they called the Secret Polish Army (Tajna Armia Polska, or TAP.) TAP’s purpose was to organize and prepare for an uprising against the Nazi occupiers. The two most prominent TAP leaders had strongly opposing views on the organization’s ideology. Lieutenant Colonel Jan Włodarkiewicz, like many Polish Christians, desired that Poland, when liberated, be ethnically and religiously pure. As such, he desired the TAP to make a declaration stating this ideology.  Second Lieutenant Witold Pilecki felt that Poland needed a unifying spirit, whether Christian or Jew, to overcome the there and now problem of Nazi occupation. He felt such an unnecessary manifesto would only weaken TAP in their primary effort of liberation. The friction between these two men would eventually give cause for one to reluctantly sacrifice himself so that the Western World should become aware of one of history’s darkest events – the Holocaust.   

In the springtime of 1940, Witold Pilecki, fearing disaster from Jan Włodarkiewicz’s increasing push to propagate divisionary ideals, met with the leader of another resistance group known for its Polish unity stance (Commander Stefan Rowecki of the organization that would eventually become the Polish Home Army.) Impressed with the political positioning and democratic standards of this rival resistance group, Pilecki soon proposed to other TAP leaders that they consider a merger with Commander Rowecki. Jan quickly dismissed such an idea, considering himself just as politically influential as Rowecki. Later that meeting Witold exercised similar influence. When Jan insisted the TPA produce a socially divisionary manifesto, Witold openly objected, enabling the courage of other important TPA leaders to also reject Jan’s demand. Though Jan later conceded to meet with Commander Rowecki, and Witold turned a blind eye to Jan’s continued production of the manifesto, the contention created during this particular meeting permanently weakened the bonds of the TPA brotherhood, and electrified the resentment between Jan and Witold.    

In summer 1940, the Nazi’s began shipping significant numbers of Poles (politicians, intelligentsia, anyone who might inspire resistance) to a military barracks located in east Poland. The Nazi’s referred to this repurposed concentration camp as Auschwitz. Little was known of the camp’s purpose or the conditions of it’s captives outside of it’s walls. But the significantly high percentage of death notices per camp captive over a few months indicated that Auschwitz was a particularly violent camp. 

In August 1940, the TAP began to take particular interest in what was occurring inside Auschwitz when its Chief of Staff was captured and sent there. At the resultant emergency meeting, Jan Włodarkiewicz revealed that he had consented to join with Commander Rowecki’s resistance organization, just as Pilecki had recommended. Then, in front of the other TAP members, Jan turned to Pilecki and informed him that he had earned a calling of great honor. During their previous meeting, Commander Rowecki had expressed to Jan of a great need to have someone on the inside of the Auschwitz prison camp. Only a person inside the camp could provide Polish resistance the information needed to encourage the swift intervention of Allied forces and internally organize effective subterfuge. Jan informed Commander Rowecki that the only person who had the intelligence and qualifications to carry out such an important assignment was the TAP member Witold Pilecki. It was here that Pilecki first learned of this assignment…in an emergency meeting…a meeting attended by the TAP’s most significant members…a meeting necessitated by the capture and imprisonment of a compatriot…a meeting in which swung the effectiveness of a partnership that Pilecki, himself, had proposed.

Though the move to offer Pilecki as a sacrifice to Auschwitz was clearly vindictive, Jan also understood that the position required a willing participant. The individual who undertook this role and it’s risks would have to be fully aware and accept the exposure it entailed. If not, the assignment would backfire, exposing the entire resistance for one individual’s self-interest. The individual must fully commit of their own free will. As reluctant they might be for the assignment, the individual MUST VOLUNTEER. Strangely, it seems evident that Jan, despite his disdain for Witold, knew that IF Witold accepted the assignment, his integrity would override the desire to enact vengeance against those who had sent him there. Jan knew he was protected by Witold’s love for the greater good; his love of Poland. 

After several days of consideration, and following the capture of two close friends who were also sent there, Witold Pilecki VOLUNTEERED himself a sacrifice to Auschwitz. 

(This one is still a work in progress. I’m making adjustments consistently to better clarify my meaning. That being said, I think it’s still worth reading over, as long as you can forgive me the unfinished explanations and scattered thoughts.)

After experiencing a trauma, a person will rightly have thoughts such as “Why Me” or “If I could only go back…” These are natural and essential to the process of suffering. If a person were not to have thoughts of this sort, they would either

1. Already have accepted the full possibility, extent and purpose for the trauma. Having previously and willingly accepted the outcome, they would not require any further regretful analysis. In a sense, they would have already been a master of the situation. Knowing beforehand how to perfectly optimize growth from their trauma, they would have no reason to wish things as they were before their event. 

Or

1. Be exercising a growth-less faith. Yes, the terminology here is harsh but bear with me. To make advances in knowledge sometimes requires us to admit our well-intended blind obedience can be counterproductive. This is an important point in the world of mental health as it is the GREATEST BARRIER for a God-fearing individual to receive proper treatment. More than any other sickness or injury, mental problems, by far, are culturally considered to be curable EXCLUSIVELY BY ONE’S FAITH AND OBEDIENCE (in this context meaning through positive thinking, prayer, righteous living and NO PHARMACOLOGICAL THERAPY.) I, personally, have had three church leaders try to convince me to stop taking my antidepressant medication, advising I replace it with an increase in faith and good works. The first two attempts to withdraw from medication ended poorly. The third – I told the leader to shove it. I had been studying my condition for myself and, combined with my previous experiences, knew that BLIND FAITH WAS NOT THE ANSWER.  My intuition overrode the counsel of faith and I began to act for myself,  risking failure or success on personal responsibility. 

This is a situation similar to some Christian faith’s interpretation of Eve and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. In such an interpretation, the Garden of Eden actually represents a purgatory of personal independence, disguised as PARADISE. Free-will, by its nature, can only be activated by a choice of opposition. Free-will, once chosen, prevents one from ever returning to a world void of personal responsibility. In this situation, if Eve exercises exact obedience to God’s command concerning the deadly fruit (a growth-less faith) she forever forfeits the gifts of knowledge, growth, and self-determination: she never sparks the intellect that erupts into active consciousness. Should Eve not partake, she and Adam remain captives to the Garden, damned by the comfort of life without conflict. Having never willed to choose for themselves, they would eternally need be commanded in all things. 

However, by studying out the situation for herself, Eve was able to come to her OWN conclusion- A CONCLUSION WITH CONVICTION – the gift of which she would have been robbed had God simply supplied her the answer.  By giving a commandment counter to knowledge, God allows Eve’s ability to become “as the Gods, knowing good and evil.” He does so by enabling her autonomy. The act is hers alone. Blame cannot be shifted to God. She has made the most courageous of all conscience steps…personal responsibility. Therefore, once Eve has worked through the conflict in her own mind, she can, of her own free will, VOLUNTARILY be cast out into the chaos of our world, enabling mankind’s existence by embracing free will’s mortal cost. 

Frankl – Man’s Search for Meaning

At the beginning of human history, man lost some of the basic animal instincts in which an animal’s behavior is imbedded and by which it is secured. Such security, like Paradise, is closed to man forever; man has to make choices. 

 

Doctrine and Covenants Section 93, Verse 30

All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also; otherwise there is no existence.

 

I like to call an individual making a similar correct, yet difficult, decision a RELUCTANT VOLUNTEER. The action taken by such a volunteer I term AN ACT OF MEANING. 

In the doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Jehovah, son of Elohim, was such a volunteer before the creation of the earth. A plan was proposed to allow the spirit sons and daughters of Elohim to have a human experience. Key to this plan was a Sacrifice – a Savior. This individual would suffer for the sins of all mankind, allowing all spirit children of Elohim the chance to return to live with their Father. When Jehovah was considered for this Sacrifice he proposed two conditions not offered otherwise:

1. Free Will – That the sons and daughters of God have the opportunity to prove themselves through their own choices. Growth via Autonomous Intelligence. 
2. Genuine Sacrifice – despite his position as Savior, all glory of the Divine plan be given to Elohim. 

Jehova, the premortal Jesus Christ, leveraged his qualifications. He did so solely for the benefit of others. One might think he knew, even at that time, that a true sacrifice must be entirely selfless – wholly others-centered. Christ, from the beginning, was a volunteer. But his reluctance to be so is not evident until he concedes so in the Garden of Gesthemane: 

 

Luke 22:41-44

And he was withdrawn from them about a stone’s cast, and kneeled down, and prayed,

Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.

And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him.

And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

 

Jesus Christ was THE reluctant volunteer…and isn’t this how it should be. When considering positions of power, isn’t it the person who DOESN’T WANT THE GLORY that is best suited for the position.

Consider the following movie clip from a favorite (well…a predominantly male favorite):

Now such a volunteer is not always, by necessity, one who beforehand agrees to their pained experience (as did Eve, the premortal Jesus Christ and Witold Pilecki.) But it may also be an individual who concedes to the benefit of suffering after the fact – a CONVERT.   In both cases, the volunteer calculates the cost/benefit ratio of the painful experience and concedes that the knowledge gained far outweighs the suffering incurred.  These volunteers – or converts – wisely understand their knowledge of suffering is never obtained in self-interest – but instead, gained knowledge only serves to benefit others. In my opinion, this is what is meant by JOY – spiritual fulfillment by blessing another with wisdom obtained through one’s undesirable experience…a realization that your suffering has value – or as Victor Frankl states it, a discovery that comes only through Man’s Search for Meaning (hence the term, an act of meaning.) 

A volunteer/convert often experiences a dichotomous realization as they begin to use their knowledge for the welfare of others. Such a person might say: What I experienced was the most horrible thing I’ve ever had to do. It was repulsive. I hated it. But, having this undesirable piece of knowledge that now allows me to help people in their moment of anguish, my suffering is transformatively the experience I most value.  In a sense, I now understand why God is okay with me experiencing suffering – to make of me a guide for these suffering individuals. Now, strangely, I have this previously unknown excitement anticipating what divine knowledge another suffering individual will gain by enduring their own horrific trial…a knowledge unknowable except through a voluntary concession to the value of suffering. 

It is human nature to avoid suffering, understandably so. Save some psychopathologies, we do not preemptively pursue pain, nor do we promote the benefits of suffering as we do happiness. To do the former is masochistic. To do the latter is culturally unacceptable. Yet to culturally minimize the importance of suffering creates an increasingly conscience impotent people. A culture unable to concede the value of suffering (imagine the people in your life who can not operate outside of artificial optimism) makes a community more animal-like, guided by the instinct of comfort, a people of conformity, a thing that does not act, but is acted upon (2 Nephi 2:14 – Book of Mormon reference.)  A few examples of this phenomenon over the last century are as follows:

1. The eugenics movement of the United States during the 20th century including genetic based sterilization and infanticide. This little discussed part of American history (little discussed because comfort culture has a hard time looking at the ugly) can be aptly considered by reviewing the 1917 motion picture The Black Stork  (renamed Are You Fit to Marry?) https://youtu.be/9m6OCT8YmfU
2. The T4 Program practiced by the Nazi’s by which they “mercifully” murdered near 230,000 mental and disabled individuals. SIDENOTE: During the Nuremberg trials, many Nazi’s used the earlier institued United States Eugenics program as their model to rationalize the sterilizations and “merciful deaths” they practiced under Hitler. 
3. PRESENT DAY – The shocking percentage of Down Syndrome pregnancies that are aborted. CBSNEWS: “What kind of society do you want to live in?”: Inside the country where Down syndrome is disappearing

 Estimates are:

1. 1. USA – 66%
   2. Many European Nations – 90+%
   3. Iceland – 99+%

 

It may be reasonably argued that example #3 is a result of Western culture’s inability to candidly teach and discuss the history of #s 1 and 2 to each upcoming generation on account of topical discomfort.

An addiction to comfort and conformity also leads to digression in the influence of individual responsibility and growth. Instead of defending our own decisions made through critical analysis the natural tendency shifts to either:

1. Assigning blame to others (ADAM – The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat – Genesis 3:12), or 
2. Harboring resentment towards God (Job’s wife – Curse God and Die – Job 2:9). 

 

In both cases, the inability to grow has the potential to result in significant loss. Those who can’t overcome the tendency to blame others will end their relationships with others. Those who can’t reconcile the reality of human suffering with God will end their relationship with God. In some cases, those who can’t reconcile either of these relationships end earthly relationships all together by taking their own lives. Of course, with that statement I do not intend to imply ALL suicides are a result of this. However, it leads to the important point that helping others to reconcile their interpersonal relationships and/or their understanding of God’s character will most definitely reduce interpersonal hate, general aversion to God, and suicide. I have found that the correct understanding of the RELUCTANT VOLUNTEER concept has helped me, and others, to do so. 

In most cases, people are not the preemptive volunteer, but the convert.  Suffering is not an elective course. I might have stated at some point,“I didn’t volunteer to have anxiety” or  my Mother might have said “I was not given a choice when I lost my child in a tragic accident.” And this is true. No one outside of sadists, masochists, and Saviors volunteer beforehand for tortuous trials…but the potential to gain knowledge through life experience does not require a willing participant. You will experience suffering regardless. What activates that life-experience potential is, and must be, voluntary – SUBMISSION.  Not submission to an abusive spouse, or submission to corrupt ideals, but SUBMISSION to the fact that GOD IS OKAY WITH YOUR TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCE. His concession coming from a desire or need for you to understand DIVINE TRUTHS…knowing that some DIVINE TRUTHS can only be learned through the trauma of first-hand experience…just as was Christ’s Atonement. 

Once such submission to God’s consent of suffering is achieved, one can finally conceive the intent of suffering. WHAT DOES GOD NEED ME TO LEARN HERE? Important to this thought, and important to teach, is that overwhelmingly, the lessons to be learned during suffering are not ones to be found readily in the black and white of the ten commandments or the comfort of the Beatitudes. Longsuffering, by definition, is achieved by working through indefinite no-win situations. But what possible benefit could God find in subjecting long-term morally ambiguous measures on His children?  This is where conversion to suffering enacts its greatest weight.

I learned this point by experiencing the following:

1. I could not deny that God lives and that He has prepared for me a path that would result in my greatest ETERNAL self-interest.
2. God allowed me to suffer enough so that no conceivable outcome of MORTAL self-interest could justify enduring such pain indefinitely. In fact, even my understanding of ETERNAL self-interest could not justify my condition.
3. Only when I realized my suffering had value to my child did I recognize suffering’s infinite value and my infinite willingness to endure. This new perspective secondarily became the embryo that would later evolve into the most healing principle I’ve learned through my entire journey – that embryo being that God approves of my suffering because MY CHILDREN ARE WORTH IT – and I wholeheartedly agree. [This new understanding of God’s character reconciled me with God. During my life’s darkest moment, I finally comprehended His most glorious trait – God’s infinite knowledge of suffering is the ONLY WAY He can JUSTIFY any and all human experience. Knowing personally all paths, He can affirm there is NO COST, there is NO SUFFERING, there is NO HUMAN EXPERIENCE SO NEGATIVE that it’s darkness cannot be outweighed by its POWER in EMPATHY FOR OTHERS.]
4. Suffering’s value when measured in self-interest will always be finite – we are only so interested in ourselves. In fact, non-existence becomes quickly preferable to many conditions when wholly based on self-interest. Suffering’s true value is other’s centered. Only when suffering, or existence in general, is measured by our SELF-INTEREST IN OTHERS does it then have potential to become infinite in power. 

 

Yet there is a paradox in living for the interest of another – a principle that every parent knows to be true. To promote growth and maturity, a parent understands that challenges are essential to the offspring’s experience. A primary law of physics states that to effect change on an object a force is required to act upon it.  Yet such a desire for growth, from the outset, places the parent in a position of conflict with the primal instinct to protect…to be safe. In fact, this is the same conflict that Eve encounters in the Garden interpretation referred to previously. The cost of knowledge is certain death. The cost of safety in paradise is eternal ignorance.  

Most of Christendom believes Eve’s act was one of dishonor. If it were that simple, banishment from God’s presence IS a poor choice. Yet, is it possible that Eve perceived the parental paradox when her Father presented the Tree of Knowledge in the first place. If her thinking is others-centered (How does Father perceive this situation?) then the possibility is most certain that she does. For what other purpose would the Creator of this paradise make such a tree under such circumstances?  

Regardless, the benefit to mankind as a result of the Fall is obvious. Eve’s decision activates the greatest growth potential within the human race – INTELLIGENT AUTONOMY. We, her sons and daughters, can now choose for ourselves a culture of stasis and conformity, being wholly acted upon, and fully excused by circumstances and tradition OR, we can choose to ACT using the gift of critical analysis, accepting full responsibility for all conceivable consequences – KNOWLEDGE Activated, RESPONSIBILITY Accepted, EMPATHY Enabled. 

 a RELUCTANT VOLUNTEER. There is a simple, but fascinating way that one can discover if they have reached this transformative point in their given struggle…THEY WILL VOLUNTARILY DISCUSS THEIR SUFFERING, VULNERABILITY, AND WEAKNESS FOR THE BENEFIT OF OTHERS. At this point, their limited understanding of life’s status quo fractures. Their worldview expands far beyond prior understanding, and simultaneously, they enable their suffering to become sacrifice.