In the early 1980's Vaclav Havel was in Hermanice prison under a communist warden who was a "self-professed admirer of Hitler." Some members of the dissident movement had given up hope, some actually turned and collaborated with the totalitarian state, while others fled Czechoslovakia for the West. At this point Havel found himself wondering about the value of his stand for freedom and human dignity. "Once you are here," he admitted in a letter from prison to his wife, "whether you want to or not, you have to ask the question: does all of this have a meaning, and if so, what? The more I think about it, the more I realize that the final and decisive answer is not to be found in external factors that rely on so-called information, for no mere information can give me the answer to that question. Ultimately, I can only find an answer - a positive answer - in my general faith in the meaning of things, in my hope." With these words he launches into a description of his own theology, so to speak, his relationship with the transcendent. Over the next few days we'll listen to him describe his faith from his prison cell.
quote from
Vaclav Havel
Letters to Olga
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