EP 161 Mission Driven Story: Jacques Lusseyran

Resources from the Episode: 

• Mothers of Creation - Provo, Utah - September 26th
• Episode 11: Mission Driven Story: Jacques Lusseyran

I want to tell you about a man named Jacques Lusseyran.

He was eight years old when a classmate bumped into him in the middle of a crowded classroom and sent him crashing into the corner of a teacher's desk. His glasses didn't break. The arm of the frames went into the tissue of his right eye. By the time he woke up the next day, he was completely blind.

And yet by the end of his life, he would say that every single day he thanked heaven for making him blind.

This week's episode is his story. Jacques went on to become a leader of the French Resistance during World War II, eventually leading a movement of more than 600 young men and women. He was arrested, interrogated, and sent to Buchenwald. He was one of 30 survivors from a transport of 2,000 prisoners.

What makes his story so extraordinary is not just what he survived. It's what he discovered.

AI-GENERATED TRANSCRIPT

Episode 161: Jacques Lusseyran — Choosing to Be a Creator

Introduction

AUDREY: Welcome back to the podcast. Today I have the honor of telling you the story of Jacques Lusseyran. He was a French Resistance fighter during World War II, but his story is so much more than that, as I’m sure you’re going to find out. Years ago I did a longer, more thorough podcast on his life, showing how he lived the seven laws of life mission — you can go listen to that one too if you’d like. But today I want to share some of the key highlights of his life with a very specific lens in mind. I’m going to focus on a few principles that we’ll be diving deep into this fall at our Mission Driven Mom celebration for our Mothers of Creation. Through Jacques’s experiences, I want to help you see how powerful it is when we choose not to be a victim but to be a creator instead — regardless of what life throws at us. And I want you to see what vision really is, and how it empowers us to navigate the most difficult moments of our lives.

AUDREY: I’m going to begin by telling you his story, and while I do, I want you to keep some principles in mind — the ones we’ll focus on at the celebration this year. Number one: when we respond to life as a victim of circumstances, we get frustrated, stuck, and lose our way. Two: a victim mindset robs our vision and makes us blind. Three: we can choose to be a creator regardless of circumstances. Four: responding to life as a creator causes us to feel liberated, clear, and even joyful. And five: our choice to live in a creator orientation blesses not just us, but those around us — and sometimes our whole community and beyond. When I finish Jacques’s story, I’ll remind us of those principles again and encourage you to take some time this week to ponder them in your own life.

Losing His Sight

AUDREY: So here we go. On a beautiful May morning in 1932, little Jacques was at school as usual. At ten o’clock the children jumped up, all of them excited to get outside, running all over the classroom. As Jacques moved toward the front of the room, a student darted past and hit him, causing him to fall into the corner of the teacher’s desk. His new glasses were made of shatterproof glass, so they didn’t break — instead, the arm of the spectacles drove into the tissue of his right eye, and he lost consciousness for the next twenty-four hours. During that time, doctors discovered that his right eye was completely destroyed and would have to be removed, and that his left retina had been so badly torn that by the time he woke up the next day, his whole life had changed. At the tender age of eight years old, he would be blind for life.

AUDREY: Physically he recovered quickly. Within a month he was walking again; the next month he was learning Braille; and by the third month he was running and playing on the playground with the other children. But overcoming his blindness was a different challenge. He said this: “It was a great surprise to me to find myself blind, and being blind was not at all as I had imagined it. Nor was it as the people around me seemed to think. They told me that to be blind meant not to see, and for a time I still wanted to use my eyes. I looked in the direction where I was in the habit of seeing before the accident, and there was anguish, a lack, something like a void, which filled me with what grown-ups call despair.

AUDREY: “Finally, one day I realized I was looking the wrong way. I could still see — in myself. I could still picture myself in the Champ de Mars. I knew the garden well: its ponds, its railings, its iron chairs. Naturally, I wanted to see them again, but I couldn’t. At this point some instinct — I was almost about to say a hand laid on me — made me change course. I began to look more closely, not at the things outside but at a world closer to myself, from an inner place, from further inside. Instead of clinging to the movement of sight toward the world outside, the substance of the universe drew together, redefined itself, and formed itself anew. I was aware of a radiance emanating from a place I knew nothing about. I felt an indescribable relief, and a happiness so great it almost made me laugh. Confidence and gratitude came like a prayer that had been answered. I found light and joy at the very same moment.”

AUDREY: This experience relieved him of his initial despair. It enabled him to overcome the fear of blindness and gave him a way forward. Yet learning to navigate the other aspects of his blindness took time. One important tool he slowly discovered was that his thoughts and emotional choices had a profound impact on his ability to “see” and to function well as a blind person.

Fear, Not Blindness

AUDREY: As Jacques made his way through this new world, he eventually learned that it was actually fear — not the loss of sight — that made him truly blind. This is what he said about it: “Fear made me blind. Anger and impatience had the same effect, throwing everything into confusion. The minute before, I knew just where everything in the room was; but if I got angry, things got angrier than I was. When I was playing with my small companions, if I suddenly grew anxious to win, to be first at all costs, then all at once I could see nothing. I could no longer afford to be jealous or unfriendly, because the moment I was, a bandage came down over my eyes. But when I was happy and serene, when I approached people with confidence and thought well of them, I was rewarded with light.”

AUDREY: In this way, Jacques gained a mastery over himself rarely achieved, especially in a child. He discovered that he had to rein in his natural tendencies toward anger, pettiness, unkindness, and jealousy. The temptation to give in to self-pity and victimhood was strong, but Jacques began to realize that when he chose to live according to true principles and governed his heart and mind instead, his ability to function well and happily in the world was restored. This insight was revolutionary for him.

AUDREY: This process helped him grow into a man he could not otherwise have been. Through daily practice, he developed a high level of command over himself, along with an enhanced ability to love others more fully. This generated inner peace and self-confidence and endeared him to everyone who knew him. The character he built by living these principles spilled over into other areas of his life, and his education became a great success story. Through his persistence in learning Braille and studying hard, he was able to remain in the classroom alongside sighted students — can you imagine? — eventually winning first place in his class.

The Coming of War

AUDREY: Although Jacques had already faced and overcome extremely difficult challenges, another great crisis came into his life during his high school years: the outbreak of World War II. Fortunately, he had developed immense emotional, mental, and spiritual maturity in his younger years, and now it served him well. Already a very conscientious man, the war awakened in him a strong desire to know, to understand, to make sense of what was happening. For Jacques and his friends, the war was a call to action. They dug deeper into their studies and read the greatest thinkers, searching for answers.

AUDREY: This is what he said about that time: “We wanted to learn how to live, and that was a much more serious matter. And we wanted to learn fast, because we felt that the next day it would surely be too late. There were signs of death on land and in the air, from the Spanish War to the frontiers of Russia — not just signs, but battles to the death. The feeling rumbled inside us, pressing to come out into the open: unless we were up to making a better world than our elders had made, the orgy of stupidity and killing would go on until the end of the world. I sat up late at night. I had thrown myself furiously into the study of philosophy. I wanted to understand it all, and I felt it was urgent. I don’t know exactly why, but it seemed to me that such a chance would not come again — that I was going to be snatched away to more worldly responsibilities. All the ideas of men who had dedicated themselves to thought found their way into my head for the first time, from Pythagoras to Bergson, from Plato to Freud. I examined them as closely as I could.”

AUDREY: By the following spring, France had been occupied by the Germans. Of this time, Jacques wrote, “In me was a pack of fears and desires, intentions and irritations, which had had me clenched in a tight fist for weeks.” Then he learned that one of his closest friends had been arrested. Three days later, he contracted measles. He felt the illness was as much a moral lesson as a physical one. Of the change that took place in him as a result of the sickness, he said: “This was no microbe or virus making its way in me. It was a resolve. It took me over from head to foot like a conquered land. I could not resist it, for it had taken the wheel. It was driving me to definite destinations I had not thought about before it came. This resolve gave me orders, telling me first of all that I must say nothing to my family. I must have a meeting with two of my comrades — I already knew who they were. Later I would have to get in touch with about ten more. The list was already made up. My only haste was to get my body well again, to risk it all in the great adventure. On the first day of convalescence, I said to myself aloud in my room: ‘The occupation is my sickness.’”

Forming the Resistance

AUDREY: As soon as Jacques was well, he called his friends together and formed a resistance movement, later named the Volunteers of Liberty, which eventually involved more than six hundred young men and women. About their resolve to do whatever was necessary to fight for truth, he had this to say: “Let people be silent if they were able to go on living without speaking out. We were incapable of it. For our part, we knew that Nazism threatened the whole of humanity, that it was an absolute evil, and we were going to publish its evil all around us.”

AUDREY: To lead this incredible group of young people, he leaned not only on the strength of character he had forged through his education and hard work, but heavily on God to guide him. At their very first meeting, he quickly learned how desperately he needed help and guidance. He said this: “At the beginning of May I had adopted an ascetic way of life. Every day, including Sunday, I got up at half past four. The first thing I did was to kneel down and pray: ‘My God, give me the strength to keep my promises. Since I made them in a good cause, they are yours to keep as well as mine. Now twenty young men — tomorrow there may be a hundred — are waiting for my orders. Tell me what orders to give them. By myself I know how to do almost nothing, but if you will it, I am capable of almost everything. Most of all, give me prudence.’”

AUDREY: Amazingly, even in the midst of great danger, Jacques felt an immense amount of personal meaning and joy. Of this he said, “I was surprised when I awoke in the morning, feeling a sense of purpose strong and entirely new to me. I was madly happy to be doing this work.”

AUDREY: Early on, it was decided that Jacques would be the sole screener for potential recruits. Here again, his blindness came to his aid. Because of the loss of sight, his other senses were heightened, and through years of practice he had learned to listen carefully to body language, to choice of words, and to intonation of speech. More importantly, he had a profound intuition about people. He said, “The consciences of my companions seemed to be wide open before me, and all I needed to do was read them.” His accuracy was nearly perfect. Although he interviewed over a thousand individuals for the six hundred members of his resistance group, only one ever betrayed them.

Betrayal and Buchenwald

AUDREY: When that betrayal came, several of them were arrested. After a long and difficult interrogation — accompanied by many miracles that kept Jacques alive — he spent several months in prison. Finally, he and a few of his friends were transported to Buchenwald concentration camp. In the beginning he was able to take comfort in having a few friends close to him. But when they were all shipped to other camps and he was left completely alone, fear took over. He said, “Fear is the real name of despair.”

AUDREY: He also said: “In March I had lost all my friends. They had all gone away. A small child was reborn in me, looking everywhere for his mother and not finding her. I was very much afraid of the others, and even of myself, since I no longer knew how to defend myself. One day out of two, people were stealing my bread and my soup. I grew so weak that when I touched cold water, my fingers burned as if they were on fire.

AUDREY: “For those unfit for labor like me, they had another system: the Invalid Block. It was a barracks like the others. The only difference was that they had crowded in fifteen hundred men instead of the three hundred that was average for the other blocks, and they had cut the food rations in half. As a result, people were dying there at a pace that made it impossible to keep any count. It was a greater surprise to fall over the living than the dead. For days and nights I didn’t walk around — I crawled. I made an opening for myself in the mass of flesh. My hands traveled from a stumbled leg to a dead body, from a body to a wound. I could no longer hear anything for the groaning all around me.”

AUDREY: These vile conditions, compounded by the fear and despair Jacques felt, soon took their toll, and he became very ill. Pleurisy led to dysentery, then to an infection in both ears that left him deaf for two weeks, then to erysipelas, then to complications from blood poisoning. Through it all, Jacques drew closer to God and nurtured his soul.

Light in the Darkness

AUDREY: When he finally left the camp hospital, skin and bones, he said: “I was so happy to be alive, and free to help the others. I could try to show other people how to go about holding on to life. I could turn toward them the flow of light and joy that had grown so abundant in me. Hundreds of people confided in me. The remarkable thing was that listening to the fears of others had ended by freeing me almost completely from anxiety. I had become cheerful, and was cheerful almost all the time. That helped me, naturally, but it also helped the others. They had made such a habit of watching for the coming of the little blind Frenchman — with my happy face and my reassuring words, delivered in a loud voice, and with the news I gave out — that on days when there was no news, they had me visit them just the same.”

AUDREY: By the time he was released, he was one of only thirty survivors out of his original transport group of two thousand prisoners. After the war, he moved to the United States and became a husband, a father, and a university professor. Surprisingly, he always attributed his ability to accomplish these amazing feats to his blindness. That is why, through all the challenges and joys of his life, he could honestly say that “every day I have to thank heaven for making me blind.”

Closing Thoughts and Challenge

AUDREY: His story is absolutely incredible — it often brings me to tears. He is definitely one of my heroes. I know he wasn’t a perfect man; no one is. But could you see those principles of creation at play in his life? Let me remind us all what they are. Number one: when we respond to life as a victim of circumstances, we get frustrated, stuck, and lose our way — like Jacques did when he first gave in to his blindness. Two: a victim mindset robs our vision and makes us blind, just as it did to him. Three: we can choose to be a creator regardless of circumstances, just like he did. Four: responding to life as a creator causes us to feel liberated, clear, and even joyful. And five: our choice to live in a creator orientation blesses not just us, but those around us — and sometimes our whole community and beyond.

AUDREY: So with Jacques’s story in mind and these principles in front of us, I want to challenge all of us one more time to consider them — not just in his life, but in our own. I’d love for you to return to this video and put your insights in the comments below. Where do you sometimes struggle with being a victim to your problems and circumstances? When was a time you overcame the victim mindset and turned things around with your own creative abilities? And what can you do to be more of a creator, rather than a victim, in your own life?

AUDREY: When things get hard, think of Jacques and all he came through. Consider how different his life could have been if he had chosen to give up and be the victim — how unhappy he would have been, and all the lives he would never have blessed. But he chose to be a creator, and he set a beautiful example for us. Showing up in life as a creator blesses you and everyone around you. It can be a harder path, but it’s definitely a better one.

AUDREY: If you’re ready to better understand the difference between victims and creators — how you might be showing up as a victim without even realizing it — and if you want to gain tools and learn principles that can get you out of the problems and challenges keeping you stuck, and onto a road toward a life more full of meaning, joy, and vision, I want you to consider joining us this fall in Utah for an all-day training on these concepts. There’s a link in the description, and you can learn more about the conference at themissiondrivenmom.com. I hope to see you there. Thanks for joining me today, and I’ll see you next time.