Session Four
from pages 223-226 (late September/early October 1942) and pages 66-97 (November 1941 - March 1942) While we are reading the book sequentially, in these early sessions we will first take a look at a few pages from late in the diary in order to ground ourselves in a sense of where Etty is headed, that is, her spiritual destination.
Bottom of 223 - Etty is back home and sick
“Let us bear our destruction with grace.”
“There is no poet in me just a little piece of God that might grow into a poet.”
Etty is surrounded by anguished, scared suffering people and feels for them “an infinite tenderness.”
She senses that she should pray without ceasing. The contemplative dimension is growing in her.
She is in love with God and delights to be alone with Him.
Page 66 - Etty is wrestling with her relationship with her father. She doesn’t want to be resentful anymore
She is doing the hard work of forgiving him and loving him sincerely
Then he shows up at her house and she falls short of her hopes
The she realizes that she risks becoming just like him if she doesn’t go deep
P. 69 - “my panic vanished.”
Top of p. 70 - Etty kneels to pray. She wants to approach ordinary life tasks with love from her own love-soaked center
Don’t let one bad thing “impede the great stream of life that flows through you.”
P. 72 acceptance, stillness and letting go bring a great sense of peace and connection to God. This morning scene is a glimpse into the contemplative dimension. P. 73 finds S. giving mystical counsel to a patient about union with God.
P. 75 - politics isn’t the most important thing
Middle of p. 76 “The girl who could not kneel” finally kneels to pray
Back home Etty experiences a sudden wave of love for her mother then regresses to dislike once again
Bot. p. 83 - Feb. 19, 1942 Etty observes that many Jews are being taken off by the Nazis
Etty tells her friend Jan that we must turn inward and work on ourselves if we are ever to fix the broken world and the broken people in it
Etty is beginning to see that “life is beautiful”
Feb 27 - on a trip to the “Gestapo Hall” Etty sees right through the man in charge. “What needs eradication is the evil in man, not man himself.
Etty reconnects with an old friend, Max, and realizes that “nothing is ever lost.”
She is convinced that a “rich inner life” will save her from misery when life gets hard.
Middle of p. 90 - “no admittance to Jews”
P. 93 - “sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two breaths.”
P. 94 - we have war b/c we do not have enough love. Fight war by releasing “the love that is shackled inside us.”
“We cannot be lax enough in what we demand of others and strict enough in what we demand of ourselves.”
Etty is really coming alive with this notion that life will always be beautiful, no matter what
We must give our own sorrows room inside ourselves to be felt and honored and grieved otherwise if not dealt with our sorrows will turn to hate and be expressed as vengeance and war will continue unchecked.