Session Six
(from pages 134-161, May-July 1942)
As is common and natural and good in people in their late 20’s Etty is wondering aloud in her diary what the meaning and purpose of her life is and is to be. She decides on a walk one night that she will be a writer. She feels happy and increasingly connected to God. She wonders in earnest and with heart why people do terrible things to each other. She says to God, “I try to look things straight in the face, even the worst crimes, and to discover the small, naked human being amid the monstrous wreckage caused by man’s senseless deeds.”
Etty is in the midst of an extraordinary growth spurt. The Nazis are restricting the movement of the Jews further and further as the weeks pass. She knows more and more people who have been taken away to the transit camp. She sees more German soldiers present around her. And she is growing closer to God. She is also wrestling with her relative good fortune when compared to so many suffering people around her. She is increasingly determined not to give herself over to anger and hate, and she keeps circling back around to a mystical feeling of the deep goodness buried in all aspects of life.
In addition she is falling into a different degree and depth of love for S. She is attracted to him, no doubt, but she also increasingly views him as a spiritual teacher and something of a soul mate.
Page 137 - She discovers the space (silence) left by the artist in Japanese prints. Thomas Kelly had a similar awakening when he wrote about how Chinese artists never “crowd the canvas full.”
On the bottom half of page 144 all the work she has been doing begins to really bloom in her realization that “the sky within me is as wide as the one stretching above my head.” She has discovered, if only for a moment, the peace that surpasses understanding. She is grounded in joy. That is, she doesn’t need to change anything about her exterior circumstances in order to be happy and to feel inner peace.
“We must grow so independent of material and exterior things that whatever the circumstances our spirit can continue to do its work.” Joy is a vivid realization that nothing needs to be added to or changed about the moment in order for us to be tethered to inner peace. Etty is tapping into this fruit of the Spirit - Joy.
P. 146 Etty is staring at a picture of S’s fiance Hertha. She imagines a conversation with her and what it would be like to meet her. Etty is jealous of Hertha and thus can’t yet pray for her like Tide does. In the end she suspects that she and S will die in the camps.
P. 150 - another burst of theological and mystical awareness: Etty does not blame God for all the atrocities Germany is committing. She knows about everything that is going on from imprisonments to mass murders and yet she writes, “I find life beautiful and meaningful. From minute to minute.”
P. 151 now she is exhausted and despondent. Then she puts herself back together by feeling solidarity and compassion for those who suffer. She further recovers by seeking to help a Catholic girl. “For a Jew to be able to help a non-Jew these days gives one a peculiar sense of power.” Etty is recovering from her trials and despairs faster these days. One senses that the Dark Night described by John of the Cross is having its way with Etty as she is weaned of all the ordinary consolations.
Etty is making peace with suffering as a given and an inextricable part of life.
P. 153 Etty has a blister on her foot which she later credits with sparking several pages of insight. She makes her most certain declaration of the overall circumstances to date - “They are out to destroy us completely, we must accept that...even if we are consigned to hell let us go there as gracefully as we can.”
Middle of 154 - union. Living and dying and sorrow and joy…”it is all as one in me.” “everything we need is within us.” She accepts what will happen to her and all the Jews and her “love of life has not diminished.” She is making peace with death.
What seems clearer is that Etty and S. know that they will be killed by the Nazis. So, they allow themselves the freedom to be together to the end. By our contemporary standards their relationship is inappropriate perhaps, but their circumstances are exceedingly different from ours and thus perhaps not only not inappropriate but it makes perhaps a particular, peculiar bit of sense.
P. 156 a profound insight after an encounter with a German soldier who showed Liesl kindness - “There are no frontiers between suffering people, and we must pray for them all.”
Top of 157 - the blister gets the credit.
To the top of page 161 - Etty is coming to full acceptance. It is a hard won spiritual gift, acceptance. She writes, “I have my inner strength and that is enough, the rest doesn’t matter.” Around this same time, perhaps a few years earlier, a man named Bill Wilson is in the United States fighting his own battle against alcoholism. Acceptance is the key that unlocks the door to sobriety for Bill. He accepts that he is powerless over alcohol and that only a relationship with God can solve his alcohol problem. Etty and Bill are not dealing with the same problem, but they are finding hope in the same solution. Acceptance.