Etty Hillesum Quotes

Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it toward others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world.

Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths, or the turning inwards in prayer for five short minutes.

Despite everything, life is full of beauty and meaning.

Each of us must turn inward and destroy in himself all that he thinks he ought to destroy in others.

Become simple and live simply, not only within yourself but also in your everyday dealings. Don’t make ripples all around you, don’t try to be interesting, keep your distance, be honest, fight the desire to be thought fascinating by the outside world.

I don’t want to be anything special. I only want to try to be true to that in me which seeks to fulfill its promise.

Sometimes my day is crammed full of people and talk and yet I have the feeling of living in utter peace and quiet. And the tree outside my window, in the evenings, is a greater experience than all those people put together.

I do believe it is possible to create, even without ever writing a word or painting a picture, by simply molding one’s inner life. And that too is a deed.

I know and share the many sorrows a human being can experience, but I do not cling to them; they pass through me, like life itself, as a broad eternal stream...and life continues...

We have to fight them daily, lake fleas, those many small worries about the morrow, for they sap our energies.

I really see no other solution than to turn inwards and to root out all the rottenness there. I no longer believe that we can change anything in the world until we first change ourselves. And that seems to me the only lesson to be learned.

One must also accept that one has 'uncreative' moments. The more honestly one can accept that, the quicker these moments will pass.

It is sheer hell in this house. I would have to be quite a writer to describe it properly. Anyhow, I sprang from the chaos and it is my business to pull myself out of it.

Sometimes I long for a convent cell, with the sublime wisdom of centuries set out on bookshelves all along the wall and a view across the cornfields--there must be cornfields and they must wave in the breeze--and there I would immerse myself in the wisdom of the ages and in myself. Then I might perhaps find peace and clarity. But that would be no great feat. It is right here, in this very place, in the here and the now, that I must find them.

The mother instinct is something of which I am completely devoid. I explain it like this to myself: life is a vale of tears and all human beings are miserable creatures, so I cannot take the responsibility for bringing yet another unhappy creature into the world.

It is the only thing we can do. … Each of us must turn inward and destroy in himself all that he thinks he ought to destroy in others. And remember that every atom of hate added to this world makes it still more inhospitable. — ETTY HILLESUM29

Slowly but surely I have been soaking Rilke up these last few months: the man, his work and his life. And that is probably the only right way with literature, with study, with people or with anything else: to let it all soak in, to let it all mature slowly inside you until it has become a part of yourself. That, too, is a growing process. Everything is a growing process. And in between, emotions and sensations that strike you like lightning. But still the most important thing is the organic process of growing.

Every word born of an inner necessity - writing must never be anything else.

Wanneer een S.S.-man me dood zou trappen, dan zou ik nog opkijken naar z'n gezicht en me met angstige verbazing en menselijke belangstelling afragen: Mijn God kerel, wat is er met jou allemaal voor verschrikkelijks in je leven gebeurd, dat je tot zùlke dingen komt?

What matters is not to allow my whole life to be dominated by what is going on inside me. That has to be kept subordinate one way or another. What I mean is: one must not let oneself be completely disabled by just one thing, however bad; don’t let it impede the great stream of life that flows through you. I have the feeling of something secret deep inside me that no one knows about.

De ene mens mag de andere nooit tot middelpunt van zijn leven maken.

So much that was beautiful and so much that was hard to bear. Yet whenever I showed myself ready to bear it, the hard was directly transformed into the beautiful. ETTY HILLESUM

I know that those who hate have good reason to do so. But why should we always have to choose the cheapest and easiest way? It has been brought home forcibly to me here how every atom of hatred added to the world makes it an even more inhospitable place.

When you have an interior life, it certainly doesn’t matter what side of the prison fence you’re on. . . I’ve already died a thousand times in a thousand concentration camps. I know everything. There is no new information to trouble me. One way or another, I already know everything. And yet, I find this life beautiful and rich in meaning. At every moment.

Many who are indignant about injustices are only indignant because the injustices are being inflicted on them. Their indignation is skin-deep.

A desire to kneel down sometimes pulses through my body, or rather it is as if my body has been meant and made for the act of kneeling. Sometimes, in moments of deep gratitude, kneeling down becomes an overwhelming urge, head deeply bowed, hands before my face.

Pessimistische Depressionen sind als schöpferische Pausen zu betrachten, in denen sich die Kräfte wieder herstellen. Wenn man sich hiervon bewusst is, so werden die Depressionen schneller vorübergehen. Man sol sich niet deprimiert fühlen über eine Depression.

I really must become a bit simpler. Let myself live a bit more. Not always insist on the results straight away. I know what the remedy is, though: just to crouch huddled up on the ground in a corner and listen to what is going on inside me. Thinking gets you nowhere. It may be a fine and noble aid in academic studies, but you can't think your way out of emotional difficulties. That takes something altogether different. You have to make yourself passive then, and just listen. Reestablish contact with a slice of eternity.

Through them all and right to the end, the deeper sound in her heart was not despair but, extraordinarily, a strange kind of joy which would not leave her.

À pessoa que descansa em si não lhe interessa o tempo; a evolução não deve levar o tempo em conta.

I still made a short detour to seek out a flower stall, and went home with a large bunch of roses. They are just as real as all the misery I witness each day.

ideological fervour is a distraction from the fundamental task of all seekers of truth which is to explore what lies in the complex and needy hearts of human beings – our own first.

Uma pessoa pode ficar morta de cansaço devido a uma longa caminhada, ou à espera numa bicha, mas isso também faz parte da vida e algures há algo dentro de ti que nunca vai abandonar-te

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Etty Hillesum was that what she experienced did not embitter or dull her heart. And, because that was where her faith came from, still she believed.

And here I am sitting again, yes, sitting again by this faithful lamp, feeling indescribably serene and unhurried. I shall travel this day's path quite calmly and just take a little holiday—my eyes and head are slightly overstressed and overstrained. One must have the patience to do a little less.

Ik zou een héél boek willen schrijven over een kiezelsteen en over een paars viooltje. Ik zou met één enkele kiezelsteen heel lang kunnen leven en een gevoel kunnen hebben in Gods machtige natuur te leven.

Vroeger blikte ik in een chaotische toekomst, omdat ik het moment, dat vlak voor me lag, niet wilde beleven. (...) Ik had soms het zekere, doch zeer vage gevoel, dat ik "iets zou kunnen worden" in de toekomst, iets "geweldigs" zou kunnen doen en dan af en toe weer die chaotische angst dat ik "toch wel naar de bliksem zou gaan". Ik begin te begrijpen hoe dat komt. Ik weigerde de vlak voor me liggende taken te doen. Ik weigerde van trede tot trede voort te klimmen voor die toekomst. (...) Vroeger leefde ik altijd in een voorbereidend stadium, ik had het gevoel dat alles wat ik deed toch niet het "echte" was, maar voorbereiding tot iets anders, iets "groots", iets echts. Maar dat is nu volkomen van me afgevallen. Nu, vandaag, deze minuut leef ik en leef ik volop en is het leven waard geleefd te worden en wanneer ik zou weten, dat ik morgen zou sterven, dan zou ik zeggen: ik vind het heel jammer, maar het is goed geweest, zoals het geweest is.

Se anche non rimanesse che un solo tedesco decente, quest'unico tedesco meriterebbe di essere difeso contro quella banda di barbari, e grazie a lui non si avrebbe il diritto di riversare il proprio odio su un popolo intero. […] L'odio indiscriminato è una malattia dell'anima, odiare non è nel mio carattere.

It has taken me much of my life to begin to get to the second gaze. By nature I have a critical mind and a demanding heart, and I am so impatient. These are both my gifts and my curses, as you might expect. Yet I cannot have one without the other, it seems. I cannot risk losing touch with either my angels or my demons. They are both good teachers. I am convinced that guilt and shame are never from God. They are merely the defenses of the False Self as it is shocked at its own poverty — the defenses of a little man who wants to be a big man. God leads by compassion toward the soul, never by condemnation. If God would relate to us by severity and punitiveness, God would only be giving us permission to do the same (which is tragically, due to our mistaken images of God, exactly what has happened!). God offers us, instead, the grace to “weep” over our sins more than to ever perfectly overcome them, to humbly recognize our littleness. (St. Thérèse of Lisieux brought this Gospel message home in our time.) The spiritual journey is a kind of weeping and a kind of wandering that keeps us both askew and thus awake at the same time. Thérèse called it her “little way.” So now in my later life, contemplation and compassion are finally coming together. This is my second gaze. It is well worth waiting for, because only the second gaze sees fully and truthfully. It sees itself, the other, and even God with God’s own eyes, which are always eyes of compassion. It is from this place that true action must spring. Otherwise, most of our action is merely re-action, and does not bear fruit or “fruit that will last” (John 15:16). It is all about me at that point, so I must hold out for the second gaze when it becomes all about God, about the suffering of our world, and is filled with compassion for all of it. Some high-level mystics, notably the Jewesses, Simone Weil and Etty Hillesum, actually “felt sorry” for God. Most Catholic mystics just want to actively join God in suffering for the world (Colossians 1:24). The gaze of compassion, looking out at life from the place of Divine Intimacy, is really all I have, and all I have to give back to God and back to the world.

Abbiamo un ritmo di vita molto diverso, si deve permettere a ognuno di essere com’è. Quando vogliamo plasmare un altro secondo le nostre idee andiamo sempre a sbattere contro un muro e siamo sempre delusi, non dall’altra persona, ma dalle nostre pretese insoddisfatte. È un atteggiamento sciocco e molto poco democratico, ma umano. Forse con la psicologia si può arrivare alla vera libertà, non ci si può mai ricordare abbastanza che dobbiamo renderci veramente liberi dagli altri, ma che insieme dobbiamo lasciarli liberi, evitando di farcene un’idea predeterminata nella nostra fantasia. Alla fantasia rimangono comunque dei campi abbastanza vasti, anche se non la si applica alle persone care.

Riassumendo vorrei in realtà dire: la barbarie nazista fa sorgere in noi un'identica barbarie che procederebbe con gli stessi metodi, se noi avessimo la possibilità di agire oggi come vorremmo. Dobbiamo respingere interiormente questa inciviltà, non possiamo coltivare in noi quell'odio perché altrimenti il mondo non uscirà di un solo passo dalla melma.

In her mind it does not get to the root of things. Only attention to the human heart, she believes, will root out hatred, not the tired politics of her time.

She sees that all his bullying behaviour grew out of a deep unattended-to need, a profound loneliness of the spirit. This is where the roots of tyranny lie.

It has been brought home forcibly to me here how every atom of hatred added to the world makes it an even more inhospitable place.

see no alternative: each of us must turn inward and destroy in himself all that he thinks he ought to destroy in others.

we have so much work to do on ourselves that we shouldn’t even be thinking of hating our so-called enemies.

if we just care enough, God is in safe hands with us, despite everything …

And at the heart of this rigorously disciplined inner life was her openness to the Mystery of the Divine experienced within her as vulnerable Presence.

impatient with the ‘primitive’ word ‘God’, she gives it a new definition and describes God as ‘our greatest and most continuous inner adventure’.

there are many miracles in a human life. My own is one long sequence of inner miracles, and it’s good to be able to say so again to somebody.

Ik geloof niet in objectieve vaststellingen. Oneindig samenspel van menselijke wisselwerkingen.

We should be willing to act as a balm for all wounds.

I can’t really put it into words; in any case I am not yet as honest with myself as I should be and it is always hard to get to the bottom of things with words.

Such words as “god” and “death” and “suffering” and “eternity” are best forgotten. We have to become as simple and wordless as the growing corn or the falling rain. We must just be.12

There is nothing else for it, I shall have to solve my own problems. I always get the feeling that when I solve them for myself I shall have also solved them for a thousand other women. For that very reason, I must come to grips with myself. All this devouring of books from early youth has been nothing but laziness on my part. I allow others to formulate what I ought to be formulating myself. I keep seeking outside confirmation of what is hidden deep inside me, when I know that I can only reach clarity by using my own words. I really must abandon all that laziness, and particularly my inhibitions and insecurity, if I am ever to find myself, and through myself, find others. I must have clarity, and I must learn to accept myself. Everything feels so heavy inside me, and I want so much to feel light. For years I have bottled everything up, it all goes into some great reservoir, but it will have to come out again, or I shall know that I have lived in vain, that I have taken from mankind and given nothing back. I sometimes feel I am a parasite and that depresses me and makes me wonder if I lead any kind of useful life. Perhaps my purpose in life is to come to grips with myself, properly to grips with myself, with everything that bothers and tortures me and clamors for inner solution and formulation. For these problems are not just mine alone. And if at the end of a long life I am able to give some form to the chaos inside me, I may well have fulfilled my own small purpose.

Today I was filled with a terrible despair’, she writes. But then she rallies adding, ‘… and I shall have to come to terms with that as well.’ The only way to deal with that also, is acceptance.

J’ai reçu assez de dons intellectuels pour pouvoir tout sonder, tout aborder, tout saisir en formules claires ; on me croit supérieurement informée de bien des problèmes de la vie ; pourtant, là, tout au fond de moi, il y a une pelote agglutinée, quelque chose me retient dans une poigne de fer, et toute ma clarté de pensée ne m’empêche pas d’être bien souvent une pauvre godiche peureuse.

Ik heb me enige onsterfelijke verdiensten aan de mensheid verworven: ik heb nooit een slecht boek geschreven en ik heb het niet op m'n geweten, dat er een ongelukkige méér op deze aarde rondloopt.

I believe that I know and share the many sorrows and sad circumstances that a human being can experience, but I do not cling to them, I do not prolong such moments of agony. They pass through me, like life itself, as a broad, eternal stream, they become part of that stream, and life continues. And as a result all my strength is preserved, does not become tagged onto futile sorrow or rebelliousness.

I shall try to help You, God, to stop my strength ebbing away, though I cannot vouch for it in advance. But one thing is becoming increasingly clear to me: that You cannot help us, that we must help You to help ourselves.

The inner world is as real as the outer world. One ought to be conscious of that… These two worlds are fed by each other, you must not neglect one at the expense of the other, must not deem one more important than the other.

The inner world is as real as the outer world. One ought to be conscious of that… These two worlds are fed by each other, you must not neglect one at the expense of the other, must not deem one more important than the other.

The most fundamental theological idea for her lay at the root of the Jewish tradition: all human beings bear the Image of God within them, however buried and forgotten that image may be; all are created to grow into his likeness.

Give your sorrow all the space and shelter in yourself that is its due, for if everyone bears grief honestly and courageously, the sorrow that now fills the world will abate. But if you do instead reserve most of the space inside you for hatred and thoughts of revenge-from which new sorrows will be born for others-then sorrow will never cease in this world. And if you have given sorrow the space it demands, then you may truly say: life is beautiful and so rich.

Living and dying, sorrow and joy, the blisters on my feet and the jasmine behind the house, the persecution, the unspeakable horrors: it is all as one in me, and I accept it all as one mighty whole and begin to grasp it better if only for myself, without being able to explain to anyone else how it all hangs together. I wish I could live for a long time so that one day I may know how to explain it, and if I am not granted that wish, well, then somebody else will perhaps do it, carry on from where my life has been cut short. And that is why I must try to live a good and faithful life to my last breath: so that those who come after me do not have to start all over again, need not face the same difficulties. Isn't that doing something for future generations?

Etty Hillesum wrote: “I have gradually come to realize that on those days when you are at odds with your neighbors you are really at odds with yourself. ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’”28 Conversely, if we close our hearts against other people, make no effort to love them as they are, never learn to be reconciled with them, we will never have the grace to practice the deep reconciliation with ourselves that we all need. Instead we will be perpetual victims of our own narrow-heartedness and harsh judgments toward our neighbor.

E qui bisogna menzionare anche quanto scritto da Walter Rathenau nelle sue Briefe an eine Liebende: “Le ho detto ciò che penso della morte volontaria, e le dirò ciò su cui non mi sono mai pronunciato: ma poi non voglio più né parlarne né sentirne parlare. […] Ritengo questa fine un'ingiustizia metafisica, un'ingiustizia nei confronti dello spirito. Una mancanza di fiducia nella Bontà eterna, una rivolta contro l'intimo dovere di obbedire alla legge universale. Chi si uccide, uccide e non solo se stesso, ma anche un altro essere. Perché l'uomo non è un'isola. Questa morte, ne sono profondamente convinto, non è una liberazione come quella naturale e incolpevole. Ogni violenza nel mondo ha delle conseguenze, come ogni azione. Esistiamo per prendere su di noi un po' del dolore del mondo offrendo il nostro petto, non per moltiplicarlo facendo a nostra volta violenza. So che lei soffre e io soffro con Lei. Sia indulgente con questo dolore, ed esso sarà indulgente con lei. I desideri e la collera lo accrescono; con la dolcezza esso si addormenta come un bambino. Lei è cosi ricca di amore, lo rivolga tutto agli esseri umani, ai bambini, alle cose e alle sue sofferenze. Non si chiuda nella solitudine, non voglia essere sola. Superi l'ostacolo, lo guardi negli occhi: non è nulla”.

Se un uomo delle SS dovesse prendermi a calci fino alla morte io alzerei ancora gli occhi a guardarlo in viso, e mi chiederei, con un'esperessione di sbalordimento misto a paura, e per puro interesse nei confronti dell'umanità: Mio Dio, ragazzo, che cosa mai ti è capitato nella vita di tanto terribile da spingerti a simili azioni? Quando qualcuno mi rivolge parole di odio – e questo, in ogni caso, non succede spesso – non provo mai la tentazione di rispondere con l'odio, ma sprofondo improvvisamente nell'altro, in una sorta di disorientamento doloroso e al contempo interrogativo, e mi chiedo perché l'altro sia così, dimenticando me stessa.

Es gibt Augenblicke, in denen ich mich wie ein kleiner Vogel in einer großen schützenden Hand geborgen fühle. Gestern war mein Herz ein in der Falle gefangener Vogel. Jetzt ist der Vogel wieder frei und fliegt ungehindert über alles hinweg. Heute scheint die Sonne. Und jetzt packe ich mein Brot ein und mache mich auf den Weg.

We go too far in fearing for our unhappy bodies, but our forgotten spirit shrivels up in some corner. Our lives are going wrong, we conduct ourselves without dignity. We lack historical sense, forget that even those about to perish are part of history. I hate nobody. I am not embittered. And once the love of mankind has germinated in you, it will grow without measure.

Quando pensi che l'altro non ti consideri abbastanza, significa che gli sei legato e per via di questo legame non sei indipendente. Quanto meno ti aspetti, tanto più ricevi. Ciò che attendiamo da un altro, dunque dall'esterno, lo abbiamo inconsciamente dentro di noi. Anziché attenderlo dall'esterno, dobbiamo svilupparlo dentro di noi, acquistandone consapevolezza. L'anima non ha legami temporali, è eterna.

One day the Dalai Lama received a visit from a monk arriving from Tibet after spending twenty-five years in Chinese labor camps. His torturers had brought him to the brink of death several times. The Dalai Lama talked at length with the monk, deeply moved to find him so serene after so much suffering. He asked him if he had ever been afraid. The monk answered: “I was often afraid of hating my torturers, for in so doing I would have destroyed myself.” A few months before she died at Auschwitz, Etty Hillesum wrote: “I can see no way around it. Each of us must look inside himself and excise and destroy everything he finds there which he believes should be excised and destroyed in others. We may be quite certain that the least iota of hatred that we bring into the world will make it even more inhospitable to us than it already is.

At times I can certainly see a subject clearly and distinctly, think my way through it, great sweeping thoughts that I can scarcely grasp but which all at once give me an intense feeling of importance. Yet when I try to write them down they shrivel into nothing, and that's why I lack the courage to commit them to paper - in case I become too disillusioned with the fatuous little as they that emerges. But let me impress just one thing upon you, sister. Wash your hands of all attempts to embody those great, sweeping thoughts. The smallest, most fatuous little essay is worth more than the flood of grandiose ideas in which you like to wallow. Of course you must hold on to your forebodings and your intuitions. They are the sources upon which you draw, but be careful not to drown in them. Just organise things a little, exercise some mental hygiene. Your imagination and your emotions are like a vast ocean from which you wrest small pieces of land that may well be flooded again. The ocean is wide and elemental, but what matter are the small pieces of land you reclaim from it. The subject right before you is more important than those prodigious thoughts of Tolstoy and Napoleon that occurred to you in the middle of last night, and the lesson you gave that keen young girl and Friday night is more important than all your vague philosophizing. Never forget that. Don't overestimate your own intensity; it may give you the impression that you were cut out for greater things than the so-called men in the street, who's inner life is a closed book to you. In fact, you're no more than a weakling and a non-entity adrift and tossed by the waves. Keep your eyes fixed on the mainland and don't flounder helplessly in the ocean.

Five elements in her journey There were five key elements in that journey: a relationship of unconditional acceptance within which she felt safe to explore her experience; intellectual exploration into the thought of some key writers, notably Jung and Rilke; the influence of her mentor, a person of faith, who introduced her to key religious texts, notably the Psalms, the New Testament and St Augustine, as well as several others; her own response to the urge she felt from within her, to pray; and the development of particular disciplines of the spiritual life.

All disaster stems from us. Why is there a war? Perhaps because now and then I might be inclined to snap at my neighbour. Because I and my neighbour and everyone else do not have enough love. Yet we could fight war with all its excrescences by releasing, each day, the love that is shackled inside us, and giving it a chance to live. And I believe that I will never be able to hate any human being for his so-called wickedness, that I shall only hate the evil that is within me, though hate is perhaps putting it too strongly even then. In any case, we cannot be lax enough in what we demand of others and strict enough in what we demand of ourselves.

Then suddenly it drops away, all of it, and a benevolent tiredness enters the brain, then everything feels calm again, then I am filled with a sort of bountifulness, even toward myself, and a veil envelops me through which life seems more serene and often much friendlier as well. And a feeling of being at one with all existence. No longer: I want this or that, but: Life is great and good and fascination and eternal, and if you dwell so much on yourself and flounder and fluff about, you miss the mighty, eternal current that is life. It is in these moments--and I am grateful for them--that all personal ambition drops away from me, that my thirst for knowledge and understanding comes to rest, and that a small piece of eternity descends on me with a sweeping wingbeat.

Foi novamente como se a Vida, com todos os seus segredos, estivesse próxima de mim, como se eu a pudesse tocar… E ali sentia-me imensamente segura e protegida. E pensei: «Como isto é est ranho. É guerra. Há campos de concentração. Pequenas crueldades amontoam-se por cima de pequenas crueldades. Quando caminho pelas ruas, sei que, em muitas das casas por onde passo, há ali um filho preso, e ali um pai refém, e ali têm de suportar a condenação à morte de um rapaz de dezoito anos.» E estas ruas e casas ficam perto da minha própria casa. Sei do grande sofrimento humano que se vai acumulando, sei das perseguições e da opressão… Sei de tudo isso e continuo a enfrentar cada pedaço de realidade que se me impõe. E num momento inesperado, abandonada a mim própria — encontro-me de repente encostada ao pei to nu da Vida e os braços dela são muito macios e envolvem-me, e nem sequer consigo descrever o bater do seu coração: tão fiel como se nunca mais findasse…

Ik zal je helpen God, dat je het niet in mij begeeft, maar ik kan van te voren nergens voor in staan. Maar dit éne wordt me steeds duidelijker: dat jij ons niet kunt helpen, maar dat wij jou moeten helpen en door dat laatste helpen wij onszelf. En dit is het enige, wat we in deze tijd kunnen redden en ook het enige, waar het op aankomt: een stukje van jou in onszelf, God. En misschien kun nen we ook er aan meewerken jou op te graven in de geteisterde harten van anderen. Ja, mijn God, aan de omstandigheden schijn jij niet al te veel te kunnen doen, ze horen nu eenmaal ook bij dit leven. Ik roep je er ook niet voor ter verantwoording. I shall try to help You, God, to stop my strength ebbing away, though I cannot vouch for it in advance. But one thing is becoming increasingly clear to me: that You cannot help us, that we must help You to help ourselves. And that is all we can manage these days and also all that really matters: that we safeguard that little piece of You, God, in ourselves. And perhaps in others as well. Alas, there doesn’t seem to be much You Yourself can do about our circumstances, about our lives. Neither do I hold You responsible.

To live fully, outwardly and inwardly, not to ignore external reality for the sake of the inner life, or the reverse—that’s quite a task. —ETTY HILLESUM

Te prometo una cosa, Dios, solamente una cosa pequeña: trataré de no apesadumbrar el hoy con las cargas de mis preocupaciones por el mañana.

What is primitive in me is my warmth; I have a sort of primitive love and primitive sympathy for people, for all people.

Oh, Lord, let me feel at one with myself. Let me perform a thousand daily tasks with love, but let every one spring from a greater central core of devotion and love.

I know the intimate gestures he uses with women, but I still want to know the gestures he uses with God.

So let this be the aim of meditation: to turn one’s innermost being into a vast empty plain, with none of that treacherous undergrowth to impede the view. So that something of ‘God’ can enter you, and something of ‘Love’ too.9

Maar dit éne wordt me steeds duidelijker: dat jij ons niet kunt helpen, maar dat wij jou moeten helpen en door dat laatste helpen wij onszelf. En dit is het enige, wat we in deze tijd kunnen redden en ook het enige, waar het op aankomt.

there must be someone to live through it all and bear witness to the fact that God lived, even in these times’45

First, she refused to hate her enemy. It is, simply in itself, a disturbing stance, for it means we have to think. To refuse to hate is, in the final analysis, to refuse to see someone, or a group of people – who manifestly are an enemy bent on your destruction – as an ‘enemy’. It is to live with this paradox and involves – even as your country defends itself against their hatred – trying to pay attention to the wider and more complex context of their lives, and ask, searchingly, why are they, and why are we, caught up in such hatred? Who are we to them, and who are they to us?

to deconstruct collective systems of thought – including our own – and ask how and why they have come about, and what lies behind them. People on both sides of conflicts can become blind. All this is only possible if there is no hatred, for only then can we be sufficiently dispassionate to have some chance of seeing.

The despair is not denied: it exists, but it is entirely swallowed up in courageous living.

Paul Tillich writes that such courage – the courage to affirm life in the face of despair; to care and serve and give and smile upon others in such a situation – is more than a revealing of the life of an integrated person. It is a revealing of God: of the power of ‘being-itself’.

We should be willing to act as a balm for all wounds.

that institutions own and control it, about the question that lies at the heart of it, and how we think about its boundaries. Drawing on its diverse wisdoms, she invites us to find and explore our personal practice of faith.

The externals are simply so many props; everything we need is within us. And we have to take everything that comes: the bad with the good which does not mean we cannot devote our life to curing the bad.18

This gives courage an altogether deeper meaning. It is ‘the courage to be’ in spite of death, fate, meaninglessness or despair. It is about affirming life in the face of what seems unalterable in your situation. You do not pretend that despair is not there. You acknowledge it: it is part of you. But, by living courageously in the face of it, you rob it of its power. This is the courage of despair. To live with this kind of courage is immensely challenging. It is the challenge of becoming an integrated and fully human person; and, as we shall see, it is about more even than integration.

I am deeply grateful to You for leaving me so free of bitterness and hate, with so much calm acceptance.’33

As she contemplates the helplessness of her people, their suffering and their fate, her task, she realizes, is not in bitterness to abandon faith in this God, but to look after him and care for him, for she knows that if they lose God they lose everything – their humanity, their integrity, their beauty as people, their life. They

later she goes further, saying hatred is something which for her is simply impossible. ‘I cannot hate.’ It is no longer just that she thinks it wrong and degrading. If she is to remain true to herself, it cannot be part of her nature.

There are no frontiers between suffering people …

She insisted and went on showing by the person she was that, despite everything, life is beautiful and good. She could not help but express and bear witness to this power of life which she knew within her and which she saw around her. This was her ‘basic tune’ which went on playing, whatever happened.

Anyone who enjoys inner peace is no more broken by failure than he is inflated by success. He is able to fully live his experiences in the context of a vast and profound serenity, since he understands that experiences are ephemeral and that it is useless to cling to them. There will be no “hard fall” when things turn bad and he is confronted with adversity. He does not sink into depression, since his happiness rests on a solid foundation. One year before her death at Auschwitz, the remarkable Etty Hillesum, a young Dutchwoman, affirmed: “When you have an interior life, it certainly doesn’t matter what side of the prison fence you’re on. . . . I’ve already died a thousand times in a thousand concentration camps. I know everything. There is no new information to trouble me. One way or another, I already know everything. And yet, I find this life beautiful and rich in meaning. At every moment.”7