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. Etty Hillesum
Etty Hillesum, like Anne Frank, was arrested by the Nazis and transported to camp Westerbork. And, like Anne Frank, she wrote diaries of her experiences before her arrest. Etty continued to write at Westerbork, documenting not just the atrocities taking place around her, but the inward transformation taking place within her.
Though surrounded by evil, she chose to immerse herself in the good she believed permeated even her increasing darkness. At Westerbork she wrote, “The sky is full of birds, the purple lupins stand up so regally and peacefully, two little old women have sat down for a chat, the sun is shining on my face – and right before our eyes, mass murder….
“Those two months behind barbed wire have been the two richest and most intense months of my life, in which my highest values were so deeply confirmed. I have learnt to love Westerbork.”
Etty Hillesum wrote these words not long before she was ushered aboard a train to Auschwitz. There, in the crowded boxcar, she wrote her last known words on a postcard that she then tossed out of the train. It read, “We left the camp singing…”
When evil and suffering surround us, it is easy to let the darkness take hold of us and become part of us. We know no other response than to fight back in rage or attempt to escape the pain with unhealthy distractions or curl up in the fetal position on the floor and weep.
Those will be our responses if we immerse ourselves in the shadows we face. But where there is shadow, there is light.
It is not easy to overcome the darkness. We need help. The good news is we have it. We have been invited to immerse ourselves in a new way of thinking and living. We are designed to walk in this light.
But in order to let go of our current way of thinking and living, we must first immerse ourselves over a period of time fully in the light until it begins to penetrate the darkness within us.
Source Scripture
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Extras
The Awestruck Podcast musical playlist
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Resources to Explore the Life of Etty Hillesum
Book: An Interrupted Life
Book: A Life Transformed
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