In this group, as we know, we have much reason to celebrate
meaning and happiness in life. We know
also, however, people who feel generally insecure and menaced, afraid of the
future. Ageing, for one thing, has its nasty
surprises… but long before senior years, for many, there are bleak fears of
what could happen, or of managing what has happened. We seem also to have now a generation centred
on self, not so much intending to be selfish, but simply that they don’t see meaning
except as things affect them. There are other
places where meaning boils down to the bliss of having a home in peace, and the
means to feed and raise the children.
There is something to learn from Etty Hillesum. She was a young somewhat unconventional Dutch
woman who voluntarily ministered to Jews and others in Nazi-occupied
Holland. Eventually she died, in
Auschwitz. She wrote in her diary[1]
(it was her prayer, she talks directly to God): …one
thing is becoming increasingly clear to me: that You cannot help us, that we
must help You ourselves. And that is all
we can manage these days and also all that really matters: that we safeguard
that piece of You, God, in ourselves…
You cannot help us, but we must help You and defend Your dwelling place
inside us to the last.
Now, the point about that quote is not whether we agree with it. We were not there. Etty Hillesum was reflecting an utterly
desperate situation which she was sharing with many others. The point is to listen to what she writes, to
catch its wisdom and truth. She is far
away from the religion that wants solutions, looks for miracles, for signs and
wonders, for interventions to make things right again. She says that the Light is within, and that
we are guardians of the Light. That
Light is our meaning, and we shouldn’t lose it.
The light shines in the
darkness, wrote John, and the darkness has not
overcome it.[2] Etty Hillesum wrote this again later in her
diary: Alas, there doesn’t seem to be much You Yourself can do
about our circumstances, about our lives. Neither do I hold You responsible.
You cannot help us, but we must help You and defend Your dwelling place in us
to the last.
I think Etty
Hillesum points us in the right direction.
Our important task in grown-up faith is to have learned how to be still,
to sit light to the religious chatter and superstitions, to revise those things
we “always thought”, and locate the Light that is already within, what Etty
Hillesum called that piece of You, God, in ourselves. John’s Gospel calls it the light that enlightens everyone.[3] Jesus
describes it as a mutual abiding, I
in them and you in me… they in us.[4] It is very moving to realise that all this
young woman had, now in Auschwitz, was that -- the stillness and attention in
which she steadied, and knew herself reconnected with herself, with her
friends, and with God.
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