Years ago, I came across a book by a Dutch woman named Etty Hillesum. It was her journal for the year between the Nazis marching into the Netherlands and the time they took her away ultimately to die at Auschwitz. Her entries went from terror, helplessness, the desperate need for someone to save her, to a faith that freed her to act, to be of service to all those around her who were sufferings. She wrote, "No matter when they do to me, there is always room for praying hands." Praying hands isn't a phrase I relate to, but I understood she had had a spiritual awakening. She had faced a situation she was powerless to change but instead of that powerlessness destroying her, she found courage in it, a fearlessness that allowed her to do what she could do. She found a purpose to her suffering - helping others - and that purpose led her to a connection to something greater than herself. No matter what, she knew she would always feel that connection. She would find freedom in the most unfree circumstance.
Hillesum's spiritual awakening provided a framework, a context, for all the horrors she saw around her, for the horrors she knew were still to come. That context was the realm of the spirit and it was beyond everything, arching over everything. always present. Her belief was personal, individual, and it was real; it had real effect on her daily life and thought. It led her to acceptance and peace, which in turn enabled her to act.
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