Etty’s magnificence

God is everything. That is, if I can discover and touch the Divine spark that indwells my actual body, then I will have all that I need and I will see God in all that I see.

Mercy, that sounds grandiose, doesn't it? I guess it does, but it’s true.

Etty Hillesum was a captive of the Nazi’s. It doesn’t get much worse than that. As the Nazi noose tightened around her people, closing more and more of life off to them and limiting their freedom of movement, Etty came to this transformative discovery: “Humiliation always involves two. The one who does the humiliating and the one who allows himself to be humiliated. If the second is missing, that is, if the passive party is immune to humiliation, then the humiliation vanishes into thin air. All that remains are vexatious measures that interfere with daily life but are not humiliations that weigh heavily on the soul.”

Etty came to believe that God dwelled within her as the animating spark of Divinity that gave her life and sustained her in all her hardships no matter how extreme. She was then free in spite of her captivity. She wrote, “I find life beautiful, and I feel free. The sky within me is as wide as the one stretching above my head.” 

There is no truly lasting security to be found in exterior circumstances. God’s love alone can give us what we need and long for. Etty discovered that truth in time to live it before her captors killed her at the age of 29. Etty was rooted and grounded in love which gave her complete inner freedom and rendered her exterior circumstances irrelevant. That is Etty’s magnificence. It can be yours too.