Etty Hillesum wrote her diaries in Nazi-occupied Netherlands. In 1941 she ended up in the transit camp of Westerbork because she volunteered to accompany the first group of Jews rounded up by the Germans. She was a counsellor and a friend to many in the camp. Only recently the witness of her colleague, Ies Spetter, emerged and we have come to know that Etty and Ies managed to smuggle children out of the camp. She eventually was sent to her death to Auschwitz, together with her whole family, in 1943. We can only speculate, but with some degree of certainty, that she continued her work of compassion until the end.
Her refusal to go into hiding, choosing instead to go to Westerbork, has been criticized, but it seems unfair to read in her choices any kind of sacrificial ideology. It is instead fair to say that she was no stranger to the work of helping others in very concrete ways.
In her diaries, we read:
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.
This quote can be manipulated, sentimentalized, and privatized until it becomes harmless. That is, un-prophetic. But if you take out the prophet from the mystic — as Matthew Fox tirelessly explains — you get nothing. Most likely you get an obnoxious religious person, which Etty most surely was not.
We should instead meditate on what this quote means in the context of the second World War genocide that she lived through, and in the context of the Palestinian genocide that is being carried on under our own eyes, the “first televised genocide in history” as some have called it.
Etty knew what helping others during a genocide meant. Surely she did not run away from her responsibilities. Yet she says: We have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace within ourselves. This is far from meaning that we can continue to live in our privileged corner to cultivate our inner peace, as if that would solve all problems. It means that once we have done all we can do, in the most creative ways we can, we should not fall into despair because our action has not achieved the results we hoped for.
Ultimately, in fact, there is a deep action which nobody can preclude us to enact, and that is: reclaiming large areas of peace within ourselves. Not just a small corner of peace, but larger and larger areas of inner peace that eventually will reflect, almost effortlessy, on others.
This is true mysticism at work, not divorced at all from prophetism.
This is a big challenge that Etty places before us, who want to find quick solutions, especially when we cannot bear to see suffering or understand our complicity with it.
This means acknowledging that our unwavering inner work is not our private work, that we do it for the good of the whole. We cannot afford to stop it when times are evil and the playfield is harder.
To deflect from the work of inner peace would mean to deflect from our fundamental moral duty. To close our eyes to suffering and to find refuge in our inner peace, doing nothing concrete, would mean to falsify the call to inner peace. It is in the balance, and in our hard inner and outer work, that we find our meaning.
See the diaries of Etty Hillesum: Etty Hillesum: An Interrupted Life and Letters from Westerbork and Etty Hillesum: Essential Writings.
See also Matthew Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
And Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
And Fox, Julian of Norwich: Wisdom in a Time of Pandemic–and Beyond
And Fox, Trump and the MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Banner Image: A 1930 photograph of Etty Hillesum (Wikimedia Commons) opposite a page of her diary (public domain on Picryl).
Queries for Contemplation
How does Etty Hillesum inspire you today? If your inner and outer work are unbalanced, what can you do to correct the situation?
Recommended Reading
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the meaning and practice of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, leading the way toward a gentler and more ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate activity.
“Well worth our deepest consideration…Puts compassion into its proper focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them.
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science. A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics
Julian of Norwich: Wisdom in a Time of Pandemic–and Beyond
Julian of Norwich lived through the dreadful bubonic plague that killed close to 50% of Europeans. Being an anchoress, she ‘sheltered in place’ and developed a deep wisdom that she shared in her book, Showings, which was the first book in English by a woman. A theologian way ahead of her time, Julian develops a feminist understanding of God as mother at the heart of nature’s goodness. Fox shares her teachings in this powerful and timely and inspiring book.
“What an utterly magnificent book. The work of Julian of Norwich, lovingly supported by the genius of Matthew Fox, is a roadmap into the heart of the eco-spiritual truth that all life breathes together.” –Caroline Myss
Now also available as an audiobook HERE.
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.
