Ronald Rolheiser believes that something inside our DNA makes us want to possess whatever is beautiful and to have exclusively for ourselves whatever we love. It is hard to look at what attracts us and respond only with gratitude and admiration. Etty Hillesum gives us an honest expression of this in her memoir, An Interrupted Life. Etty eventually discerned that the answer lay in the admiration without seeking to own and the love without seeking to manipulate. Furthermore, Etty obtained an attitude of peace of soul. Although she was not free from the stress of the Nazi invasion, with herself being a Jewish woman, she found tranquility. Through God, she was able to let grudges and hurts dissolve through love and understanding, and found the capacity to live out the remainder of her days in harmony?with those with whom she disagreed and agreed with. There is an earthy and embodied dimension to Etty's spirituality. She described her romantic adventures with no more reticence than she reserved for descriptions of her prayer, which she developed an amazing capacity for. For Etty, everything--the physical and the spiritual without distinction--was related to her passionate openness to life, which was ultimately openness to God.
When Etty began her diary, the Germans have occupied Holland and are beginning to isolate the Dutch Jews. Jews are thrown out of their jobs, forbidden to buy in many shops, and kept out of parks and public places. But throughout the first part of the diary, we do not hear about the war or the suffering of Dutch Jewry. Instead, we learn about Etty's inner life; she talked about her studies, her desire to write, and her feelings about her parents, her friends, and her lover Julius Spier.
Then a chan ...