FIREFLIES
10/24/22
Although the News Gives Us Reasons for Despair
We Remember Etty’s Story:
Etty’s Story
The world has seen countless times of great darkness. The early 1940’s in Holland, was one of those times, especially if you were Jewish. Etty Hillesum was 27 when the Nazis entered Amsterdam, and like others, Etty kept a diary. In it, through her suffering, she records her spiritual change of heart. Through her diary, we read of her study of central texts of Jewish mysticism, the poetry of Rilke, Meister Eckhart. “I shall not burden myself with my fears,” she writes. This young woman, who served as a volunteer social worker in the Westerbork transit camp, who knew she was likely destined for the death camps to the east, practiced a mindfulness to live fully anyway. We witness how she came to see beyond the pain and brutality, to focus upon the beauty and wonder and mystery of the world beyond circumstance, a world that is always still there.
birth and death
this particular world
being and not
* * *
Amidst narratives of despair, we must refocus on the small points of light all around. I’m a former trauma therapist and on-scene disaster consultant, a teacher, a painter, and now a writer. Last year I found hope in gathering stories of individuals persevering against all odds to overcome despair. Fireflies Against Darkness was my first collection of such stories, and More Fireflies, just released, the second. As current events become the spectacle of darkness for another year, I find myself working on a third collection. I want to share them with you.
