I have never had a Lent Book ...
..... but you could say that ::
An Interrupted Life
The diaries and Letters of
Etty Hillesum 1941-43
.... is my Lent Reading.
She started to write these diaries in 1941 when Holland was under the increasingly horrific control of Germany. She was 27 and lived in Amsterdam - and a Jew.
She died in Auschwitz in November 1943 with her last diary which was never found.
She was a woman who was always wanting to be aware of another dimension in her life. An interior journey - that's why I bought it and that is what is gripping me. She had many affairs and encountered spiritual transformation. She was a human full of feelings and self examination. It is a Level Five book.
I am only up to page 31 but already I am drinking in her reflected life, her struggle with self acceptance, the subtle movements of her feelings which she was great at sensing and articulating.
Her inner life was a small battlefield -
She was in a constant internal dialogue................ here is - before me - a human on a spiritual journey who seems to be finding God by accident.
A quote from her ::
"God's world is so beautiful despite everything and it fills me with Joy"
...... and the last words in her diary ....
"We should be willing to act as the balm for all wounds"
This book is my intake before I retire each night
and I wonder ...............
bhp
.
