1

From The Injured to The Redefined Human Condition

In Etty Hillesum’ Spiritual Experience
Rosana E Navarro S – Pontifical Xaveriana University –
Estructure
Introduction
We are invited to life. Human condition impregnates all the hideouts of our world in which love’s
caress and suffering wounds coincide. The crisis that affects our world in the domains of the
individual1, society2 and religion3, show us the reality that never stops speaking of pain and suffering of
the wounded human being. To speak of a world crisis is not a novelty.

This crisis makes itself evident in various ways. Life goes on in the midst of confrontations, wars,
disasters, and subhuman conditions. Why are there so many bitter, sick and hopeless people in society?
Why do depression, stress, psychological complexes and insomnia abound? Why are so many people
looking for refuge in spirituality? Human beings are constantly questioned about the essential human
search for meaning and communion. All this, points to the presence of a human desire for recovery,
union, and search for meaning. Is it possible to recover and give new meaning to the human condition,
today? In what conditions is this feasible? From which perspective could we expect to pose the
problem and to find an answer? The world scenario presents multiple ways of searching for meaning,
observed in the diversity of religious expressions, images of God, new religious awakenings 4 and, a
movement towards inner-self.5 According to Heidegger, we live in a time of ‘forgetting of being'6 and
we are also living in an age of returning to being.

Within this context we reach out to Etty Hillesum. Her personal experience narrated in her diary has
raised considerable interest and is presented as the answer to many questions. In this case, we ask
ourselves if her compassion and her option for humanity were a guarantee to avoid having evil speak
the last word. Why did her life, as that of many others, not appear useless? What makes her diary
common ground and a standard for many men and women of today? Is spiritual experience a way out
of the crisis of human condition? How is this possible?

Between the vulnerable human condition and the wounded human condition.

Only human beings have the mission to live and cohabit. As humans we intend to build humanity.
Nevertheless, only human beings possess the faculty of not being human and, of rendering themselves
inhuman. Inhumanity presents itself in ways in which the human condition is not permitted to develop.
The wounded human being appears in this manner as someone whom, due to another or even by
himself, is subject of inhumanity. This supposes a type of unconscious absence or suffering and pain
that stops him or her from leading a full life or leading him or her to death.

A human being as an incarnated identity fails to hide himself from another, giving rise to

1
As examples of this crisis: Coexistence of “escape from” and “return to” interiority, nihilistic evasion, absence of God, self-
centeredness, spiritual yearning.
2
The crisis is manifested in the high rate of poverty, marginalization, exclusion, human rights violation, inequality, and corruption.
3
According to Mardones, the loss of the churches’ institutional monopoly, shifting from the institution to the individual, neo-
fundamentalism, Pentecostalism, spiritual search and come back. Mardones, J.M. La transformación de la religión.
4 “A time of disenchantment and re-enchantment, secularization and post-secularization, of disbelief and belief.” Mardones, J.M. La

transformación de la religión
5 Authors such as Mardones and Johnston describe this phenomena as part of societies’ contemporary religious and spiritual reality:

Mardones, J.M. La transformación de la religión; Johnston, W. Enamorarse de Dios.

6 What some contemporary philosophers call forgetting of being is considered an obstinate and stubborn attitude towards the scenario

of existence. As such, forgetting of being involves the non-realization of existence.

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vulnerability, pain, sickness and weariness. Vulnerability allows us to discover that the human being
has not reached his fullness. Therefore, to speak of the human condition is to recognize vulnerability,
the possibility of being wounded and the constant risk of inhumanity.7

Vulnerability as original weakness is a common trait in all human beings; it constitutes our own
humanity. Vulnerability is at the same time fragility and possibility of fulfillment. It is an ethical value8
adjacent to dignity and justice. More than driving us to preoccupation and obsession for safety,
vulnerability must be taken into account as both a risk and the possibility of our existence.

In Etty Hillesum’s surroundings, many human beings, including herself, were witnesses and victims of
the horror. They were wounded. How can it be possible that from a wounded human life a greater force
emerges and stops everything from becoming empty and meaningless? A force that is even able to state
that: “The main thing is that even as we die a terrible death we are able to feel right up to the very last
moment that life has meaning and beauty, that we have realized our potential and lived a good life. I
can't really put it into words this properly; I always use the same words”9. We speak of a profound and
fundamental dimension of the human spirit, where suffering transforms and has meaning through a
perfect therapeutic action: Divine action that pronounces itself in human fragility. This profound and
almost hidden dimension of the human spirit is capable of emerging through consciousness and giving
meaning to the whole human being in spite of and thanks to his or her fragility.

“To take the stage” or show oneself vulnerable.

In general, we as human beings, do not want to show ourselves vulnerable, we make use of all
strategies to avoid this. There is a first distinction to be made: to be vulnerable and to show oneself
vulnerable. There is an inner self-resistance to show oneself vulnerable. When starting to write, Etty
Hillesum foresees and fears: “This is a painful and well-nigh insuperable step for me: yielding up so
much that has been suppressed to a blank sheet of lined paper”10. This was a decisive step for her, to
put herself out on stage and show herself to others in such a manner.

The first part of her diary is sprinkled with dread not only for writing but also for the events taking
place in her inner-self world; “I seem to be a match for most of life's problems, and yet deep down
something like a tightly wound ball of twine binds me relentlessly, and at times I am nothing more or
less than a miserable, frightened creature, despite the clarity with which I can express myself”11.

In the first pages of her diary we read an intermingling of sensations and feelings: shame and fear,
emotional confusion, uneasiness of health, overflowing imagination, self-perception of intellectual
lucidity, concern for humanity and the world. She also senses the difficulty she will have to help
herself. Additionally to the latter, it emerges a progressive consciousness of the limitations in her
thinking in regards to her existential and spiritual questions and worries.

7Cfr. Panikkar, Raimon. Elogio de la Sencillez, 26.

8Stålsett, Sturla J. Vulnerabilidad, dignidad y justicia: Valores éticos fundamentales en un mundo globalizado. Revista Venezolana de
Gerencia (RVG) Año 9. Nº 25, 2004, 145-157. Universidad del Zulia.

9
E.T., 474.
10
E.T., 4.
11
E.T., 4.
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Etty Hillesum’s itinerary reveals itself profoundly existential, connecting feelings, thoughts, desires,
fears, profound longing and intuitions. In addition to her vulnerable side, typical of her personal world
of mixed feelings and trapped thoughts, it is possible to recognize her shared vulnerability with the
Jewish people facing the threat of an imminent destruction. Little by little, she became aware of this
reality: “I shall not burden others with my fears. I shall not be bitter if others fail to grasp what is happening to
us Jews.”12. “I have a sort of primitive love and primitive sympathy for people, for all people”13.

Her progressive conscience of shared vulnerability turned into reward and grace; it slowly revealed the
meaning of humanity. In the most difficult moments she was capable of ascending into higher ground.
The pain of seeing herself, living and feeling wounded was transformed into a fountain of meaning.
I was sometimes filled with an infinite tenderness, and lay awake for hours letting all the many, too
many impressions of a much-too-long day wash over me, and I prayed, "Let me be the thinking heart of
these barracks14.

Experience reveals itself.

"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.

We are spiritual beings having a human experience."
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

In as much that spiritual life is united to the historical events of its time15, Etty Hillesum’ spiritual
experience is also the result of the historical moment in which she lived. An experience that, within
inhuman and unjust conditions, developed a way of understanding and living in God. For Etty
Hillesum, God emerged from the depths of her own existence. An experience based on the recognition
of the face of the other.

Etty Hillesum discovered the impossibility to remain indifferent towards the incarnated identity and
vulnerability of her neighbor. The possibility of being arises from her awareness and response to the
demands seen on the faces of other human beings that appeal to her ability of self-emptying. In this
way, the human condition becomes humane by shortening the distance and overcoming indifference,
exposing vulnerability in the proximity of otherness, which permits an understanding of the passage
from a question and appeal to an unstoppable willingness: “We should be willing to act as a balm for
all wounds.”16.

What makes this possible? To answer this question is to recognize that within Etty, the God of gift, of
grace, that seduces, calls and stirs us up from within, and the God of mercy, that manifests in the face
of another human being, are combined and render a profound transformation of existence. In the
process of her spiritual experience many elements that relate to the nuances of her everyday life are
present. In her spiritual experience her physical pain and the pain she feels for her brothers and sisters,
converge.
But, what is experience from a spiritual and mystical perspective?
There are several meanings and perspectives. Based on Martin Velasco and Leonardo Boff, I can say:

12
E.T., 461.
13
E.T., 123.
14
E.T., 543.
15
Cfr. Gutiérrez, G. Beber en su propio pozo, 45
16
E.T., 550.
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The spiritual experience can be understood first as a way of living and knowing, which favors an
approach to the invisible side of reality and its depth; and second as a personal confirmation that the
world is more than it is.

Etty Hillesum’s spiritual experience does not develop suddenly, it is the result of a process given in a
short period of time. To understand this process let us resort to a Latin-American theologian: Leonardo
Boff. Towards the year 1974, he wrote the book Experiencia de Dios17 where he describes the process
of spiritual experience in three stages: the first stage caracterized by the external use of God’s name,
where the word, reflection and God’s representation predominates. This stage implies a previous
knowledge of God, and an association of God with a concept. Leonardo Boff calls this stage: “the
mountain is the mountain”, a stage of knowledge, of immanence and an identification of God with our
language “God is identified with the concepts we make of Him. He becomes immanent in our speech
and in our reasoning.”18

The second stage is the awareness of the inadequacy of all ideas and images of God, it is a moment
where there appears a crisis and conflict between the idea of God and a certain deep conscience that
emerges. Questions emerge as to whether we can still believe in a God creator, just and, merciful who
stays alongside the innocent that have been wounded. Boff calls this stage “the mountain is not the
mountain”, this is the stage of not knowing, of Transendence, separation between our conception of
God and the reality of God.

The third stage is that of recovery and reconciliation which is made possible by the first and second
stage. This stage requires one to free oneself from the simple “wisdom of language” and to go through
the crucible of pain. Boff calls this stage: the moment of flavoring, of transparency, of identity.

Through Etty Hillesum’s spiritual itinerary, we are aware of these stages even though they are not
present in a strict successive order. Even though, in the first stage, a God associated with a system of
ideas or dogmas is completely strange to Etty, in the beginning of her diary she addresses herself to God
as someone to whom she can speak, to whom she may ask for protection19, help20, as someone who
apparently was part of her problems to be solved, another matter to tend to. 21 In a distant tone but with
a disposition and an intention of searching, she recognizes God as the Creator of the world. This idea
will be present throughout her diary. She identifies the need to submerge into her inner-self22.

From the beginning, Etty has the intuition of her particular needs: “So that something of "God" can
enter you, and something of "Love", too. Not the kind of love-de-luxe that you revel in deliciously for
half an hour, taking pride in how sublime you can feel, but the love you can apply to small, everyday
things”23. Later on she will turn around this idea and recognize that it is necessary to make God come
out from within her inner-self: “There is a really deep well inside me. And in it dwells God. Sometimes

17
Boff, Leonardo. La Experiencia de Dios. Bogotá: Indoamerican Press. 1975.
18
Boff, Leonardo. La Experiencia de Dios, 90.
19
“God help me and give me strength, for the struggle is bound to be difficult”. E.T., 33.
20
In the beginning, in her petition prayer, she asks God for humility, wisdom and the ability to write.
21
When writing about her interests as a writer, she states “while I ostensibly ponder problems of ethics and truth and God
Himself,…”. E.T., 145
22
“I think that I'll do it anyway: I'll "turn inward" for half an hour each morning before work, and listen to my inner voice. Lose
myself”. E.T., 56.
23
E.T., 57.
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I am there, too. But more often stones and grit block the well, and God is buried beneath. Then He must
be dug out again”24. In spite of her initial confusion, Etty senses the itinerary she must follow as well as
the difficulties it supposes: “I still lack a basic tune; a steady undercurrent; the inner source that feeds
me keeps drying up, and worse still, I think much too much. My ideas hang on me like outsize clothes
into which I still have to grow. My mind lags behind my intuition25”.

Etty Hillesum also lives a crisis among her thinking of God, her personal intuitions and the questions
that come up upon contemplating the hardness of reality. She discovers the limitation of thinking26 and
asks for wisdom instead of knowledge27. At this point, she lives in anguish and unrest28. In her itinerary
she starts to address God more often. She discovers herself in the progressive transformation of prayer;
if at first her prayer is centered on her emotional and health problems, or asking for humility, to be less
complicated, or to have less thoughts, slowly she desires to submerge herself in the God of love that
inhabits her and draws from within the strength of transforming love. Etty’s “not-knowing” is hidden in
that deep well of difficult access caused by stones and obstacles. That is why God is not an idea she
had, He is not her thoughts. God cannot be buried by rational structures. God slowly emerges as a
profound experience.

In this way Etty Hillesum perceives in her inner-self and in her surroundings the privileged scenario for
her spiritual experience. A progressive conscience that makes it possible for her to say: “Thank you, oh
Lord. Now my inner world is all peace and quiet. It was a difficult road, though it all seems so simple
and obvious now”29.

The awareness of her encounter with God in her inner-self is also the awareness of the reality she does
not want to ignore. Her constant companion is her desire to be faithful and questioned by reality. In her
experience, we recognize the three stages or forms of interaction with reality as suggested by the Latin
American theologian Ignacio Ellacuría30: first, realizing the weight of reality (noetic stage), in other
words, to see reality as it is; second, shouldering the weight of reality (ethic stage), or to know how to
look at it so that suffering shifts us to compassion, to share our responsabilities and prevent social
handout policies; and third, taking charge of the weight of reality (praxis stage), that supposes the
creation of solidary inns with a vocation to remain. To these three stages, Jon Sobrino31 adds: to let
oneself be carried by reality (saving stage) or to discover grace in the oppressed and wounded people,
in other words, these people carry us and give us new eyes to see, new hands to work with, shoulders to
bear, and hope.

Etty Hillesum’s language makes these stages clear within a deep existential connection of which she
writes about and succeeds to express the fruit of her inner experience. The experience of adversity that
made possible to give meaning and moved Etty Hillesum to love her Jewish brothers profoundly. As

24
E.T., 91.
25
E.T., 72.
26
“Thinking gets you nowhere. It may be a fine and noble aid in academic studies, but you can't think your way out of emotional
difficulties”. E.T., 72.
27
“But Lord, give me wisdom, not knowledge”. E.T., 94.
28
“I am full of unease, a strange, infernal agitation, which might be productive if only I knew what to do with it”. E.T., 67
29
E.T., 225.
30
Ellacuría, I. Hacia una fundamentación filosófica del método teológico latinoamericano. El Salvador, UCA 322-323 (1975), p. 149.
31
Sobrino, Jon. Espiritualidad y seguimiento de Jesús en Ignacio Ellacuría. En: Mysterium Liberationis. Conceptos fundamentales de
la Teología de la Liberación, T. II, Madrid, Trotta, 1994, p. 453.
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Martin Velasco states and not unlike Xubiri, Etty has decided to be a witness to the “non-objectified and
original presence of mystery in the inner depths of reality.”32

Through Etty’s experience we can confirm “God is only real and meaningful to men if He arises from
the depths of man’s own experience.33” This experience takes man to the opening to and nurturing of
love. In turn, the presence of another human being, his face, the suffering Jewish brother, is understood
as a sign of God on earth, thanks to the emotional experience of the God that loves, motivates and
moves. Even though in the beginning of Etty Hillesum’s personal process, fear and uncertainty show
there is no place where she can feel safe, it is because of her inner spiritual process that she discovers
that the faces of the victims that suffer are the safe place she seeks.

For Etty the pain of being wounded turns into a possibility for finding meaning once she accepts reality
as it is. When seeing her parents diminishing, she admits it and instead of paralyzing and succumbing,
she is capable of discovering love's potential in the image of God:
Last night I had to struggle again not to be overwhelmed by pity for my parents, since it would paralyze me
if I gave in to it. I know that we must not lose ourselves so completely in grief and concern for our families
that we have little thought or love left for our neighbors. More and more I tend toward the idea that love
for everyone who may cross your path, love for everyone made in God's image, must rise above love for
blood relatives34.

Thus in the experience lived and narrated by Etty Hillesum, not lacking in absurdity, she trusts an
answer sustained by the experience of Him that wraps us, surpasses us and moves us. Heidegger in one
of his last writings quotes the German poet Rilke35, “… only a God can save us. There is no possible
human solution.”36 Even Gesché, in his latest publication states this matter: “Has it not come the time
to save God in order to save man? Has not the time come for God to live in order for man to live?”37.

Human condition redefined in love

Man will not access his true self but by exposing
himself to the crucial crisis of charity.
Jean Luc Marion

In search for the answers of our initial question: Why Etty Hillesum’s life does not seem useless? Why is
the human condition redefined in the spiritual experience? To find the answer it is fundamental to draw
near the meaning of Etty Hillesum’s relationship with Julius Spier. In the past century, Martin Bubber,
Paul Ricoeur and Hanna Arendt, showed that the answer to the question: who am I, is usually hidden
from the person who asks the question, unless he resorts to the second person singular ‘you’.

Based on Richard of Saint Victor, it is possible to identify in the narrative that Etty Hillesum builds up
based on her own experience, an imminent demand of love towards a third party as a condition and
raison d’être of reciprocal love. The philosopher Jean Luc Marion helps us understand this approach by
stating that: “conscience only becomes awareness of oneself as awareness not only of another (an ego as

32
Martin Velasco, J. Mujeres y Hombres de Dios, 27. Presence is defined by Martin Velasco as existence in reciprocity, existence that
exists relationally through the act of making oneself known, self-manifestation, make oneself present, pg. 28.
33
Boff, Leonardo. La experiencia de Dios, 88.
34
Letter to Han Wegerif and others. Fragment. Westerbork. Undated; after 18 of August, 1943. E.T., 641.
35
Rilke was well known and read by Etty Hillisum, and she quoted him sparingly in her diary.
36
Martin Velasco, J. Class notes, Ávila, October 18, 2010.
37
Gesché, Adolphe. La paradoja de la fe. Salamanca: Sígueme, 2013, 37.
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the first other that I think of), but through another conscience (an ego as another that thinks of me)”, only
then may we understand the process lived by Etty as far as her own awareness is only feasible when
recognized by another self.

Etty Hillesum discovers and recognizes herself as a human being capable of being moved by the pain
of others in virtue of the progressive awareness of knowing herself loved and inhabited. Along with
the experience of human love she discovered God´s love in her.

In her experience, love not only is exchanged but communicates itself as well: it transforms into
communion and confirmation of reciprocal love that expands and opens to the Third party whom is also
loved.

Within the relationship with Julius, Etty Hillesum understood the logic of love, this discovery showed
her the priority of the other person, in whom it was revealed the “You, you have loved first!” In other
words, in the experience of being loved she discovers first love, the love of God. Etty is able to
discover and experiment the joy that brings her to God and because of Him, she lives the experience
and the necessity of becoming neighbor to her neighbor: “After all, what matters is not that I should be
understood but that I should be able to help others in what I think is the right way. Lord, don't make me so eager
to be understood. And I don't really mind making myself ridiculous; that's a risk I willingly run”38.

Conclusion

The wounded human condition is redefined not because vulnerability disappears or because being
wounded is prevented but, because in the reality of being vulnerable and being wounded one can live
the experience of God. He communicates Himself by making Himself vulnerable. Letting go of the ego
can be achieved by one’s recognition of ones’ limitations, with the objective of achieving, as
Schillebeeckx states:

In the faithful experience of the extreme ethical situation, the faithful sees and experiences reality
profoundly with all his absolute limitation not as a necessary blind destiny or ferocious mishap, but as
something that really is endured by a person, that is; endured by the absolute presence of God39.

In this way, the wounded human condition is a consequence of God’s voluntary renouncing to power,
in order to give us freedom, and this is what makes God vulnerable. Nevertheless, it is in this
apparently absurd relationship of the wounded man and the vulnerable God whom may not impose
Himself, from which emerges the way to disarm evil and redefine human condition.

Beyond the borders of a religious denomination, Etty Hillesum’s itinerary lets us discover that spiritual
experience transforms a person, making him sensitive to reality, rendering him conscious of the divine
dynamism in the historical events, it causes growth of human authenticity, a sensation of deep unity
with the world and with others as an expression of the desire of coming out of oneself.

38
E.T., 216.
39
Schillebeeckx, E. Los hombres relato de Dios, 154.
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With Etty it is feasible to discover that the solution to dehumanization comes from spirituality,
concretely from the strength and intensity of the experience of God amid life. The absurdity and death
do not disappear, but acquire new meaning.

Inspired by this woman’s experience, the Foundation Etty Hillesum Colombia was established in
January 2013. We have a twofold aim, first the development of research and diffusion of Etty
Hillesum’s writings, and secondly the psychological and spiritual accompaniment of people and
communities in conditions of adversity.

Professionals in medicine, psychology, theology, philosophy and business constitute the Foundation.
We combine the study of Etty Hillisum’s writings with the implementation of accompaniment
strategies to wounded communities.

The main reason for my presence here is to approach the different research perspectives of Etty
Hillesum’s writings in order to understand and identify its impact and influence in multicultural
societies.