I have just learned of a Jewish woman named Etty Hillesum.* She was held for a time at the Nazi transitional concentration camp Westerbork, then ultimately died at Auschwitz. While she was at Westerbork she kept a diary, and the excerpts I have read convey a woman of extraordinary spiritual maturity.

She found safety in the arms of Divine Love even as she was fully aware and embraced the reality of her situation, a reality surely among the most precarious and horrific humans have ever experienced. I believe she understood what I have been groping towards for years, namely that life and death really are one. The photo above was made and so titled in 2013. These last several #AdventWord posts are my first attempts to put the thought into words.

*I was introduced to Etty by Richard Rohr, OFM, in his book “The Universal Christ.” I have ordered the book “An Interrupted Life” that came out of her diaries long after her death. BTW, “Etty” is a nickname for Esther, which is poetic since Esther is one of my heroes of Hebrew Scripture.