


Mary E.
•
Jun 29
Dunya Mikail’s poem today seems to echo the words of Etty Hillesum which I read this morning in Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox.
It reads as follows … With so much horror in the world, it is easy to sink into despair. But then we find inspiration in the form of Etty Hillesum, the Dutch Jewish author killed in Auschwitz in 1943. What is amazing about her is that she was able to “stay human” in the midst of the most unspeakable suffering. She was already interned at a transit camp when she wrote the following: The sky is full of birds, the purple lupins stand up so regally and peacefully, two little old women have sat down for a chat, the sun is shining on my face – and right before our eyes, mass murder… The whole thing is simply beyond comprehension.And: Living and dying, sorrow and joy, the blisters on my feet and the jasmine behind the house, the persecution, the unspeakable horrors: it is all as one in me. Etty was somehow able to hold both extremes in her awareness.
I wonder if this is our invitation in this world we find ourselves in today? Can we “stay human” by caring and listening, crying and laughing, comforting and suffering, seeing the beauty and the pain? How do we live with our heart and soul portals open to it all?

Dwight Lee Wolter
•
Jun 29
I do not believe her when she says, “I am sorry
my poem will not save you.” It seems to me that she knows that the poem indeed has the power to save us from indifference, inertia, and the paralysis of analysis.
I reread the poem and changed the line to “I am sorry my poem WILL save you” and it became a clarion call to action.