The return of an old thought of mine, reading Etty Hillesum tonight on the metro: the only thing you can really do with evil and suffering is to absorb them and turn them into kindness. Not to fight it or to wave it away, but to actively transform all forms of evil you encounter into warm and all-embracing love. And I think that maturity of a human being means the ability to do so without being destroyed by the evil absorbed, a kind and degree of inner stability, freedom and sturdiness that makes the worlds spin around your love. (This, I understand, is the meaning of the turning of the cheek business). But if that is to be, then I have to learn to contain, that is, to forgive and accept and be kind with my own pain and aggression and evil first of all, so that they are not spilled and projected all around. And I actually have no idea of the way to do it; for the wells of grief are deep, inexhaustible and mysterious, and I have not found a way yet to touch the bottom and return back unharmed.
