Spiritual Steps on the Road to Success

Dear readers, I realize that this is an unusual subject for my first blog on my Spiritual Steps website.  I visited Auschwitz in July when I was teaching in Poland. It was such a powerful experience that I wrote this, first as a letter to a friend of mine, and then, as is often the case when we write something, I wondered where to put it and what to do with it. So, I thought I’d start with this blog.

I know it doesn’t seem relevant to Spiritual Steps to success, but in the next few blogs, I’m going to take apart some of these ideas and show how they relate to our careers as well.

The day before my husband and I visited Auschwitz-Birkenau near Krakow, Poland, we challenged each other to find God in Auschwitz. We recognized that we would be going to one the most horrific, dark places on earth, and wondered how one finds God in the midst of this darkness.

When I returned, a mentioned this challenge to a friend of mine, and she wrote back and asked where I found God. I wrote her the following letter:

The answer to “Where is God in Auschwitz” is involved because there are really 3 considerations in thinking about the question – one’s theology, seeing the hand of God, and  experiencing the presence of God.

I’ve been intrigued with this question since I was quite young – how does one keep faith or find God in the midst of the most horrifying circumstances? That question has always fascinated me.  I was very moved by many books as a teen-ager – Treblinka, The Diary of Anne Frank, Man’s Search for Meaning – and always believed that it was possible to get through the worst tragedies without losing that connection with God. You probably know, of course, that I see the world through a religious perspective. We all have a lens through which we figure out meaning and through the years we keep refining that way of seeing. If it works for us, we stay with it, and if not, we adjust. For me, my religious perspective works and it has come about after much searching and thinking.

So, first the Theological Idea. If one’s Theology doesn’t leave room for the Problem of Evil and Suffering, any horrifying event would be even more traumatic because there’d be no way to put meaning around it. It would seem useless and therefore lead to despair and loss of faith. In seminary, I focused on Christian theology, but also studied Judaism and took a class on the Religions of the World. I know that both Judaism and Christianity have a very strong and very encompassing theology of Evil. That doesn’t mean that every Jew or Christian knows it or believes it or can find meaning in it, but it’s there. When I was doing a great deal of religious searching in my early 20’s, I wanted to know that my Faith had theological answers that satisfied me. They did, and as a result, I remained a Christian. There are philosophical systems that either can’t deal with evil because they ignore it or deny it or don’t take it seriously enough and some that I don’t respond to since they don’t jive with my experience. But certain theological frameworks recognize that this kind of evil is possible, and does exist, and that this isn’t God’s fault. One only has to read the Bible (especially the Hebrew Scriptures) to see that the Holocaust isn’t new. Perhaps in degree, because of its immensity and numbers, but not in terms of the hatred, tribalism, divisiveness, egocentricity, and madness that led to this. One only has to read Judges 19 to see slaughter and rape galore… (one of my favorite ‘texts of terror’ if one can have favorites) and to recognize this isn’t new.

I don’t believe that theology, especially as an intellectual process, can always stand up against the horror of evil, but it certainly has been proven, time and time again, that a good theology can  make suffering not only bearable but give it  some kind of meaning.  *(i.e., one only has to look at my sister, Holly, or others who are ill and die with grace, to see how one’s theology can lead to a sustaining attitude toward a very difficult situation.)

I also don’t believe that one begins their theology with Auschwitz. I don’t know if somebody would find God there, but I think that if one had found God in the normal, it’s clearly possible to keep that faith in the abnormal. I think people who don’t believe in God because of Auschwitz are making that the center of their theology, and that’s a rather poor excuse, much like Christians who can’t consider Christianity because they can’t believe in the Virgin Birth. Theology doesn’t start there. I see Auschwitz theology as that shadowy part in the corner that we rarely think about because we don’t have to. But when we do think about it, in my case, my theology has a perspective on it which greatly helps me. I don’t fall into despair over Auschwitz, in spite of the amount of despair that was part of it.  And, of course, many Christians would remember that Jesus felt forsaken on the Cross. And Christian and Jewish theology are filled with images of the “Suffering Servant”, etc.

Martin Luther said something about despair that I liked… something like “one can’t be blamed for falling into despair”… but I would add, “woe to him who takes away our hope!” The sin of the Nazis is not simply the killing and dehumanization here, but the taking away of Hope – hope for a future, hope for salvation, hope for some meaning to come out of this. It is understandable that one might lose faith, but not everyone did at Auschwitz and it’s not a given.

I think the second area then is “where is the Hand of God in the midst of this horror?” There are so many ways to define God that this might depend somewhat on one’s definition. I see God as more personal than some.  But even if somebody sees God as The Good, that which is Loving and Kind, that which brings people together, then wherever the Forces of Good combat the forces of Evil – God is there. Just stepping back from Auschwitz and looking at what was happening during World War II, there were huge Forces of Good that never gave  up, even when they seemed to be defeated. And, ultimately, Good (in one form or another) prevailed. Hitler didn’t get his 1000 year reign. Whether one looks at individual moments of people sharing bread, or the great Resistance all over the world to these Evil Powers, clearly there were both communal and individual forces. I believe that one has to serve The Good – to nurture it, follow it, listen to it, value it, and become increasingly more sensitized to it. I draw great inspiration from the Confessing Church in Germany (one of my favorite theologians, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was part of this church which stood against Hitler. He was imprisoned and executed shortly before the liberation of the prison.) I’m inspired, as a Christian, of the many stories of Christians (and others) who hid Jews and helped them.  Many books about this – such as The Hiding Place, Pierre Sauvage’s documentary film about the entire village in France which helped Jews – I think it was titled The Triumph of the Spirit.)  So whatever was serving the Good can be seen as the Hand of God.

Thirdly, I think there’s the question of how one experiences the Presence of God in the midst of horrors. When one is weak, and exhausted, and sick, and victimized, and persecuted… well, the dark side can cloud over that sense of God. And, again, that depends on how one defines God. As the Still Small Voice? As the sense of conscience? As the push and shove and nudge toward something that is Good? Or as the personal Guide?  And it would depend if someone was somewhat mystical, and therefore used to tuning in go God, or had a more communal, more intellectual faith. If God is found in community, it can be more difficult to find God when the community has been divided. If God is found in rituals, it might be more difficult to find God when rituals can no longer be practiced. If God is found mainly in the Bible, it can be more difficult when you’re not allowed a Bible and forget the Bible verses. I would think it would be more difficult to find God and continue to sense God’s presence if one didn’t have an active prayer life, and hadn’t felt, at least at times, that mysterious Presence that loves us.

I did see evidence of this Presence of God. First, I saw it in the whole area of conscience. I knew, of course, that Hitler had committed suicide and often wondered why.  Suicide usually comes from shame or despair. I don’t know if any of this was applicable to Hitler, since he probably killed himself because he didn’t want others to have control over him. But, I was surprised by the evidence that shows how clearly the Nazis knew they were wrong, and that showed evidence of shame and despair and conscience. The Nazis blew up the crematoriums at Birkenau to cover up what they had done. Then, I read that many of the Nazis who had executed Jews committed suicide, and clearly had bouts of conscience. If they were doing something they were so proud of, why all this cover-up? So, in the conscience of these people God  still got through to them – in that absence of God that had pervaded their lives, there still was that spark of shame, perhaps also of despair. I saw that as a good thing.

There are two stories I know about and that intrigued me about people that clearly were able to keep a sense of God’s presence alive in spite of everything. Both are Christians.  One is The Hiding Place, a book about Corrie Ten-Boom, who hid Jews, got sent to a camp, led Bible studies in the camp, (not sure if she had a Bible but knew she knew the Bible). She and her sister were in the camps, and her sister died, but Corrie went on to a very good life. A movie was made about her some years ago.

The other was about Father Maximiliam Kolbe who sacrified his life at Auschwitz. We saw the cell where he had been.  A group of about 10 (probably Jews) were going to be starved to death in a cell, and Father Kolbe substituted himself for one of the people. After 2 weeks, everyone had died but him. The Nazis couldn’t believe he was still alive, but word got out that he was still alive which was a huge inspiration to others. He was then killed by lethal injection – again, to make sure his survival wasn’t an inspiration to others.  I would presume that the cell was not without prayer, and kindness, and care. I also know that mystics, yogis, etc. are able often to subsist on very little food, because of their prayer life.  At any rate, clearly these two people did not lose the sense of God’s presence in the midst of this horror.

Peter (my husband) said that God is also in the Witness that we have and give, so that this is not repeated. Of course, it keeps being repeated, but sometimes with more consciousness from more of the world.

It is also possible to look at so much of what happened as a result of many many people not listening to that Still Small Voice that warned them, and called them to respond all along. I hope it tunes us all in to be more aware of catastrophes about to happen.
Of course, I’ve done a lot of theological reading about this, and remain fascinated by so many Biblical stories and ideas that relate to the problem of Evil. I find a rich theology inspirational in itself, but I know, for me, it isn’t just the theology that gets me through tough times.

I’d love to have some time to research a few other questions relating to Auschwitz, I.e., to learn more about Father Kolbe, to find out more about the escapes from Auschwitz (have no idea how that could happen – about 100 people did escape), to learn more about the Resistance Forces and to what extent religion motivated some of these forces, etc. And God is certainly present in the volumes of material that has come out about this horror, and the many reflections about its meanings.