Gravity and Grace

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A esto debía de referirse Kafka con aquello de "Un libro debe ser el hacha que quiebre el mar helado dentro de nosotros.

the fact that I can't finish that sentence tells you something about the elusiveness, the spiritual rigor, of Weil's thought. TLDR: You're safe — there are no nefarious "third parties" lurking on my watch or shedding crumbs of the "cookies" the rest of the internet uses.As I read Weil's essays in Waiting For God, I am getting more accessible and well-expounded ideas, but I still wonder—is this who we should all be reading? How many people have been thus led, through lack of self-confidence, to stifle their most justified doubts?

Gravity, intellectually understood from physics, holds the universe together, but God’s grace allows “the good” to grow. They were amusing for the most part, but some of them nearly resulted in tragedy at a time when it was not advisable to publish every truth from the housetops.The danger, Weil cautions us, lies in forgetting that the purpose of window-washing is not to make the window more visible, but to make the landscape beyond the window more visible. Moreover she would put the same enthusiasm and love into teaching the rudiments of arithmetic to this or that backward urchin from the village. There is no question here of assessing the historical sources of her thought and the influences which may have affected her. What could be more stupid than to tighten up our muscles and set our jaws about virtue, or poetry, or the solution of a problem.

Humility is the root of love," she said as she questioned traditional theologians and held that the apostles had badly interpreted Christ's teaching. Referencing Plato’s Republic (VI 518b-d), Weil stresses that “philosophy is to turn one toward the truth with all one’s soul” (42).In general, we must not wish for the disappearance of any of our troubles, but grace to transform them…. In it, Gustave Thibon, the priest to whom she had entrusted her notebooks before her untimely death, compiled in one volume a compendium of her writings. Hon menar att det är ingen skillnad på att vara medveten om eller att själv uppleva olycka, tack vare uppmärksamhet. G. Thibon raso apie Weil: “Prisimenu viena jauna darbininke, kurioje ji atrado – taip jai atrode – polinki i intelektualuma ir kuria be perstojo vaisino nuostabiais pasakojimais apie upanisadas. As such, Simone Weil echoes Charlotte Mason when she says training in the habit of attention ought to be our first duty in training school children and students.

Nonetheless, I left the book looking for places where Weil would give a more clear account of her provocative and inspiring ideas. She was just then beginning to open with all her soul to Christianity, a limpid mysticism emanated from her; in no other human being have I come across such familiarity with religious mysteries; never have I felt the word supernatural to be more charged with reality than when in contact with her. These thinkers are interested in knowledge not for its own sake, but because they are “orientated towards salvation” (42). It is like one of those traps whereby the characters are tested in fairy stories and tales on initiation.The only word of caution I would give is that Thibon was a catholic, and as such he is rather muddled in his thinking and frequently conflates catholicism with christianity. But Weil’s unique approach is unfolded in her philosophical reflections, where she considers that philosophy is not about the acquisition of different forms of knowledge. You are instantly drawn to it, there is a compassion and honesty within it that is a truly long-scale, intense force to be reckoned with.