Dear Friends,
Some wonder about the meaning of my phrase “Inspiring Futures for All” and who are my seminal influences and to confess many simply are bewildered as to my seeming strange “alchemy” of a deep Christian faith, spiritual mysticism and yet a generous welcome to all manner of secular, materialist or atheistic Lefts especially Marxism (the great variety that is of this profound Western Civilization anchored and evolving tradition of creative, philosophic, engaged and imaginative critical discourse).
Let me simply say that one extraordinary public intellectual whom I embrace as affirming, enriching and germinal of my own unifying trinitarian world philosophy is Simone Weil. A Catholic mystic, she identified with Marxism early in her life but in the course of her experiences and insights during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s became disillusioned with it and engaged passionately in knowing, learning and interpreting in her own distinctive religiosity and political philosophy what is now called anarcho-syndicalism (eg the same worldview of another public intellectual of far greater influence and stature, Noam Chomsky, another cherished and singular influence of mine).
But most of all she is first and foremost a radically amazing, enchanted and liberating witness and passionate disciple, apostle and missionary of deep faith in Christianity as a life of adventure, “ad veneratum” ie Latin for inspiring futures, and our call regardless of any particular faith, history or ideology, is to see the face of God first in our selves, one another and in fact in every moment and encounter!!
And in fact so much more than this epistemic “seeing” is to embrace prodigiously our “being” the whole dynamic humanity and intimate embodying of God in our selves as in mutual equal relationship with the embodying of God in others and each and every one another the same of this interwoven flourishing. Thus, this is deep knowing of ontology, being, wondrous relationship and the kind that our God gives and receives of a certain sensual, joyous, ecstatic mutual surrender when two are in the complete surrender and freedom of God’s pleasure.
She had extraordinary energy and her whole soul, heart, mind and body was on fire in her relationship with God, and all people as made beautiful, fearsome and wondrous by God within each and every one of us, and more significant, powerful and alive in our relationships—social, embodied, cultural, political, romantic, ecstatic—and in our actions and adventures, our giving of ourselves to seek inspiring futures for all by exemplifying them in the present.
This is quite an astonishing figure to have the joy of knowing and centering any life upon, and thus she is one of the most luminous of stars in my pantheon of heros. Here is an Internet summary but please know this barely does her justice. The oil painting of her was done by Philippe Jamin.
Simone Weil, (born February 3, 1909, Paris, France—died August 24, 1943, Ashford, Kent, England), French mystic, social philosopher, and activist in the French Resistance during World War II, whose posthumously published works had particular influence on French and English social thought.
Intellectually precocious, Weil also expressed social awareness at an early age. At five she refused sugar because the French soldiers at the front during World War I had none, and at six she was quoting the French dramatic poet Jean Racine (1639–99). In addition to studies in philosophy, classical philology, and science, Weil continued to embark on new learning projects as the need arose. She taught philosophy in several girls’ schools from 1931 to 1938 and often became embroiled in conflicts with school boards as a result of her social activism, which entailed picketing, refusing to eat more than those on relief, and writing for leftist journals.
To learn the psychological effects of heavy industrial labour, she took a job in 1934–35 in an auto factory, where she observed the spiritually deadening effect of machines on her fellow workers. In 1936 she joined an anarchist unit near Zaragoza, Spain, training for action in the Spanish Civil War, but after an accident in which she was badly scalded by boiling oil, she went to Portugal to recuperate. Soon thereafter Weil had the first of several mystical experiences, and she subsequently came to view her social concerns as “ersatz Divinity.” After the German occupation of Paris during World War II, Weil moved to the south of France, where she worked as a farm servant. She escaped with her parents to the United States in 1942 but then went to London to work with the French Resistance. To identify herself with her French compatriots under German occupation, Weil refused to eat more than the official ration in occupied France. Malnutrition and overwork led to a physical collapse, and during her hospitalization she was found to have tuberculosis. She died after a few months spent in a sanatorium.
Weil’s writings, which were collected and published after her death, fill about 20 volumes. Her most important works are La Pesanteur et la grâce (1947; Gravity and Grace), a collection of religious essays and aphorisms; L’Enracinement (1949; The Need for Roots), an essay upon the obligations of the individual and the state; Attente de Dieu (1950; Waiting for God), a spiritual autobiography; Oppression et Liberté (1955; Oppression and Liberty), a collection of political and philosophical essays on war, factory work, language, and other topics; and three volumes of Cahiers (1951–56; Notebooks). Though born of Jewish parents, Weil eventually adopted a mystical theology that came very close to Roman Catholicism. A moral idealist committed to a vision of social justice, Weil in her writings explored her own religious life while also analyzing the individual’s relation with the state and God, the spiritual shortcomings of modern industrial society, and the horrors of totalitarianism.
