Humanity is divided into two categories—the people who count for something and the people who count for nothing.
To believe in God is not a decision that we can make. All we can do is to decide not to give our love to false gods.
Today it is not nearly enough to be a saint, but we must have the saintliness demanded by the present moment, a new saintliness, itself also without precedent.
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French philosopher Simone Weil has been described variously as a “utopian pessimist,” a “mystic of passion and compassion,” a “cross between Pascal and Orwell,” a “Catholic Jewess,” and, by French writer Albert Camus, “the only great spirit of our time.”
In this spring class, we will learn about Weil’s life and work, and let these interrogate our own. We will explore selections from Weil’s classics books, Waiting for God and Gravity and Grace, which will serve as promptings for examining our own spiritual path through journaling and correspondence.
Essentials:
Simone Weil, Love in the Void: Where God Finds Us
Notebook and pen
Curiosity, attention, openness
When: Eight Wednesdays, April 3—May 22, from 7:00-8:30 p.m.
Where: At my home 4514 Chouteau Avenue 63110
Tuition: $190.
Online class will be available for those outside of St. Louis. Tuition $125.
(Classes like this allow me to supplement my work as a university adjunct professor of humanities.)
Email me if you would like to join us: markjchmiel@gmail.com
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I have a sort of growing inner certainty that there is within me a deposit of pure gold which must be handed on. Only I become more and more convinced, by experience and by observing my contemporaries, that there is no one to receive it … This does not distress me at all. The mine of gold is inexhaustible. —Simone Weil
