A Point of Eternity in the Soul

I know a Christian hermit whose lifetime has been devoted to the study of the writings of Simone Weil. Weil was an extraordinary person, a French Jew who became a Catholic mystic. Her life was a testament to this union of the opposites of activism and quietism. She was a mystic through and through, and yet most of her life was spent in extreme political activism. She was a witness of peace in the Spanish Civil War, a Marxist who wrote for a workers’ newspaper and was active in the workers’ parties. She worked in an automobile plant and as a grape picker so that she could be in solidarity with ordinary working people. Living in England during World War II, sick from overwork, she died of starvation because she refused to eat anymore than the French Resistance fighters, who were living underground at the time.Weil thought of her activism in mystical terms. She spoke not of justice or power but of attention, which she defined as a “point of eternity in the soul.” If we can pay attention closely enough, she thought, we will come to know the transcendent, for it lies at the center of the human heart and mind.

Norman Fischer
from When You Greet Me I Bow; Notes and Reflections from a Life in Zen