The Night School for Deeper Learning with Simone Weil (1909 - 1943)

In Simone Adolphine Weil (1909-1943), we encounter a person who had an abiding skepticism of (worldly) authority - of that supposed “leadership.” Or perhaps better, Simone Weil challenges worldly authority precisely because, and when, it has ignored God’s sovereignty. True leadership meant for her to have learned to lead as God does (this has nothing to do with establishing a Theocracy, but everything to do with learning how to be a human being in the way God means that - “who did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at”). Her leadership, if you will, is to dedicate her life - as a mystic comes to see so clearly (and she was certainly at that level of spirituality) - to compelling our attention to God’s leadership. Ideas most famously associated with her are: “de-creation”, “up-rootedness”, “attention” and “affliction”.