Simone Weil

Sacred Text Reading Group (Saturday)
Date/Time
Date(s) - 06/18/2022
4:00 pm - 5:00 pm

A twice-weekly online sacred text reading group. We meet on Saturdays, 4-5, and on Wednesdays, 12-1. All are wide open and you are welcome!

Using a spiritual-practice approach, in each session we will explore a different brief scriptural text in depth. The aims of the sessions are educational (learning something about the texts and traditions), spiritual/moral (discovering what the texts ask of us), and community-building (getting to know each other better). Our practice usually follows this version of Lectio Divina.

The facilitator will have a version of the text available to share; “bring” your own if you like. All are welcome, as are your suggestions of future texts. Group members also take turns facilitating, if they want to try that role.

Our text for Saturday, June 18, 2022, is from the 20th century mystic Simone Weil (quoted by D. Avery in Beyond Power: Simone Weil and the Notion of Authority, p. 151)

[The soul] can believe it knows, but believing is not knowing. Such believing does not help. The soul knows for certain only that it is hungry. The important thing is to cry out in its hunger. A child does not stop crying if one suggests that perhaps there is no bread. It cries just the same.

The danger is not that the soul should doubt whether or not there is bread, but that it should persuade itself by lying that it is not hungry. It can only persuade itself of this by lying because the reality of its hunger is not a belief but a certainty.

To have check-in time, or if you are new and would like a brief orientation, arrive ten minutes early. And all are welcome to stay ten minutes after as well, for more getting-acquainted time.

How to join:

  • Join this class from your Web browser: https://zoom.us/j/578882781
  • Join this class using the Zoom app: Meeting ID: 578 882 781
  • Join this class by phone: 669 900 9128 US (San Jose), Meeting ID: 578 882 781
  • Join this class by on-tap on mobile phones: +16699009128,,578882781# US (San Jose)
  • Phoning in, but not in the bay area?  Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/abL8clvIYT
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