Susan Pitchford

Another quotation from Plekon, speaking again of Simone Weil:

“It would never have been too proud or presumptuous for her to think about becoming a saint. Not to do so, in Léon Bloy’s words, is the only real tragedy in a person’s life.”

Apparently Weil not only felt a new kind of saint was needed (see the previous post), she aspired to be that kind of saint. That Plekon holds her up as a model suggests he thinks she succeeded. She was a difficult, passionate, occupationally marginal mystic who couldn’t bring herself to be baptized because she so identified with a world separated from Christ (though she may have consented shortly before her death). She did practice heroic asceticism, in that she refused to accept more than the rations available to all in wartime; given her advanced tuberculosis, this probably gave her a substantial shove toward her death at age 34. But she was close to God and cared about others, and perhaps that’s a good working definition for the word “saint,” one that would serve equally well in all times and places.

But (more…)

South African theologian Albert Nolan has said that the gospel has to be connected specifically to every time and place; every generation in every land has to figure out for itself exactly how and why the words and deeds of Jesus constitute “good news.” Similarly, Simone Weil said that the world needs a new kind of holiness, a new kind of saint, one who speaks to contemporary events, who is an icon of God’s presence in the world as it is, today. (more…)

“Jacques Ellul is absolutely right when he asserts, ‘Israel and the church have never been efficacious except to the degree that the world has been unable to assimilate them.’

“Tragically, the contemporary American church (unlike its first-century counterpart) is unable to challenge the values of American culture because it has indeed been largely assimilated by that culture. The pursuit of prosperity, prestige, and power is often as evident inside the church as outside…[But] the values of Jesus are clearly countercultural in any society.” Tom Sine, “Taking Discipleship Seriously: A Radical Biblical Approach”

Sociologist Robert Park (1864-1944) was one of the earliest and most influential theorists of assimilation. Park was fascinated by what happens when peoples come together, and as he lived and worked in Chicago, he had a natural laboratory on his doorstep. (more…)

“Parents live in hope for the day when a child will realize what love he has received…Is it far-fetched to imagine God experiencing the same thing?” Brennan Manning, “The Signature of Jesus”

“God is love.” The Bible says so (in I John 4:8), and we quote it, hardly knowing what we’re saying. “Nothing can separate us from the love of God” (Romans 8:38-39). Love, love, love; blah, blah, blah. The Bible is full of love, and we’re so used to it that we never really sit down to consider what it would mean to be loved by an infinite God.

We bear the image of the God who is love. Love is what we are made for. Love is what we’re made from. We are designed to come, not only from divine love, but from human love. You’d think it would be impossible to miss the point God is trying to make here. I mean, God could have made us come from the cabbage patch, after all. I think the design God went with was meant to tell us something, yet somehow we spend our whole lives not getting it. And when we fail to enter into the love we were made for, both human and divine, we’re betraying our very nature, becoming alien to ourselves, alien to God.

What would it mean to be true to ourselves, to become who we truly are? How would it change things if we dared to believe what we’ve been told? How would our lives be different? I’m not sure, but I know this much: God is infinite, and I am finite. What I understand from that is that God loves me more than I even want to be loved. And he’s waiting for the day when I’ll have the guts to believe it.

“In our affluence and boredom, in our suffering and deceptions, we must always remember who we are: flames of Christ. But this memory is hard to revive. Our beauty has been betrayed before we ever knew we possessed it, and it is a weary journey to recover from this mischance. Consciousness is like an endlessly deep ravine, almost all of it obscured from us. We are often tempted to believe that the roles we play in society and family, or our reason, will, and emotion, are all of us. But these are usually only the last traces of ourselves before we dive into the deep; they are as often as not deceiving masks rather than true portraits. It is the wisdom of Buddhism to know that our normal condition is one of illusion. It is the wisdom of Christianity to know that we are so wounded we do not know who we are. So it is as deluded and wounded lovers of Christ that we follow our heart’s desire.” Wendy Farley, “The Wounding and Healing of Desire”

How do we get un-deluded, and learn who we really are? We do that “as lovers of Christ.” St Paul puts this so beautifully in 2 Cor 3:13: “And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.” Again, it’s the gift of contemplation: when we look at Christ with unveiled face (a sign of intimacy: Christ the bridegroom has lifted the veil), we see in his gaze a mirror that shows us our true, transfigured self. I’ve been meditating on this for years now, and I think I’m finally starting to get it. Now, can I start to live it? Can I believe in this beautiful image the next time I look at myself and am tempted to despair?

“Nihilism is to be understood here not as a philosophic doctrine that there are no rational grounds for legitimate standards or authority; it is, far more, the lived experience of coping with a life of horrifying meaninglessness, hopelessness, and (most important) lovelessness.” Cornel West, “Race Matters”

In his book “Race Matters,” Cornel West argues that while the Black community has always faced the threat of nihilism (slavery and its aftermath gave people every reason to succumb to the belief that it was hopeless and pointless to go on), the threat is especially acute in our day. (more…)