Edith Stein

As I shared tonight, I’ve been noticing quite a lot of parallels between Simone and Edith Stein (aka St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross): Born into Jewish families, experiencing a period of agnosticism/atheism, then landing on the Catholic end of the spiritual spectrum. All while being two of the greatest philosophers of 20th century Europe, and dying within a year of each other.

This Wikipedia article on Edith is impressively comprehensive:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Stein

There is just so much to digest... such as that she refused the offer of an escape plan from Westerbork concentration camp (which obviously led to her death at Auschwitz) on the basis that "If somebody intervened at this point and took away her chance to share in the fate of her brothers and sisters, that would be utter annihilation." Is it just me or does this sound like Simone to a T??

Also fascinating to me is this letter she sent the Pope in 1933 chastising the Church for not doing more/enough to stop Nazi persecution. Though it seems it’s unclear whether he received/read it, it’s so powerful:

“As a child of the Jewish people who, by the grace of God, for the past eleven years has also been a child of the Catholic Church, I dare to speak to the Father of Christianity about that which oppresses millions of Germans. For weeks we have seen deeds perpetrated in Germany which mock any sense of justice and humanity, not to mention love of neighbor. For years the leaders of National Socialism have been preaching hatred of the Jews.... But the responsibility must fall, after all, on those who brought them to this point and it also falls on those who keep silent in the face of such happenings.

Everything that happened and continues to happen on a daily basis originates with a government that calls itself 'Christian'. For weeks not only Jews but also thousands of faithful Catholics in Germany, and, I believe, all over the world, have been waiting and hoping for the Church of Christ to raise its voice to put a stop to this abuse of Christ's name. Is not this idolization of race and governmental power which is being pounded into the public consciousness by the radio open heresy? Isn't the effort to destroy Jewish blood an abuse of the holiest humanity of our Savior, of the most blessed Virgin and the apostles? Is not all this diametrically opposed to the conduct of our Lord and Savior, who, even on the cross, still prayed for his persecutors? And isn't this a black mark on the record of this Holy Year which was intended to be a year of peace and reconciliation? We all, who are faithful children of the Church and who see the conditions in Germany with open eyes, fear the worst for the prestige of the Church, if the silence continues any longer.”

And my 2 favorite Edith Stein quotes for good measure...

“The world doesn’t need more of what women have. It needs more of what women are.”

“Accept nothing as truth if is lacks love. Accept nothing as love if it lacks truth.”

Basically, check her out. She’s great. And would, I think, have been dear friends with Simone had they known each other. 

The year in sound

The year begins with a silence so full it is its own sound

That is broken only by the eerie howling of coyotes – carried through the thin winter air and piercing even the tightly closed doors and windows of the house, simultaneously frightening and enthralling me.

And quiet reigns until the spring peepers suddenly and incessantly chirp to announce their hatching in early March, signaling that the deepest of winter has passed.

Then the songbirds begin their morning chorus.  When I scan the tree branches to identify the most melodic of their sounds, I find a cardinal.

In May, the bullfrogs grace the evening with their smooth and low solos, backed up by hundreds of amphibian cousins, to lull me to sleep.

The crickets take over the soundtrack on warm evenings and carry it almost to morning.  Only to be overcome by the cicadas in late summer, with their hypnotic but deafening chant.

Crisp autumn mornings are graced by the gobbles of turkeys, their pitch descending the scale as they call to each other.  Then the chilling howls of the coyotes return with the frost.

Until it is time for silence to close out another year.

Chân Không’s Secret, post by Mark

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed. But I try to work one day at a time. If we just worry about the big picture, we are powerless. So my secret is to start right away doing whatever little work I can do. I try to give joy to one person in the morning, and remove the suffering of one person in the afternoon. That’s enough.

When you see you can do that, you continue, and you give two little joys, and you remove two little sufferings, then three, and then four. If you and your friends do not despise the small work, a million people will remove a lot of suffering. That is the secret. Start right now.

--Sister Chân Không (“True Emptiness”) has worked alongside Thich Nhat Hanh for almost sixty years.

El Salvador: What Are You Going Through?, post by Mark

The love of our neighbor in all its fullness simply means being able to say to him: “What are you going through?”  It is a recognition that the sufferer exists, not only as a unit in a collection, or a specimen from the social category labeled “unfortunate,” but as a man, exactly like us, who was one day stamped with a special mark by affliction. For this reason it is enough, but it is indispensable, to know how to look at him in  certain way.--Simone


Simone reminds me of the following passage on the mothers of the disappeared from Daniel Berrigan’s Steadfastness of The Saints: A Journal of Peace and War in Central and North America. Therein, he writes about his visits with Salvadoran women during the U.S.-backed bloodbath of the mid-1980s:  “And after each interview, the mother would invariably walk to the far end of the table, to a heap of photo albums laid there. Would take one of them in hand, gravely turn page after page, these images out of the national abattoir, the tortured, raped, amputated. The photos that stood horrid surrogate for the young men, absent from streets and homes and churches and factories. The disappeared generation. I could scarcely bear to look at the faces that dared look at such images, and not be turned to stone. How much can one bear? I did not know. But I sensed that the measure of what could be borne would be revealed neither by psychiatrist nor politician not bishop. I must go in humility to these unknown, despised lives, upon whom there rested the preferential option of God.”

I Wonder what Simone Would Say, post by Mark

Clodovis Boff is a Brazilian theologian who embraced the preferential option for the poor. He divided his time half the year to the university and seminary work, and the other half with the workers struggling for life.  In an interview with Mev in 1990, he shared how he recovered after experiencing a breakdown. 

"I also do  yoga and Tai Chi.  I learned to drink tea in Japanese style, calmly, with serenity, without speaking about serious things.  This is all so essential to recuperate our humanity -- to liberate what is most fine, most noble, most profound, most human within us.  Life isn’t only struggle.  It’s struggle and play!  Work and dance -- like the Greeks and Spartans who prepared for war with ceremonies of music and dance!  Five years ago we thought these things were bourgeois.  Today we’ve rediscovered that they are good!"

She Inspired Dread, post by Mark

"I used to dread her visits," says Fr. Jacques Loew, then the editorial secretary of the review, Économie et humanisme, for which Simone had written an article in 1941 on her experiences as a factory worker. "I dreaded her because I sensed in her a compassion for the unhappy pushed almost beyond the limit of the bearable. I experienced the dogma of the communion of saints. Those visits were a moment of truth for me. In comparison with her, I felt myself miserable. My presence with the stevedores did not have Simone's human and spiritual quality. At the root of the gratitude I feel towards her is the vision of the disparity between what she lived and what I was."

--Gabriella Fiori, Simone Weil: An Intellectual Biography

People and Projects (On "Even the Rain), post by Mark

1.
Costa’s a film producer
A Spanish gantser macher
He can feel good about himself
By helping the idealistic director Sebastian
To realize his dream of making a revisionist movie
About those dissident, trouble-making priests
Las Casas and Montesinos
Who challenge Columbus’ mission in the “New World”
“This film’s gonna be great”
“Fucking epic, man”

Costa’s preoccupation
Is how to save money at every turn
When the director’s assistant Maria
Sees that the Cochabamba people
Are rising up against the privatization of their water
She asks Costa if she can make a documentary about that
He refuses
Says “I’m not a fucking NGO”
“It has nothing to do with me”
And Maria retorts
“But you’re right in the middle of it”

2.
Is this the way it would be?

At midnight your friend calls in from outside
“A traveler has come to me
And I have no food
Please, help”

3.
Midway through this film
About the making of a film
Director Sebastian is explaining to the Bolivian locals
The crucial scene of the indigenous mothers drowning their children
Rather than let them be subjected to the Spanish marauders
We see the girl Belén with her arm wrapped up with Costa’s
As her father Daniel tells Sebastian
That the local women actors
(Who are themselves indigenous)
Refuse to do the scene:
“They can’t even conceive of such a thing”
Sebastian tries to get Daniel to convince them otherwise
Because the scene is imperative
As well as historically accurate
And Daniel says to Sebastian
“Some things are more important than your film”

4.
At midnight you call out from inside
“We are all in bed
Do not disturb us
Please, leave”

Is that the way it would be?

5.
As all hell is breaking loose in Cochabamba
With the people occupying the streets
The Spanish film crew has to get to a safe place
To finish their film
Belén’s mother Theresa appears
Just as the Spaniards are getting in their vans to flee to safety
Theresa tells Costa that Belén
Has been seriously injured at a demonstration
And could he please help
He emphatically tells her he’s responsible for the film crew
“And we’re leaving right now”
She pleads with him
Costa then goes and consults with Sebastian
Who tells him
That it’s dangerous to stay
And that the film is fucked if Costa doesn’t come with them

Costa goes back resolved to say no to Theresa
That he’ll send someone else
He raises his voice as she is persistent
He’s tightening up
And walks away from Theresa who then says softly
“But you are our friend…”
At which point he freezes...
Then turns to tell Theresa to wait
He goes to tell Sebastian
He’s going to find Belén
And Sebastian gets hysterical
Starts arguing with him saying
“This incident will soon be forgotten
But our film will live forever!”
Costa says he couldn’t forgive himself
If something happens to that girl
And he and Theresa take off in search of the wounded Belén
And off the film crew goes to finish their epic

6.
A film to tell the true story of Columbus’ coming to this hemisphere
A film to upset the establishment
A film about the heroes for human rights five hundred years ago
What a great project!
And don’t we all have our own precious projects
Our path to success
And, why not say it, more money, more status, and more prestige
But also, it’s for the good of others, too, right?
Nothing should interfere with our agenda
Our advancement
Our making an impact

Is that the way it would be?

También la lluvia (Even the Rain), directed by Icíar Bollaín
Italicized portions are from John  Dominic Crossan’s The Essential Jesus