Let's face it, that is,... the reality that so many in the world today live within the midst of tremendous suffering, both material and spiritual. Can we help those who suffer, and ourselves? How? Simone Weil has left us with some wise counsel, advice that Mr. B shares in this, the second diary entry of his new podcast season. Please, take the time to listen... In these times what, honestly, can be more important than learning how to bring healing to each other, ourselves, and to the world?
Here's Simone Weil...
"... Those who are unhappy have no need for anything in this world but people capable of giving them their attention. The capacity to give one's attention to a sufferer is a very rare and difficult thing; it is almost a miracle; it is a miracle. Nearly all those who think they have this capacity do not possess it. Warmth of heart, impulsiveness, pity are not enough.
In the first legend of the Grail, it is said that the Grail (a miraculous vessel* that satisfies all hunger by virtue of the consecrated Host) belongs to the first comer who asks the guardian of the vessel, a king three-quarters paralyzed by the most painful wound, 'What are you going through?'
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 a certain way.
This way of looking is first of all attentive. The soul empties itself of all its own contents in order to receive into itself the being it is looking at, just as he is, in all his truth.
Only he who is capable of attention can do this."
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* According to some legends the Grail was made of a single stone, in color like an emerald.
Simone Weil