What does a father do
when his children are orphans and he
is still alive? What will a father do
when his children have died and he becomes
a bereaved father for all eternity?

Yehuda Amichai

I made the bed and he lied in it

We must  learn to be alone together

He said I was too good in bed

After sleeping with one man   five thousand times you are a good woman but if you sleep with five thousand men once  they say you must be a tart.The main thing is to avoid five thousand abortions

We are afraid of both loneliness and  intimacy.

Smartphones are mobile but mobile phones are not always smart

 

The lamp’s round base  gives comfort to my soul
I see the potter and her  potter’s wheel
Bowls and jugs emerge as new born wholes
Made from earth and clay like human beings

I meditated on the centre of my watch
I watched the ummoved centre as time passed
Then the door into my dreams unlatched
By my other self I was then clasped

I spent three years in mending this great lamp
When others told me, why not  throw it out?
This base and shade by my tears  often damped
Are   needed to  eliminate  my doubts

Do  what your heart tells you  and refine
These feelings  in the mirrors of your mind

 

https://godblog.org/simone-weil-and-affliction/

EXTRACT

The great mystery of life is not suffering but affliction.”—Simone Weil

Simone Weil (1909-1943), born Jewish, stood on the edge of converting to Christianity for most of her adult life.  Perhaps she was baptized, perhaps not, the evidence is unclear.  She is best known as a Christian mystic, though that ignores her very down to earth work, such as her involvement in the trade union movement, and with the international volunteers in Spain.  Weil starved herself to death in sympathy with the occupied French.  If you think that makes sense, you may stand closer to Weil than you think, closer than you should.

If biography were philosophy, we could dismiss Weil as emotionally disturbed.  Disturbed or not, she wrote brilliant essays on a variety of topics.  As she grew older, most were about God.  It is her essay on “The Love of God and Affliction” that I am concerned with.  It’s a brilliant essay, and it’s quite wrong.