Love in the Void: Where God Finds Us

Twentieth-century French writer Weil (1909–43) is sometimes called a philosopher; although her words often take an antiintellectual bent ("We do not obtain the most precious gifts by going in search of them but by waiting for them. We cannot discover them by our own powers"). Weil is also considered a political activist ("The search for equilibrium is bad because it is imaginary…. Even if in fact we kill or torture our enemy it is, in a sense, imaginary"). Born to an agnostic Jewish family in Paris and drawn to personal asceticism from an early age, the author is perhaps best remembered for her Christian mysticism. Weil died from tuberculosis at age 34. Editor Gagne has culled selections from Weil's work for this slim volume, intending to position her neither as a "paragon of spiritual understanding…nor to pass judgment on her distinctive spiritual journey." Rather, for Gagne, Weil points the way toward Christ without reference to institutional or dogma-bound religions.