Simone Says
Occasionally, I peruse our bookshelf looking to re-discover some ink-laden paper jewel. This Sunday, I happened upon just such a treasure in the form of Waiting for God by Simone Weil, a tome given to us by a dear soul who also happened to have taught me 12th grade English. Within, I found a chapter entitled, "Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God." Aha! Just what a grad student needs for a Sunday morning meditation.
Within this essay, Simone explicates two reasons why school studies "...are quite as good a road to sanctity as any other." The first is that the skill of attention gained in study enhances one's ability to attend to God in prayer. The second point pertains to the beneficial influence of academic failure, as the following passage illustrates,
Above all it is thus that we can acquire the virtue of humility, and that is a far more precious treasure than all academic progress. From this point of view it is perhaps even more useful to contemplate our stupidity than our sin. Consciousness of sin gives us the feeling that we are evil, and a kind of pride sometimes finds a place in it. When we force ourselves to fix the gaze, not only of our eyes but of our souls, upon a school exercise in which we have failed through sheer stupidity, a sense of our mediocrity is borne in upon us with irresistible evidence. No knowledge is more to be desired. If we can arrive at knowing this truth with all our souls we shall be well established on the right foundation.
I will be keeping this in mind as I approach my preliminary exams this fall. This perspective may also come in handy the next time a R&R letter arrives from a peer-reviewed journal. If knowledge of my own mediocrity is a path to sanctity, I ought to be well on my way before long!