posted December 30, 2008 07:42 PM         

The world is a grey-area of conflict and creativity, bordering on order and chaos, respectively, and mediating between these two. Man is the soul of the world, and the soul is a longing for freedom. The soul grows and arises determinedly, like a flower, delicate and beautiful, out of the conflict (and brewing conflict) of the world; and into the freedom of creative, orderly self-expression. Mystic and philosopher, Simone Weil, spoke of the world as a "metaxu", comparing it to a wall which divides two prisoners (the soul and God), yet, which they may make use of in order to communicate with each other, albeit in a relatively primitive way, by a series of signals, or taps, as it were, upon the wall. I'd like to borrow this great word, if I may, to suggest a slightly different image, of the crust temporarily overlaying a pond in wintertime. As the world is in a ferment between order and chaos, so, the ice is frozen and rigid, while undergoing the dynamic chemical reactions of melting. With the coming of spring, like a grace, this conflict intensifies, or "heats up", as the rays of God's love and wisdom enter the ice, and cause it to split into water, on the one hand, and steam, on the other; the water molecules dropping, like bodies, back into the ubiquitous pond, while the molecules of steam ascend, like liberated spirits, up into the sky. Understood in this way, the metaxu, and the world, is not clearly distinct from the life and soul of man, nor is it something which divides man from God. Instead, the soul exists bound, as the freedom of water molecules is bound, within the icy corporeality of the world, in the body of a man. And by the light, heat, and grace of God, we are freed to ascend in a more airy and etheric form, out of the prison of the metaxu. Did I say prison? But the metaxu is also that ultimate ground of being out of which man is taken; man being the self-evident jewel and fruit of the world; just as man's soul is the lustre and sweetness in the heart of man. The marriage between God and the soul takes place in the light of time; which is also the light of wisdom; or truth, as it is capable of being percieved by man. This consecration is the accomplishment and fruition of the nature of metaxu, as well as its own negation, and the sacrificial dissolving of its own substance into something distinct and, yet, akin to itself. Ultimately, there is no definite boundary between what we are, what the world is, and what God is, -- but we may approach an intuitive understanding of, and relationship to, these truths by the convenience of analogy.

posted January 15, 2009 02:39 PM         

The concept of metaxu, which Weil borrowed from Plato, is that which both separates and connects (e.g., as a wall separates two prisoners but can be used to tap messages). This idea of connecting distance was of the first importance for Weil's understanding of the created realm. The world as a whole, along with any of its components, including our physical bodies, are to be regarded as serving the same function for us in relation to God that a blind man's stick serves for him in relation to the world about him. They do not afford direct insight, but can be used experimentally to bring the mind into practical contact with reality. This metaphor allows any absence to be interpreted as a presence, and is a further component in Weil's theodicy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_Weil#Metaxu:_.22Every_separation_is_a_link..22

God is known by His absence.
Don't we all feel this presence?
Who said 'there are no contradictions'?
He only spoke half-truths.