Eaten by God
Suffering is Never Ours Alone
Dear Friends and Family,
I begin today with a passage from Simone Weil in Waiting for God.
The beauty of the world is the mouth of a labyrinth. The unwary individual who on entering takes a few steps is soon unable to find the opening. Worn out, with nothing to eat or drink, in the dark, separated from his dear ones, and from everything he loves and is accustomed to, he walks on without knowing anything or hoping anything, incapable even of discovering whether he is really going forward or merely turning round on the same spot. But this affliction is as nothing compared with the danger threatening him. For if he does not lose courage, if he goes on walking, it is absolutely certain that he will finally arrive at the center of the labyrinth. And there God is waiting to eat him. Later he will go out again, but he will be changed, he will have become different, after being eaten and digested by God. Afterward he will stay near the entrance so that he can gently push all those who come near into the opening.1
Since I last wrote, my middle son and I did not walk the path along the continental touchpoint that I mentioned in my post two weeks ago. We are being eaten by God
. . . each in our own way through the labyrinthine folds of finding one’s way absent knowing if the next step is forward or backward or turning around the same spot.
It became apparent just a day or two before embarking that there was an unanticipated wayless way unfolding—some might call it a crisis. I surely did, forgetting until I forgot no longer the gaping wound of wonder. We would not be walking about but walking in place. And in walking in place, we would be walking an inner-about his present life, and so, mine.
Suffering is never ours alone. Neither is becoming through the heart surrendering. And it is no accident the timing of my journey to Portugal. Even so, in my own small unintended way, an agenda had slipped in before I arrived. It always does, doesn't it? I had imagined he and I walking a quiet reunion after two and a half years since I began the journey to wild reaches of North America during which time he moved to these remote hills in Europe. The distance between us numbered in days had been too long. The earth catching our feet would be the metronome by which I might hear of his life today. Secretly, I hoped, too, that these deep-time hills might steady my heart after the recent passing of my “soul mother” in the wake of Helene. I had begun reflecting on conscious and intentional suffering in these Sunday letters in light of the dark chaos in these times in between. And so, I would walk in wonder and give this weight of personal sorrow a largesse to bear on behalf of. And you were here, feeding images, offering prayers, blessing the journey.
An unyielding principle of the pathless path is casting to the runaway wind what we imagine, believe, and hope for, what we are damn sure is true and right and necessary, and yielding moment by moment with naked intent the deepest longings of the heart abiding the deepest longings of Life. And so, I write to you today humbled, again, by irruption into a wayless way I didn’t see coming. It was given through sorrow, this way; this one sorrow our common human sorrow, which is no less the sorrow of our one Common Father.2
In the passage above, Weil is wending us into the inner depths of the Ever-Present Unseen, living the flesh, pulsing the blood, yielding bread and wine out of the infinitely empty fullness of potentia, enfolding the evolutionary unfolding of the universe—while the world as we know it crumbles beneath our feet. What crumbles is what we know and believe and hope and want. What crumbles is what we cling to. Take heart, dear friends, and keep walking, steady, steady, into the murmuring deep abysmal mouth of Beauty.
What I bring to you today is not about one person or two. It is a holographic square, the whole moving picture of which is us all wandering these dark labyrinthine times toward the sacred Center. Take. Eat. This is my body. 3
We need not get blisters on the feet to enter the opening, walk the wayless way, and be forever changed. But the heart . . . the heart itself must burst. It must burst out of safe harbor and be stretched beyond the crossroads of yonder yesterdays feeding mindlessly the machinations of today. It must become the beating flesh of paradox where no is yes and yes is no and bad is good and good is bad because neither is—the paradox the tension teetering on the precipice of unknowing. We stand teetering, letting neither be, and you and I, worn bear, become one ceaseless outpouring of Love burnishing the craggy edges of an unfinished world, swallowing the distance between Mater and Mater, God and God.4
. . .
To you who sent letters and offered comments with images to hold and prayers for the walk, know that you have been in this tender heart on every pulsation of love, inexpressibly so. We have pilgrimed and we still are, only not as we had yet the eyes to see.
To keep with my presence to what is unfolding here as long as I need to be here, I have paused paid subscriptions until I return to a consistent writing schedule. That said, tomorrow, Monday, I will return to one-on-one mentoring sessions via Zoom and have a few openings still this week. Planning for the May pilgrimage retreat is unfolding with beautiful synchronicities. And bit by bit, I’m catching up on rest . . . and emails.
With love,
Renée
Forthcoming
March, 2025
Zoom Gathering in Silence + Reflective Conversation Sunday, March 2, noon–1:30 pm ET Register by DM or email: reneeeliphd [. . .] gmail
May, 2025
"The Pathless Path: Walking the Way of the Pilgrim in a Time between Worlds"
An In-Person Gathering
May 20–26. Pecos Benedictine Monastery. Pecos, New Mexico.
email Doreen Tanenbaum to save your spot: tanenbaumd [. . .] gmail. 
A profound shift is cocooning in the imaginal cells of the collective human psyche. We see it in the news. We know it through the inner quietude of being. In this time between worlds, we are called to the wild depths of soul. The way of the pilgrim invites us to belong to these times, our world, and the living earth, and supports us through the great work of the unfolding of humanity as an ecological and evolutionary imperative.
During this six-day silent gathering, we will invoke pilgrimage (in place) on sacred ground in the high desert mountains of New Mexico, wandering the pathless path on earth walks, in meditation/prayer of the heart, daily reflections and practices that enliven presence and affective intimacy with one another, the world, and the earth on which we live and breathe and have our being. Our inner journey will be punctuated by quiet periods of gestational rest and reflective conversation at day’s end.
Doreen has been working tirelessly on details to limit costs and support access. I’ll have those for you next week and appreciate your patience with me.
Email Doreen to inquire and save your spot: tanenbaumd [. . .] gmail.
Learn more about Beyond the Comfort Zone.
Simone Weil, Waiting for God, trans. Emma Caufurd (New York: Harper & Row, 1951), pp. 163–164, with special thanks to Doreen for sharing this video with me.
G. I. Gurdjieff, Beezlebub’s Tales to His Grandson (New York: Penguin, 1999).
For you who are drawn to this language: we become Christ Consciousness through intentional suffering.
Weil urges that evil is the material space between God and God (Waiting for God).
To know humans like you are in this world, choosing direct experience and listening over control and agenda, fills my heart with hope. These forces of duality will always be here for us to answer with resistance or love, and I hear in you unwavering devotion to the heart’s unifying, harmonizing force. Bowing to this bright, necessary wisdom that flies through you.
Dear Renée, I feel such sweet tenderness brought to me through your words this morning. It grows in me that the words, the essence of your writing, the encounter with all suffering, the dark opening into the great labyrinth…. We both walk that journey expressing this through our own uniqueness. I am a grief tender walking the trail of sorrow. Yes, my heart has burst open in an infinitude of sensitivities to the despair of all creatures, to the intense beauty hiding within the tiny pockets of every tragedy, every trauma, every loss. To know this internal disorientation since B died, to know this great disorientation of the outer world. To hold this as an ongoing lamentation is the only way this heart can interpret its sacred agreement with the Unknown. Thank you. I look forward to being with you in Circle next week.