← The Spiritual Life with Fr. James Martin, S.J.
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- [00:00]
A
Body, mind and spirit. We believe if one needs help, so do the others. As part of Catholic Healthcare's holistic approach to treating the whole person. Here, people are not viewed as symptoms or insurance claims. And when we treat the body, mind and spirit, we believe the whole person will thrive. Catholic Healthcare Learn more at wecareyouflourish.org Sponsored by the Catholic Health Association. Welcome to the spiritual life. I'm Father Jim Martin. On this podcast, we reflect on how people experience God in their prayer and in their daily lives. And I'm joined by my prayerful producer, Maggie Van Dorn.
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B
Aw, thank you, Jim. It's good to be here.
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A
Yeah. And we have a really interesting guest this time, Mirabai's star. Can you tell us a little bit about her, Maggie?
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B
Yes, absolutely. So Mirabai is truly prayerful and mystical. She's an award winning author, poet, and an internationally acclaimed speaker. She's also a spiritual teacher. As a teenager, Mirabai lived at the Lama foundation, which is an intentional spiritual community that has honored all the world's faith traditions since 1967. She was was an adjunct professor of philosophy and world religions at the University of New Mexico Dalles for 20 years. Mirabai's youngest daughter, Jenny, was killed in a car crash in 2001 at the age of only 14. And on that same day, Mirabai's first book, a translation of the mystical masterpiece Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross, was released. So you'll find in this conversation that Mirabai says that this experience and the connection between profound loss and longing for the divine grounds her own spiritual life. Mirabai has authored over a dozen books, including Wild Mercy, Caravan of no Despair, and most recently Ordinary Mysticism. And of course, you talk to Mirabai, Jim, about ordinary mysticism. I'm wondering what drew you to this topic and to Mirabai.
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A
Well, I've always been interested in mysticism. I just find it fascinating. I would say that I have had maybe one mystical experience, but I find that whole topic really interesting. I read a book by Ruth Burroughs about mysticism a couple of years ago, which was very helpful and reminded me that it's accessible to most people. It's a gift, of course, but Mirabai came on my radar screen thanks to Father Bill McNichols, who's an iconographer and a friend Catholic priest who knows her very well. And since he started to point me to her, I had read some of her writings and I'm just super excited to have her on the podcast.
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B
Yeah, well, it is a fascinating conversation and we'll get to that in just a minute. But first we have our audience question. This one comes from Tracy, and the question is how can I reconcile very different opinions about religion and morality within my family?
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A
Well, Tracy, thanks for that question. I think there's two ways of answering it. First, how is it possible that there could be lots of different opinions about religion and morality in your family? And I think that's just sort of where we are these days. Right. Even if you're in a Catholic family, it doesn't mean that everyone looks at the same moral questions the same way. So that's not too surprising. But I think maybe your question is how to handle that and how maybe not to be drawn into arguments or maybe how to deal with someone who, you know, feels very differently about a particular topic, you know, whether it's religious or political or social. I think that arguments tend not to help as much. And Mirabai talks a little bit about this. I go back to something that Walter Brueggemann, the Old Testament scholar who just died, said, which is that arguments tend to close our mind down, whereas stories open them up. Now, that doesn't mean you can't have a discussion, you know, about certain topics, but I find with really set in their ways people, right, whether it's political or religious, there's usually like a standard answer that they have, you know, to come back at you. And that's where I say just talking from your own experience, telling a story or two and then also allowing that person to disagree with you. But I think stories and experience really help the most and certainly can make for calmer family settings, especially, by the way, over the holidays or at special times. Those are not times to solve the biggest divisions in your family.
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B
That is so wise, Jim. And I know it's so painful for so many families, you know, because we love each other or want to love each other, and yet there are very real divisions. But I think inviting people's stories and personal experience is a very wise place to begin. So if anyone wants to ask Father Jim a question, please write to us at the spiritual lifemericamedia.org and now a.
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A
Word from our sponsor. Are you looking for a simple way to deepen your own spiritual life? Give Us this Day is a superb resource that helps Catholics stay rooted in Scripture and in prayer wherever you are, no matter how busy you are. It features reliable and relatable spiritual reflections, the daily mass readings, essays on the lives of the saints, and, of course, prayers to accompany you throughout the day. I'm honored to be an editorial Advisor. And I've been writing a monthly essay called Teach Us to Pray from the very beginning. And I also use it. I use it every single day. I use it this morning. And here's a great offer. Right now, listeners of the Spiritual Life can get 10% off their new print subscription. Just visit giveusthisday.org spiritual life and join this community of Catholics praying together again. That's giveusthisday.org spiritual life. And now on to our conversation with Mirabai's star. Mirabai Star. Welcome to the Spiritual Life.
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C
Thank you, Jim. Do I call you Father Jim?
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A
Jim is fine.
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C
You Jesuits, it's just first name. I get it.
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A
That's right, Mirabai. We're just so grateful you're with us. I know of your work, particularly your work on mysticism and the mystic tradition, but we're going to start with your own upbringing. You grew up, I would say, in a fairly unusual setting. Can you tell us about your religious upbringing, about the Lama foundation, and about how all of that shaped your spirituality?
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C
Yes. So I grew up in a non religious Jewish family, originally from New York. And my family, though was not just non religious Jews like so many American Jews post Holocaust, but they were anti religious. They really felt that religion was responsible for so much suffering in the world, both historically and ongoingly. And so it was like taboo for me to be attracted to God, God, language, spiritual life, in any organized fashion anyway. And so I don't know, maybe where other kids would rebel through drug, sex and rock and roll, I rebelled through throwing myself into the arms of every religious tradition I encountered. Well, I wouldn't say all of them. I was, I always was kind of averse to any kind of strong fundamentalist expression. But any of the more mystical aspects of the world's religious traditions had this, and continue to have this attraction for me that is bordering on passion. So When I was 15, I moved to Llama foundation, which was very close to my family's home in Taos. I live in, I still live and we all generations of my family live here in Taos, N.M. and Llama foundation wasn't far away. So it wasn't a big deal for me as a 15 year old to leave home and move there. But it was worlds away in another sense. And Lama was and still is a place where all the world's great spiritual traditions meet. They're studied and practiced and embraced and, and people try to find the commonalities at the same time that they express the unique aspects. You know, it's where Thomas Keating did His first centering prayer retreat was at Lama foundation and I was there and I remember Father Theophane washing our feet and the incredible blessing. I think maybe that was the first time. I'm totally going off on a tangent. Sorry bud.
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A
Not at all.
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C
I think that may have been the first time I fell in love with Jesus. But it had to be my little secret because of all the traditions my family was suspicious of, Christianity was number one. And so to fall in love with Jesus was like, yeah, complete. It was not something that my family could, could accept. They do now because I'm now wide open about my, my deep love for Jesus and, and his teachings. And my family completely supports it. They get it.
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A
Let me ask you, what was it about the washing of the feet that drew you to Jesus?
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C
The generosity of spirit of Christ that the Lord of Lords in human form, as I had gathered Jesus was, or Christ is, would kneel at the feet of his companions who had been walking probably for miles at that point and were dirty and tired. And as part of this Passover feast where all of the disciples were gathering in Jerusalem like so many Jews from all over the world for the, for the holy days of Passover, that as part of the Pesach meal he would kneel at the feet of all of his companions and tenderly wash their feet was symbolic to me of everything that Christianity must truly be in its essence.
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A
That's beautiful. You know, one of the insights I read was, I think from Sanders Schneider's, the New Testament theologian who said that the washing of the feet is not just servant leadership, which is what we tend to look at it as, which is true, but it's also creating a community of equals, which I've always loved kind of on the same plane.
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C
That's exactly what I loved about it is. And then what I've taken with me ever since, non hierarchical spirituality and spiritual teaching.
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A
Let me back up a little bit. What was it about religion or spirituality when you were a young person that drew you so you, you grow up in this, as you say, secular Jewish, but even anti religious family. What was it that first kind of pulled you to, towards religion?
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C
Death. I would say that death has always been my doorway to the sacred and continues to be, for better or worse. My brother died of a brain tumor when he was 10 and I was seven. He was the oldest of four and my baby brother was newborn. Actually he was in the womb when Maddie was diagnosed and Roy was six months when Maddie was born. Then there was Amy in the middle and then I became the De facto eldest in our. In our family. And Maddie's death felt. The only way I could describe it, is holy. It felt holy to me, even though it was incredibly sad. I saw my parents shattered. Our family was plunged into a sorrow so thick that we couldn't breathe. You know, it was not that it wasn't sad. It was sad. And it was also something else somehow. The presence of his dying and his death and the aftermath of his death, I guess the collective grief of our family and closest loved ones felt to me that the presence of God was everywhere in that experience. Even though God, as we've established, was not a common concept or. Or word in our family. And I probably didn't use God language myself. But looking back on it, I know that that's what was happening for me. And I think that opened the door in a way to this sense of at least the mystical, maybe not the religious, because I didn't understand much about religion, Although my Catholic friends with all of the. The saints and the crucifixes seemed to have something I really wanted as a child. And the angels. The angels. But then I had another significant death when I was 14. My first love, my boyfriend Philip, was killed here in Taos in a gun accident. This is a rural area, and people have guns. And Philip was killed accidentally. And that was the next kind of threshold or gate that opened into a sacred landscape when everything seemed absolutely terrible. My first love was dead. I was plunged into this kind of mystical.
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B
Space.
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C
By mystical, I don't mean magic. I don't mean telepathy or astral travel or altered states. Well, it was an altered state of consciousness, but it was a very pure altered state. What I mean by mystical is this sense of direct proximity to the sacred, unmediated through external ideas, beliefs, religious structures, authority figures. It was this deep sense of having been granted, through the fire, of loss, access to something that my heart wanted.
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A
Now, what do you think enables someone to be open to that? Because I can imagine another situation. I mean, I went through it myself. A good friend of mine died in a car crash. And for about six months I was, you know, saying the heck with God. You know, how could God do this? What do you think enables a person to be open to that kind of experience and finding God through it versus closed?
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C
Oh, that's such a wonderful question, Jim. It's not versus. It's not one or the other for me. And this is the. This is the place I invite people into when I sit with people who are grieving. We get to have Both realities present in this same broken open vessel of our hearts in grief and loss. So it's not like I had a friendship with God that grew deeper as a result of Maddie's death or Philip's death. We will leave Maddie's death aside for now because I didn't really have an understanding of God, but I had a direct experience of God. But with Philip's death, definitely I was not interested in any kind of religious spin or even as even any spiritual explanations by way of comfort or anything else that people might offer. I recoiled and I still do. You know, when. Later, Much, much later. When my daughter died when I was 40, if people tried to spout any kind of religious or spiritual platitude, I just wanted to slap them. I didn't. But I know that's a common response. Some of you who are listening probably can relate. So what I'm trying to say, Jim, and any of you who are grieving or have grieved, you know, if this is helpful, I'm glad. When we are broken hearted through a great loss, a shattering loss, we have the capacity to embrace a larger reality, I feel. And that reality includes anger and a kind of stunned awe in the presence of the sacred that comes flowing through the broken open space, that seeps in through the torn seams and permeates our hearts with the felt presence of God. And we're pissed off. We're angry at our person for leaving. We're angry at God for allowing this and so many other atrocities. It's like the part of us that can rail against injustice and so many of us are actively engaged in speaking out our gigantic no right now in the face of such horrendous collective suffering. And at the same time, in many ways, our brokenness is tenderizing our hearts and watering the garden of our authentic being and connecting us with others.
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A
Well, I love the idea that it can be a. Both. And, and I was going to ask you about your daughter Jenny's death, which you brought up. I was thinking a lot about Martha and Mary in the story of the raising of Lazarus. The both. And they both say to Jesus. Well, actually both of the sisters say to Jesus, lord, if you had been here, our brother would not have died, which is a kind of reproach. And they still believe in him. So what you're talking about, I think, is this honesty with God in our. In our times of grief.
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C
Yes. Elie Wiesel tells a beautiful story about being in, in Auschwitz and the tremendous suffering that was happening and that and the Men of learning in his barracks decided that they were going to put God on trial. It just wasn't okay. It's what kind of God could allow, allow such horrendous suffering? And so they held a trial and there were, there was the, you know, the prosecution and the defense and they all made great arguments as Jewish people like to do. And at the end of the trial, the verdict came in and it was guilty. And then said the rabbi among them, the first star has just risen in the sky and now it is time to pray. Let us go and pray.
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A
Wow.
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C
It's the both. And.
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B
$15 per month equivalent required.
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C
New customer offer first three months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra.
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A
See mintmobile.com Ever feel like you just need a break from the noise, tight schedules and screens. At Bellarmine Jesuit Retreat House, you're invited to slow down, breathe deep and reconnect with yourself and with God. Whether you're new to retreats or looking to deepen your journey, there's something here for you. Our 80 acres of quiet spaces about 40 miles outside of Chicago offer the perfect setting for reflection and prayer. Explore the upcoming retreats@jesuiteretreat.org Bellarmine come as you are. Leave renewed. I want to talk about your most recent book, Ordinary Mysticism, which is such a great title because we tend to think that mysticism, as I'm sure you've probably heard a million times, is a practice only for the saints, when in fact many of us have mystical experiences. A good friend of mine, Bob Gilroy, a Jesuit who died very young, used to say that people have experiences of God but they're not encouraged to talk about them, which I love. So the first question is, how would you describe a mystical experiences? And I'm really interested in Mirabai because I have a hard time with it myself because it's, I mean, it's hard to describe. So what's your definition of a mystical experience?
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C
It is Hard to describe. And that's one of the primary characteristics of a mystical experience, is that it's ineffable, it transcends language and concepts. And yet the mystics can't seem to help themselves. It's all they can talk about, you know, through poetry, through music, often through these kind of non discursive means. But my definition of a mystical experience is pretty classic academic definition. It's a direct experience of the divine. It may or may not be an artifact of some particular religious setting, a practice, a prayer. It may and often is, independent of any kind of, please forgive me, ordained clergy person who's mediating or legislating the experience. It's often spontaneous. Although certain spiritual practices, contemplative practices especially, can kind of water the soil so that a mystical experience is more likely to germinate. But in some sense, it's like in Zen satori, these moments, these flashes of connectedness to the sacred in such a way that our individual identity at least softens, if not momentarily dissolves. It's becoming one with the one, what Julian of Norwich so beautifully called one ing. We want to be one with God. We are oneing with the divine. And. And so it's a moment, usually momentary experience of rising above the illusion of our separation from God and being immersed in that presence, in that sacred presence. And it often doesn't last very long. And while it's happening, the subject, object, distinction of the person who's having the experience of God, who is perhaps the object. And outside of the mystical experience, there's a subject, me having experience of God. But in the moment there is no distinction.
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A
Well, thank you so much for that. There's so much to unpack because I'm really fascinated by it, both in my own life and as a spiritual director and as someone who reads about it. I like your emphasis on momentary because, you know, for example, I was on retreat a couple of weeks ago and I had some good prayer experiences where I imagined myself with Jesus and I had images of Jesus doing this, that and the other thing. But it was kind of over an extended period of time, an hour or two, and I didn't have that sense of I'm in union with God. So I think to distinguish it between kind of a rich prayer experience is really helpful for people. Do you think that people have them? What, rarely, frequently, ever. More than they think. What would you say?
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C
Yeah, more than they think. That's a great. That's a great option on your list there. Yes. And that's the premise of this book. Ordinary mysticism is that mystical experience is our birthright, that we are made for moments of union and communion with the sacred, with the divine, with God. And they may come in that breathless moment of watching a beautiful sunset. They may arise, and often do, at the bedside of someone you love who's taking their last breaths and dying. In the same way in a birth experience, if you get the good fortune of being present for a birth, people often report, as I have experienced, such a similar feeling in the air when a person comes into this world. And when a person leaves this world, it's like the air is charged with God, with the Presence. And it may be a very ordinary thing. You know, I would even include taking the first sip of. Of coffee in the morning and allowing yourself to be fully present with the experience of pleasure and awakening and a meeting of the reality that comes in the form of a new day. There are so many regular moments, moments that are hard, like a conflict with somebody that you don't run away from, but that you soften into, can yield this sense of the sacred is. Is among us. And it. It doesn't even mean you completely dissolve into the moment. That's maybe a classic mystical experience where you become one with the one. It may be just a feeling of being permeated by marinating in the presence. The presence with a capital P. Now.
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A
What would you say to listeners who are hearing this and are getting sad or disappointed and saying, I've never had anything like that. And feeling kind of less than. Is there a way of opening yourself up to it? What would you say?
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C
Oh, my gosh, you know, I write about that a lot. I'm just going to read you.
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A
Sure.
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C
A little couple lines from the beginning of ordinary mysticism. Your life is holy ground. And you are a mystic. I know you are, because all it means to be a mystic is to have a direct experience of the sacred. You have had zillions of those. You may be having one right now. Some resonance in your bones that whispers, yes, I belong. I am intertwined with all that is. So I want to say to you that of course, you've had these mystical moments, and your invitation is to acknowledge those, to recognize that your life itself is holy ground, and to kind of string those moments together, to practice being available to them. And we practice them through setting our intention to walk the path of love, which is really what it means to be a mystic. I guess I forgot to add that to my definition, that this. This one, this communion, this union is rooted in love. And so to set Our intention to walk this way, to be open, to prioritize our spiritual lives, and then to kind of train our gaze, our attention from intention to attention on all the possible places and spaces where the divine may break through the most mundane moments.
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A
Can you talk about an experience in your own life where you would say this is a mystical experience that you had just to maybe provide some illustration for our listeners?
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C
Mm. I'm trying to make one that's really accessible. I love to cook, and I don't always take time to cook because I'm busy, but I can think of a recent trip to the farmer's market that resulted in a basket of really colorful vegetables. And I'm also an artist, so color and beauty. Beauty is also an essential ingredient in the path of the ordinary mystic. And beauty isn't always pretty, but. But beauty means this capacity for appreciating the glory of this creation as it expresses itself in our everyday lives. So I came back with this basket of vegetables, and I began to make a stir fry. And so I was cutting the vegetables, and I. Not only did I noticed the colors, but I started then really pulling things from the cupboard and from the refrigerator and from the basket that would complement each other in this giant wok. And the next thing I knew, I was stirring these vegetables and coconut oil and ghee, and it became an ecstatic experience. And the fragrance of the garlic and the. And the colors changing in the pan, and. And I had music playing. And that moment, it wasn't just a lovely, perfect moment because we get plenty of those. It was. It did something. It was almost like a chemical reaction in my brain or in my heart. We're finding that the heart and the gut also have brain cells. So there was something that was triggered, was a catalyst for a sense of belonging to all, that is that I no longer felt isolated and alone and anxious, which, of course, I do, like we all do a lot of the time, and terrible things have happened to me, and terrible things were happening in the world. Right then. I was seeing images of starvation in Gaza and Sudan. It wasn't like none of those were real or matter. I wasn't spiritually bypassing them. But in that moment, there was a sense of participating in the fullness of creation and having my rightful place in it all and needing to praise it. You know, my. My agnostic Jewish mother who's still alive, God bless her. And, well, at 90, when she read Ordinary Mysticism, she said, oh, so it's not just a matter of, like, appreciating the waves on the ocean, on the beach at sunrise. It's stopping. It's like you said, Jim, to be present to these experiences of simple wonder. Not running away, not getting them over with, but actually pausing and breathing them into every cell. I think nature is one of the easiest places to have a mystical experience.
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A
Yeah, I agree. The one I always go back to. I was about 9 or 10, and I was biking to school, elementary school outside of Philadelphia. And it was this beautiful spring morning. And there was a meadow that I used to bike through, all the kids would bike through. And it was nothing spectacular. It was kind of undeveloped plot of land. And there were these wildflowers and crickets and grasshoppers, Queen Anne's Lays and Black Eyed Susans and, you know, all these great wildflowers. And it was this beautiful day and I sort of stopped in the middle of the field and it's this kind of warm spring, summery morning, and the school was in the distance and. And I just had this sense of I want this, you know, I want to possess this. I want to kind of enter into it. And I often use that. I've talked about it in different books. You know, you're right. I wasn't lifted out of myself. I knew who I was. But there was, as you say, this sense of awe. The sense of participation is a great word. Like, I wanted to know more about this and where does this come from? And I. I like that you say that it comes to you in cooking, right? Because most people are not Julian of Norwich and they're Sal or Theresa of Avil in her convent. Most people are cooking, right. And are over the walk. And so I think there's this kind of choice that we have, right. I mean, what does that experience in front of the walk mean? Is it, in fact, God calling out to you, which it is, I think. Or is it something to just, you know, toss aside and, you know, time for dinner.
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C
Right, Exactly. Yeah. It's. It's tempting to discount these things as being other than spiritual, especially when we have these role models like Teresa Vavila and Father Jim Martin, you know.
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A
Well, not, not, not in the same breath, though. But let me ask you, since you brought them up, and I'm dying to ask you, who are the cath saints and mystics who have had the most influence on you and why?
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C
My network of spiritual beings that I lean on are all Catholic mystics. And so, you know, John of the Cross and Teresa Vavila are the ones who are dearest to me in the sense that I'M most intimate with them by virtue of having translated them. So I'm fluent in Spanish and I was able to translate it a time when it was just ripe time for the, the Spanish mystics to come onto the broader scene of, of mystics that were being translated. This was in the early 2000s and late 90s when a lot of Sufi mystics and other traditions were being translated. So John of the Cross and Teresa Vavila feel like family to me. Later, much later, I translated Julian of Norwich from Middle English, and she also is, is part of my, my heart now, I feel, you know, in Hinduism they talk about something called darshan, and that's when you sit with the guru and you receive teachings and blessings from being in their presence. And I feel like as a translator, that's what it is. I'm just sitting at their feet and they're blessing me, they're pouring their blessings on me. We're breaking bread together and eating together and waking up in the morning and there they are again. And it's just been such a privilege to translate Teresa Vavila, John of the Cross and Julian of Norwich.
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A
Well, you're naming a lot of my favorites for our listeners who don't know much about them. Can you give a brief thumbnail sketch of who was John of the Cross, who was Teresa of Avila and why you like them so much?
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C
Right, so 16th century. So right after the expulsion of Jews and Muslims from Spain, the Great Expulsion. Teresa Vavila was born in 1515, and she was born into a noble family. Her mother died in childbirth, giving birth to her ninth child at the age of 33, which seems to have stamped in Teresa's mind a sense of not being interested in getting married and having babies. So after her mother died, Teresa became very wild and undisciplined and unruly, like so many teenagers do, especially teenagers who have had trauma. She loved her mother very much. They were very close and she seemed to have been out of control, whatever that looked like in 16th century Spain, in a family that was well to do. But whatever it was, it spiraled into some kind of scandal that happened when she was around 16 and her father sent her away to a convent, an Augustinian convent nearby, to just be with the nuns, learn sewing and other womanly tasks while the scandal would blow over, he hoped, and then she could come back and meet a respectable young gentleman and get on with his plans for her, her life. But what happened in the convent is she kind of fell in love with religious life. Here's a Both and again for you, Jim, she both loved religious life and rebelled against it. She was anti authoritarian. She was beautiful and vivacious and gregarious. This was. This was a convent that emphasized silent prayer. Silence. And all of these things pushed up against her very lively nature. But there was also something in that stillness that attracted her. Partly, she says, she felt like she was in mortal danger. Her soul was in danger for being the way she was inclined, she thought, to sin in all kinds of ways. But it was more than avoiding a life of sin that she felt like she was, you know, attracted to. It was a deep sense of homecoming in a life of prayer. And these two things sort of fought in Teresa for many years. And in fact, in her early 20s, she became gravely ill, I think, because of that tension between wanting a religious life and also wanting to be true to who she was, which was filled with. With appetite and energy and humor and a desire for connection. She called it, you know, the sin of wanting to be liked. But I think it was a beautiful impulse in Teresa. So she did finally almost die in her early 20s. In fact, they pronounced her dead. She was in a coma. They put wax on her eyelids. Her father realized as he sat beside her at the wake that her chest was moving and she was alive. And she was paralyzed for a long time, many months. But really, after that, Teresa did go back to the convent. She plunged into contemplative prayer practices. But her inner life, she says, was very, very dry for a long time. Her true conversion didn't happen until she was 40.
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A
Well, let me ask you. At some point, she comes into contact with John of the Cross.
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C
Yeah.
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A
Can you tell us about him, who he was?
- [40:57]
C
Yes. So John of the Cross also probably had Jewish roots, Sangre Judia, also Muslim. So he had it coming and going, this dangerous blood. But he was 26. Yeah, he was 26. And she was 52 when they met. At this point, she was a flaming mistake, having all kinds of visions and voices and raptures and ecstasies. The Inquisition was after her. And if that wasn't bad enough, she had launched a reform movement, hoping to return the Carmelite order to its original contemplative roots. Drawing on the mostly the teachings of the desert fathers and mothers, she hears about this young priest who had been recently ordained as a Carmelite and had already decided to give it up and go into the mountains and live as a hermit, because he was completely disenchanted, to say the least, with the corruption that he perceived in the mainstream church. And so she loved that and she summoned him. She had heard about him. She'd heard he was very intelligent and that he is a poet and that he. He also is rebelling against what he perceived to be the emptiness of the current church. So he came to her. She convinced him to be part of the reform. And he said, well, if it doesn't take too long, I'm in, but I don't have much time, I have no patience. And so he became her first companion in this reform movement. And that led to his imprisonment at the age of 29. He was taken in the middle of the night from his bed by Carmelite brothers and thrown into a prison in Toledo and tortured for nine months. And what saved him was composing poetry in his mind and memorizing it. At some point there was a sympathetic guard who may have handed him some parchment and a quill or whatever he wrote with that he tucked into his robe. The same robe that he was imprisoned in was all the clothing he had through those sweltering summers and the freezing winters. And then finally, probably that same guard gave him some cloth he was able to tie together into a rope and throw over the one tiny window in his narrow little stone cell, very high up, and escape. And after that, that's when his mystical experiences came flowing through this rapture that came not despite the darkness and despair of his incarceration, but somehow as the fruit of that deep encounter with nothing. La nada, he calls it, that became the sacred nothing, what Buddhists call shunyata. And after that, all his poetry came flowing through. And that is, he is the patron saint of poetry. This is the John of the Cross that most of us know.
- [44:11]
A
Let me ask you, where does Jesus fit into all of this for you in terms of your own practice and just who he is for you?
- [44:21]
C
Yeah, well, so we established that I inherited allergy to Jesus in my anti religious Jewish family and yet began to become less suspicious as I encountered his teachings of loving kindness, of radical justice and inclusion. So that Rabbi Jesus as a peacemaker definitely attracted me. But over time, it was the mystic who invited me into a much bigger field that Jesus inhabited as Christ as the embodiment of love in this world. And I felt that I had access to that universal Christ, as Richard Rohren and others call that aspect of. Of Christ that is available to people even like me. Mary was somehow the matchmaker. Madre Maria, la Virgen de Guadalupe, Mary in her various forms as a fellow bereaved Jewish mother, invited me in to a place where I felt that he was mine. Too.
- [45:51]
A
You mentioned Mary as the grieving mother, as the entree. And we often say to Jesus through Mary. And you talked about several experiences of grief in your life. Do you have advice for people out there who might be grieving a loss?
- [46:11]
C
Yeah, you know, I sit with people all the time who are in deep grief. And the people that seem to come gravitate to me in my work are people who have, I would say, detected the. The fragrance of the sacred in the fire of their heartbreak. So not. I'm not really speaking to people who are trying to get over it, you know, get. Get on with their lives and. And get over their loss. There are lots of beautiful healing spaces out there that people can go to for grief support that emphasize being able to function again and get back to your life and move on. I'm interested in moving in, like into the fire itself and embracing it, because it is through that portal of heartbreak that we enter in. As we spoke about earlier in this conversation, the holiest place that I know, the broken, open heart, is this. This entry. Often it doesn't have to be, but often is. At least there's a beckoning in it to come toward the presence of a love that is beyond anything we could have imagined and is big enough to also hold our anger and our shame and our guilt and our. All the things that often accompany a great loss. Our regret, our. If only our longing, our yearning. It's all sacred.
- [47:53]
A
So is it a question of being open? Because I can imagine some listeners saying, I don't want to stay in that space. It's too painful.
- [48:01]
C
Yeah, of course. And so I recommend dipping in and then stepping back and being kind to yourself. You know what? The way I described it for myself after my daughter died is that so Jenny died at 14 in a car accident. So there was very sudden. There was no preparation. I don't know. There's no good way to lose a child through a lingering illness or a sudden tragedy. It's all. It's all tragic. But I had had enough contemplative practices to try them on. I just finished, by the way, translating Dark Night of the Soul by John of the Cross. In fact, the day Jenny died is the day that the book came out. It was my first book.
- [48:47]
A
Wow.
- [48:48]
C
And so John of the Cross had taught me a lot about being in the darkness, resting in the darkness, not turning away. But it was really hard to do. So I had to titrate it, I had to modulate it. But little by little, I was able to turn toward the reality of my loss and not turn away. Why not? Because I was so spiritually fit that I had these great, you know, contemplative muscles developed that would enable me to. To, you know, muscle my way through. It was the opposite. It was because of love that something in me recognized that because I love my child, I didn't want to turn away from her even in death, that I would be present for the experience of losing her as an act of loving her, as an act of devotion to her. And so I softened and yielded and little by little allowed myself to be more and more present in the reality of what had happened and all the dimensions of my grief, which included unbearable anguish and also profound love and a sense of presence and being held and being blessed.
- [50:16]
A
That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. Mirabai. We take a question from our audience. So here's the question. It's from Tracy. How can I reconcile very different opinions about religion and morality within my family? So let's say two sides in the. In the family or where you find yourself at odds with people in your family.
- [50:46]
C
So what I find in a situation like that is when I try to make excellent points to the. To people with opposing views that I'm sure will win them over, it just makes them clench up and. And resist more what I have to say. Often people with opposing points of view in a single family will have their talking points all lined up and nothing you can say about the path of love, for instance, justice will. Will change them. But deep listening and empathizing, finding something in the opposing viewpoints within this family in which you find yourself will open hearts. And eventually that might allow a crack through which a change of viewpoint can and often does come. I have just found that the power of listening to the other with a true open heart and authentic curiosity and tenderness. And maybe because it open, that's what opens my heart and then something shifts in me and that matters. But it often is a felt difference in the other. Otherness starts to soften and melt.
- [52:16]
A
Thank you. The listening is the key in that situation and in our relationship with God. Mirabai Star, thank you so much for sharing of your own life with us. Your insights on the mystics and your insights on God and Jesus and Mary. So happy to be with you. Thanks for being on the spiritual life.
- [52:37]
C
Thank you so much for the honor of being with you Jim. You're very dear to me and your teachings matter.
- [52:43]
A
Thank you. Does it ever feel like you're a marketing professional just speaking into the void? But with LinkedIn ads you can Know you're reaching the right decision makers, a network of 130 million of them. In fact, you can even target buyers by job title, industry, company, seniority, skills, and. Did I say job title? See how you can avoid the void and reach the right buyers with LinkedIn ads. Spend $250 on your first campaign and get a free $250 credit for the next one. Get started@LinkedIn.com Campaign terms and conditions apply. So, Maggie, a very different kind of guest for us, someone who in a sense, moves through different religious and spiritual traditions. So what struck you about that conversation?
- [54:02]
B
Well, I love listening to her. I have been enchanted with the mystics, many of whom she mentioned since I started reading them in college. So I was very lulled by it in a great way. But one thing that I was thinking is, what qualifies as a mystical experience? And I don't mean that in super judgmental, which passes the test sort of way, but really, just how do we reflect on our own life experience and say this is mystical or this is just deeply spiritual, or this is a great practice of being present and grateful?
- [54:38]
A
Yeah, that's a great question, and that's one of the reasons I really was curious to see how she would answer that, because we've talked about it on this podcast before, mystical experiences. And I sometimes accuse myself of using it too easily. Right. And I don't think that any profound experience you have of God is necessarily mystical. So as I was saying, I was on retreat a couple weeks ago, and I had some really deep experiences of Jesus in prayer, but I would not say that they were mystical. I think the two things that she said that were the most helpful for me was that a mystical experience is momentary. Right. So it's a kind of flash. Right. Unless you're a mystic like John of the Cross or Teresa Vavila, and that it implies some oneness and a kind of dissolving of the barriers between you and God. So I think you're kind of less conscious of yourself, and that's why I can say that I have had maybe one or two. But as she was saying, the definition is pretty fluid. You read different authors on it, and you can sometimes apply what they're saying to something that you've had and not quite know if it fits or not. But I do think momentary union and I think a sense of kind of being overwhelmed. Right. So when I was in my retreat, I. I was very moved by these experiences, but I wasn't sort of bowled over by them. But I do think they are more common than people think that they are.
- [56:18]
B
Well, I also think you don't have to be waiting to be bowled over by a mystical moment in order to practice maybe some kind of ordinary spirituality that tends mystical or that tries to lay the groundwork or create the conditions within which you might have a mystical experience.
- [56:40]
A
Yeah, I think you're right to be open to it. You know, that's what she was talking about. And I think obviously you need to have a spiritual practice now. Sometimes they can come out of the blue. Saint Ignatius also says that consolation without prior cause, which sort of takes us over and doesn't necessarily have to be mystical, really is something that comes directly from God. But I do think that you have to kind of lay the foundation or the groundwork for it. Right. You have to be living in a, in general, a life that's open to it. But that's a great question. And that's one of the reasons I was trying to drill down with her in those, that definition.
- [57:19]
C
Sure.
- [57:20]
B
Well, one of the other things that she is remarkably open to is the experience of grief. She talked about losing her daughter Jenny, when Jenny was just 14. And she had this beautiful line where she says that she didn't want to turn away from her child even in her death. And it made me think about the Paschal mystery, about Christ's own suffering and how reluctant I am in my day, to day life to suffer or to endure any kind of discomfort or pain. So what as Christians, are we called to in relation to that Paschal mystery or to just the, the experience of suffering?
- [58:02]
A
Well, I think that, Maggie, you're pointing out the sort of template for that which is the Paschal mystery. And I think the first thing is to recognize that all of us suffer. You suffer, I suffer, Mirabai suffered, Jesus suffered. So there is a, an invitation to participate with Jesus and just with the rest of humanity, you know, in suffering. I think acknowledging it is very important. But I liked what she said about that kind of both and that she was able to grieve and look, be sad. Right. To be sad about the death of her daughter, but in a sense find love and as she said, devotion to her daughter and I would say devotion to God at the same time. Right. So it's not simply sadness for the Christian. There's a sense that God is in there somewhere. I also think that people make meaning from their suffering in their own ways. I liked what she said a lot about rejecting the kind of easy, you've heard them all. I'm sure the platitudes that we hear.
- [59:09]
B
You know, in response to loss.
- [59:12]
A
Yeah. And why don't. I'm sure, can you name some of the platitudes that you've heard and I'll name some of mine.
- [59:18]
B
Oh, they're in a better place. You know, even, like you love them well, while you had them.
- [59:26]
A
It's God's plan.
- [59:28]
B
God's plan. God's will in this. You can't see the meaning of it now, but it will be revealed to you in time.
- [59:35]
A
Yeah. You know, the irony is about all these platitudes. Most of them are true, Right. These, the people who are we loved, who are dead, are in a better place. This is in some way part of God's mysterious plan, right? It is a mystery. I think the problem though, is that when they're imposed on people, you know, like, I think sometimes people can come to that realization on their own and we can accompany them in that. But to kind of short circuit that and then just sort of dump it on people, I think is unhelpful. So, for example, you know, my dad died in 2001 and I think he is in a better place. I do. Right, sure. But if someone just said that to me, you know, five seconds after he died, it would have seemed a little hollow.
- [60:27]
B
Well, it would have also bypassed your own experience.
- [60:30]
C
Right.
- [60:30]
B
And that's what she does so well is she is willing to sit with that pain and suffering or that grief and loss without trying to circumvent it.
- [60:40]
A
Yeah. And I think that people really need to do it on their own timetable. But. But I was so grateful that she was able to. To join us and to be with us and to be her whole self with us. So I want to thank Mirabai for being on our podcast. Tracy for that. Great question. And of course, to Maggie Van Dorn.
- [61:02]
B
Thanks, Jim.
- [61:04]
A
The Spiritual Life with Father James Martin is a production of America Media. It's produced by Maggie Van Dorn and our executive producer, Sebastian Gomes. We recorded in the William J. Loshert studio in New York City with the production assistance of Kevin Christopher Robles, Grace Linehan and Grace Copps. Our audio engineer is Noah Levinson. Adam Buchmuller edited the video of this episode which will be made available on America Media's YouTube channel. The theme score is courtesy of Teddy Abrams and Nate Farrington. You can follow me across the social media as JamesMartinsJ. Also, please help us grow the show by leaving a five star review on your favorite podcast platform. If you love the spiritual life, then we have even more to offer you on America magazine's website. Keep informed and inspired about our Catholic faith. Become a subscriber today@americamagazine.org subscribe or click the link in the the Show Notes. Thanks so much and God bless you.