Loading summary
Transcript84 lines
- [00:00]
Jim Finley
You're listening to a podcast by the center for Action and Contemplation. To learn more, visit cac.org greetings, I'm Jim Finley.
- [00:11]
Kirsten Oates
And I'm Kirsten Oates.
- [00:13]
Jim Finley
Welcome to Turning to the Mystics.
- [00:24]
Kirsten Oates
Welcome, everyone to season 11 of turning to the Mystics. And I'm here with Jim to introduce our new mystic for season 11. Welcome, Jim.
- [00:34]
Jim Finley
Yes, glad to start up again, share these insights with the folks.
- [00:40]
Kirsten Oates
And so who is our new mystic.
- [00:41]
Jim Finley
Jim, for season 11, the new mystic is Gabriel Marcel. And as always, we'll start with who he was historically to help us better understand who he is spiritually. Gabriel Marcel was born in France in 1889, where he lived until his death in 1973. He was a bit of a prodigy, both as a musician and as a composer and as a playwright, but he was mainly known for his philosophy. And that's what we're going to be looking at. You know, from the very beginning of the Turning to the Mystics series of mystics we've been exploring. I've been focusing on the classical text of the Christian mystics that I was introduced to in the monastery and have guided and sustained me over the years. But in the previous session, we branched out and for the first time turned to a poet as mystic at T.S. eliot, Four Quartets. We'll be doing more poets in the future to Emily Dickinson and others. And now we're branching out even more. We're turning to a philosopher as a mystic, like a mystically awakened philosopher turning to Marcel's insights, guiding us in our spiritual path.
- [01:55]
Kirsten Oates
Wonderful. Jim, can you, for those of us who perhaps aren't familiar with philosophy, could you give us just a high level overview of what a philosopher does, what their focus is?
- [02:07]
Jim Finley
So we're talking about philosophy in the big picture. So Plato, Aristotle, these different philosophers down through the ages into the current age. Marcel, a philosopher is someone who shares with us an understanding of what the meaning of life is with the meaning of reality. What's it mean to exist? What's it mean to be real? So the philosopher doesn't say, for example, we know that truth is important. A philosopher explores what is truth where it isn't just the goodness is important in the will we turn toward the good. But a philosopher would kind of tease out and bring out into the open ways of understanding what goodness is. That's philosophy. So Gabriel Marcel is a philosopher, and so he's going to share with us a meaning of what he sees to be really what it means to be a person and how that relates onto what's the meaning of being, what's it mean to be philosophia, like the love of wisdom.
- [03:09]
Kirsten Oates
And you wouldn't say every philosopher was a mystic. And so how does it pair together that someone might be a philosopher and a mystic?
- [03:17]
Jim Finley
No. Yeah, there's different branches of philosophy. So some aren't mystical, like pragmatism, for example. Gabor Marcel was often linked up with the existential thought of France. Existentialism, exploring the meaning of existence. So although the father of existentialism is Soren Kierkegaard, who is a Christian, devout Christian, there's a strong also in contemporary French philosophy, a strong vein of atheism. So Jean Paul Sartre, for example, was an atheist, and he thought the meaning of life is nausea, that there is no meaning. He wrote a book called no Exit. And it's the persons of the Trinity realizing they're each other's hell and they're trapped with each other forever. Oh, dear, that's already mystical. So he kind of parted from this existential identity, and he referred more to himself as a neo Socratic philosopher. And what Socrates is. When you look at the dialogues of Socrates, what he would do is he would engage in a dialogue with someone about, say, what is goodness? And they would begin by assuming that they knew what goodness was. And by the end of the dialogue, they realized they didn't know at all what goodness was. But in realizing that, they started to understand what goodness is. So that's what Marcel does. He kind of unravels assumptions to bring us to a clarity that when we hear it, it rings true. So that's the tone of Marcel's philosophy.
- [04:45]
Kirsten Oates
Wonderful. Well, Jim, tell us a little bit more about his life.
- [04:48]
Jim Finley
Gabriel Marcel, he studied his graduate work in philosophy, but he wasn't a philosopher in the sense of the academy, in a typical sense. He was not a tenured professor on campus at a unit university, but he was more of a loner, like, thinking alone, apart to himself, but often invited to universities around the world to lecture. And a lot of philosophers were in very serious dialogue with him. They saw the relevance of his thought. He was married. They had one adopted son. His wife would travel with him to these different lecture places. He wrote a little essay on his spiritual autobiography, and it noted that when he was very young, his mother died. And his mother was very influential in his life. He was very close to his mother. So very typical of the kind of insights of Marcel, the kind of things he says, thinking of his mother. He said, it's amazing how Present a dead person can be. And so he has those kind of poetic insights into what's most fundamental in life itself. He's always going back to the fundamental experiences in helping us explore the abyss, like depth, fundamental experiences of the day by day.
- [06:03]
Kirsten Oates
Sounds like he paid a lot of attention to relationships, the relationship with his mother, with his wife, with his son.
- [06:10]
Jim Finley
Yes. He was very big on what he referred to as intersubjectivity. We all are distinct, but we're all distinct princesses interwoven with the presences of each other as a communal oneness with one another, which he is then going to see as a communal oneness with the mystery of being. What she's going to see is ultimately is a oneness with the mystery of God. So he's very big on interconnectedness because one of the marks of being is communion. You realize you're subsisting in a communion or in a communal oneness. We would say in Christian terms, echoing Thomas Merton, he says that when Christ says I and I say I, it's the same I, but the order of grace and love. And that's very Marcellian. He's always looking towards how do we walk in the sense of communion. Our fear and confusion is. We lose that sense of communion that's always there. We fall into the fear of being isolated and alone and so on. So where does aloneness turn into solitude, and what is the communion of solitude? Marcel's mind works along those lines.
- [07:21]
Kirsten Oates
So, Jim, when Marcel began his career, and for quite a period of his career as a philosopher, he wasn't a person of faith. He was an atheist, in fact. Is that right?
- [07:32]
Jim Finley
I don't think he was an atheist. I think during all the time he was writing this philosophy we'll be exploring, he was not personally. He didn't personally find religious faith relevant.
- [07:43]
Kirsten Oates
Okay.
- [07:44]
Jim Finley
He didn't feel moved or inclined to. Later, he became Catholic and remained a devout Catholic throughout his life. And matter of fact, other philosophers accused him of promoting Christianity in the name of philosophy. And he said, but I came to these insights before I became Catholic. So this is really finding the presence of the spiritual outside the world religions. Okay, and another key thing then also, that's how we understand New Age spirituality. It's a spiritual quest outside the world religions. You're spiritual, but you're not identifying with. You're not Jewish or Christian or Buddhist, whatever. But. So the issue would be this, though, to what extent does the spiritual path outside the religions, to what extent is it infinite? That is, to what extent does it reach that we are the manifested presence of the infinite. And Marcel does that, and he does it outside of religion.
- [08:42]
Kirsten Oates
Then did religion enhance his journey into that?
- [08:47]
Jim Finley
I think what it did is it affirmed the relevance of his thought and saw how faith, then is the revelation, the personal revelation of God being revealed through the scriptures of this mystery of being, this mystery of life revealed in the Christian dispensation through Christ Jesus our Lord. Through Jesus. And so I. I think that's why it spoke to him so deeply, so that the Eucharist and the liturgy and scripture, the life of devotional sincerity, and even says that about the life of the philosopher. This wisdom, he said, first, it's found in a presence. In the presence, he said, a certain attitude must be brought to the portals of thought. It's humility. And the wisdom is the wisdom that's born in being, stabilized in humility, never humiliated, but endlessly humbled by the unfolding of the mystery. So that language is so resonant with the religious sensitivity. Yes. So when he became Kathy, he saw it as a way to celebrate that or a way to a community that.
- [09:54]
Kirsten Oates
Expresses that, to live into that humility and community and communion. Some of the elements that he found. Yeah, beautiful. What a beautiful way to explore alongside Marcel, who came into his faith through this deep study of reality and existence.
- [10:12]
Jim Finley
In turning to Marcel, I want to. In my approach, I want to stay true to the spirit of the Turning to the Mystics podcast. By that I mean this. I'm going to feel very free in exploring in very explicit terms the mystical dimensions of Marcel's thought. There will, in many cases be very present but implicit in his thought. As a philosopher, he gets more and more explicitly mystical as he goes along. Because he explores being, he realizes that it's being is ultimately understood as infinite intelligence and infinite love, and that being is infinite and eternal, and ultimately it's a God. But still, he's looking at it philosophically as the mystery of being. But I'm going to keep weaving it in to explicitly mystical language that the listeners are used to. Likewise, when we do the coaching session, I want to do a session on how to pray with Marcel. Like, what would it be to practice lectio divina, meditation, prayer, and sitting in contemplation under the guidance of Gabriel Marcel. And that way, we'll be of one accord in the spirit of the podcast.
- [11:20]
Kirsten Oates
Lovely. Just to say that back to you, Jim, that just like with T.S. eliot's poetry, we could have studied that from many different angles as a literary work, as the way he expanded on the poetic rhythms, but you honed in on the mystical aspects of it. And so you're going to do the same with Marcel.
- [11:39]
Jim Finley
That's exactly right. And using T.S. eliot as an example, he has amazing of very contemporary insights into the nature of time, runs through the whole thing. Then he starts looking though where time opens out upon eternity, like the eternality, like that which never passes away, ribbon through everything, endlessly passing away, ends up getting more and more. And he explicitly ties that in then with Christ. And so Marcel does the very same thing, but in his philosophy he doesn't explicitly tie it in with his, eventually with his Catholic faith, but he ties it in with being is ultimately realized to be infinite and eternal and ultimately to be God come to through a mystical illumination of the nature of reality itself outside of religion. I think it's kind of refreshing. It kind of sees the universality of the presence of God that the religions bear witness to. The presence of God overflows religious belief systems and overflows into reality itself. Passage of time, the sun moving across the sky. What does it mean to love? What does it mean to die? To see the divinity of the immediacy of these foundational things.
- [12:53]
Kirsten Oates
And that's really how you define a mystic. Jim is someone who experiences that presence in reality. And so for Marcel, once he had that in depth experience, he saw that the Christian language and symbolism lined up with what he experienced.
- [13:08]
Jim Finley
Yes, and I'm saying this too about what we're saying, who mystics are. He says, for example, he's talking about being, the fullness of being. And he says we really can't define it because it's not categorizable. We can't categorize that which is the source of all categorizations. He says, so really it's given to us not as a thought, but it's given to us as a presence. We need to look at the moments we become more deeply present. And we experience that we're somehow present in a way that we're subsisting in a boundaryless presence. So we have to shift into that meditative mode of consciousness. So he's going to say we all have little fleeting moments of presence. And we might say in those moments for a momentary mystic mystics are those for whom that the divinity of the immediacy of what is is an underlying habitual state of sensitivity. And that's what he's leading us to see. He's gonna say, well, now that we've borne witness to this mystical dimension of presence and we can see how elusive it is. What are the ways? What's the path talk? What's the path along which we can be habitually established in the divinity of presence? And that's where he follows the teachings of the mystics. They first bear witness to the divinity of what is. But then what are the signs that we're being lured toward? A longing to abide in that oneness. So feeding like limbs. And then what's the path along like the way of a pilgrim. See, what's the path along? And this is just what Marcel is doing. And the three ways he explores is fidelity, hope, and love. He looks very deeply at the fidelity dimensions of our life and how by exploring it and surrendering to it, we can be habitually established and ever more mystical sensitivity to the divinity of the immediacy of standing up and sitting down, of life itself.
- [15:11]
Kirsten Oates
So just like with many of the mystics, you talk about these vision aspects and then the path aspects.
- [15:18]
Jim Finley
That's right.
- [15:18]
Kirsten Oates
The vision being like a worldview, and then the path being how we might experientially find ourselves entering into that.
- [15:27]
Jim Finley
Yes. And I want to say something here in my first session that I'll be doing alone. I'll be laying out the division aspects of Marcel's thought. Like, what's life look like through awakened eyes, the mystical worldview. And then we're going to move from there and pointing out the ways that Marcel notices, ways that we all fleetingly sense that ourself. And we're like a momentary mystic in moments of awakened presence where we become more present. So then he says, but notice how elusive it is. Like, it's very fleeting. It comes and goes. So then he switches into path talk. What is the way of life, or the path along which we become ever more habitually established in this boundaryless presence is presencing itself as our presence, the presence of all things. And he does that by exploring the mystery of fidelity, the mystery of hope, and the mystery of love as three modalities of this path of mystical awakening. He's going to describe it in such a way we can tell he's putting words to what we've experienced, and he's helping us be more sensibly established in that. And one of the themes that I'll be exploring, because it's the heart of his teaching. I want to say it briefly here, to just say it. He says he starts out, he wants us to understand the nature between the problematic and mysterious dimension of our lives. And the problematic dimension are the problems that we face. That are dualistically other than us. You know, so, for example, the fact that my car won't start is a problem, or the fact that some kind of insects are destroying my vegetable garden is a problem. Or there's a mathematical question like, how do I get the answer? So what we look for in the problematic, which is the realm of science, we look for a method to help us solve the problem, and then when we solve the problem, we move on to the next problem. But he says, a mystery is different because when we turn towards what's mysterious, we're turning towards that which includes us. So when I ask, like, what does it mean to be a human being? It's always me as a human being asking, what is it to be a human being? When I ask, what is consciousness? It's me and my consciousness asking, what is consciousness? What is love? It's me and my capacity for love asking, what is love? What is death? And so being human and consciousness and love and death aren't problems, they're mysteries. But here's the key to Marcel's thought. It doesn't mean it includes us as everything reverts back to our subjective opinion, our subjective feeling. He means the opposite. He means it includes us in that we're included in infinity of being itself as its portal or as its manifestation as this thing. And that's the mystical part of ourselves thought. He says, I'm carried along by a mystery that transcends me and endlessly includes me as it manifests itself as me and one with the boundarylessness. And how do I come to the realization of that and how do I live in that? That's what's mystical about Marcel's thought.
- [18:41]
Kirsten Oates
Wow.
- [18:42]
Jim Finley
Yeah.
- [18:43]
Kirsten Oates
Yeah. I just need to take a pause there. That was beautiful. Very inspiring. So it really touched my heart deeply when you. I'm part of something that transcends me.
- [18:53]
Jim Finley
But includes me, always includes me, because I'm woven into it, woven into me, carrying myself out, being endlessly identified with that which is endless.
- [19:06]
Kirsten Oates
Yeah.
- [19:06]
Jim Finley
So this is where he goes into his themes that were eternal, that were boundaryless. And you can tell by Marcel's thought this is where we'll be going very slow, because you can't just, like tsl, you can't skim read Gabriel Marcel.
- [19:20]
Kirsten Oates
Yeah.
- [19:21]
Jim Finley
So we kind of like the medium is the message. We have to speak of it in an unhurried, poetic, invitational way that as the people are listening, they get a sense. It's a way of putting words to what their awakening heart knows is true. It helps them to be more established in sensitivity to this dimension of themselves. And the day by day turning to the mystics will continue in a moment.
- [19:57]
How do we become a loving presence for ourselves and others in an uncertain world? Explore a practice centered spirituality at our upcoming live online event called How Can Contemplative Christianity Help Me? Join us Sunday, May 18 with hosts Brian McLaren, James Finley, Carmen Acevedo Butcher and guest Pico Liar. Learn more@cac.org contemplative that's c a c.org c o n t E M P L A T I V E Even.
- [20:28]
Kirsten Oates
The way you describe the difference between a problem and mystery helps me understand why you have to pause and go slow on the side of mystery. Because the problem is objective. You know, it has cause and effect. There's a solution that can be stepped through, it's linear. But then mystery takes us into a whole different experience.
- [20:52]
Jim Finley
Yeah, and another key insight to Marcel, I think, where he's always trying to help us see this practically is he talks about primary and secondary reflection. So he says primary reflection is reflecting on what's objectively real and quantifiable as other than us. My car won't start all that. Primary reflection. Secondary reflection is the reflection of realizing the inadequacy of primary reflection by being experientially grounded in that which transcends that which can be answered as a presence. And so the very way of listening to him, we can follow him. By listening to his voice, he's moving us into a secondary reflection. Otherwise we couldn't follow him. He's not defining anything because it's not definable. He's not explaining it. It's not explainable because there's no it to it. It's not an it. It's the infinite abyss, like reality of every it. I think what Marcel's doing also, I often think he's putting words to things that in our own awakening heart we know is true, but we tend to forget. And he's helping us remember and be more present to this unitive mystery that alone is ultimately real and we are its manifestation.
- [22:04]
Kirsten Oates
I'm curious about. You said he uses in terms of the path, fidelity, hope and love, which sounds very similar to faith, hope and love. But you said he doesn't put a Christian spin on it.
- [22:16]
Jim Finley
Yes, on purpose. He deliberately is avoiding the theological language of Paul, like faith, hope and love. Of these faithful, love is the greatest. So he's removing it from its revelation in scripture. Faith, hope and love. And he's removing it to how Is the mystery of fidelity realized in the depth dimensions of life itself? How is hope realized in the dimensions of life itself? For example, he's going to start exploring how hope is not hoping for something that might happen psychologically. Hope is hoping that we'll be ever more experientially grounded in what alone is ultimately already happening is hope. So that's what he does. And then when he turns to love, especially where he turns on that we're eternal, you know you've learned to love someone when you've seen in them that which is too beautiful to die. And you know you learn to love yourself when you see that in you that is too beautiful to die. So that's the tone of Marcel's thought.
- [23:19]
Kirsten Oates
Hearing you reflect on him. There's a lot of themes you've pulled out in the mystics across our seasons. So Gabriel's obviously been a big influence on you, Jim, in the way you approach mystics.
- [23:30]
Jim Finley
He really has. Yes, he has. Very much so. So, for example, you know when St. John of the Cross says to have no light to guide you except the one that burns in your heart, that's very beautiful. And the light that burns in your heart is the light of God's love, see, shining out from your heart. And that's the light of Gabriel, Marcel. It's the light that's shining out from his heart. So as we listen to him, it starts shining out from ours. And so you can see those, the threads of continuity or resonances. And that's what I mean by the mystical dimensions of Marcel's thought.
- [24:04]
Kirsten Oates
Did you study philosophy in the monastery?
- [24:07]
Jim Finley
Yes. I should say this too, is that when I was in the monastery, I was first introduced to Marcel. Thomas Burton would speak to the novices. He would mention Marcel in different people. But I also had an opportunity for two years to study philosophical theology of the Middle Ages from Daniel Walsh. And Daniel Walsh got his doctoral dissertation in philosophy from Liten Gillson, who was a famous Catholic philosopher in the Middle Ages. So I got to sit very deeply study with the Neoplatonic Augustinian Franciscan philosophical theology, the primacy of love, of Duns, Scotus and Bonaventure and so on, but then also the Aristotelian philosophy of Thomas Aquinas and the Summa Theologica. And that metaphysical language also had a very deep effect on me. So when I read Marcel, he's in that how do we put words to what it means to be? And also we'd say this another way of saying it. This, for example, is that God is not a being that exists. It isn't. We believe in some invisible being that exists. Rather, God is the word that we use for the infinity of being itself. Being the infinity of being itself. And ultimately we're not either, because we're subsisting in that. That's what it means to be a person. So that kind of metaphysical language, for some reason it just is always felt very. I like it. And I think it's implicitly present in deep psychotherapy too, in the depths of psychotherapy. It's like a language for the undefinable, unexplainable gift of yourself. It's precious in your brokenness. And really, it's the unveiling of your being. It's the unveiling of your presence.
- [26:01]
Kirsten Oates
So those philosophers you mentioned that you studied for those two years, they were explicitly Christian, but then when you turned to Marcel, you found that implicit same mystical depth.
- [26:11]
Jim Finley
That's exactly right. Yeah, that's exactly right. And we'll be turning to other philosophers too, like Karl Jaspers, for example, as a philosopher. And so Karl Jaspers says the known is always accompanied by the unknown. He said we might be tempted to think if we just keep knowing more and more and more we can overcome the unknown. But something in us rebels against us. And he calls the unknown the all encompassing. And the all encompassing is the humility in which we have clarity with the known. He's talking as a philosopher, but you can see that the spiritual resonances and the depth and the beauty of that kind of language. And Marcel's like that.
- [26:53]
Kirsten Oates
Yeah, yeah. It's beautiful to have this different approach because I know as we've studied the different mystics and then the poet T.S. eliot, some kind of mystical language just resonates better with certain people, doesn't it?
- [27:08]
Jim Finley
Yes, it does.
- [27:09]
Kirsten Oates
So you love philosophy. It's very resonant for you?
- [27:12]
Jim Finley
For me, that's right. And later on, as we keep going, I wanna look at the mystical traditions of all the great world's religions of Judaism. Deep study of Torah and Kabbalah, you know, the deep study of Hinduism. Namaste, I am that. The deep study of the Buddha turning the wheel of the Dharma. What he realized on the night of his enlightenment. And how can we realize what the Buddha realized this way? And so. And so we're going to be looking also these different languages of the universality of this mystical dimension, of the immediacy of ourselves. It's wisdom traditions. And so each listener will listen, and some of it won't speak to Them at all. I mean, teach their own. A certain one that doesn't speak to you. Somebody else kind of goes, wow. But when you go wow with someone, they don't. Not for them. It shows you it's universally personal. But it's good to just be receptively open to all these voices, because if you really listen, there's a kind of a musical quality that runs through all of them.
- [28:12]
Kirsten Oates
Yes.
- [28:12]
Jim Finley
And I think we're trying to tune into that and stay with that.
- [28:16]
Kirsten Oates
That's the beauty of staying with you, Jim, across the seasons, because you kind of resonate at that same note. And even if we've discovered that the mystic's not for us going forward, I think there's always something to get from each one. Another angle of your understanding.
- [28:31]
Jim Finley
I want to add something else, too, as a clarifying note. These basic themes of Marcel, they're found throughout all of his writings. And so there's a book by Kenneth Gallagher called the Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel, who himself is a gifted philosopher. And so what he did is he went through all those writings and brought them into a succinct order in a single book. And Gabriel Marcel wrote the foreword to his writings and endorsed it and said Gallagher's. This is it. So what we're always trying to do is to make these. Without watering these teachings down, to make them as accessible as possible. So I'll be very carefully following Gallagher's.
- [29:13]
Kirsten Oates
So that's the main book you'll be using for this season.
- [29:15]
Jim Finley
Yeah. Cause I'll be using his sequence. And also then when he quotes Marcel, it'll be in the context of that sequence. And I'm doing it for those who are. A lot of people won't be inclined, but those who are so inclined can get Gallagher's book.
- [29:31]
Kirsten Oates
Yes.
- [29:31]
Jim Finley
Yeah. It's called the Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel and Kenneth T. Gallagher. The edition that I have is Cluny Press, Providence, Rhode Island. We'll be posting this or clarifying it for people. And 2020, I think it came out. Likewise, when I go through quoting, I always give the page number. In this edition of Gallagher, the other work that I'll be using primarily is Gabriel Marcel's own essay on the Ontological Mystery, meaning the mystery of being, that the self embodied and the Ontological mystery is the first chapter of his book called the Philosophy of Existentialism. And the Philosophy of Existentialism was reissued under a new title, the Philosophy of Existence. And so I'll be quoting also from that and giving the page numbers in that edition. And again, the Philosophy of Existence is Cluny Press Providence. So it'd be the Ontological Mystery of Marcel in the Philosophy of Existence and the Philosophy of Gabor Marcel by Kenneth Gallagher. Those are the two main texts, but I'll be referring to several others, but kind of more in passing. But always give the text and the title and the author and so on. So those who care to pursue it, trying to make it as accessible and simple as possible, they can get a hold of Gallagher and sit down with it and get a cup of herb tea and settle in, you know what I mean?
- [31:05]
Kirsten Oates
Sounds good. Sounds very good.
- [31:07]
Jim Finley
But what we're trying to do here is, without watering it down, illuminate it. See, to put a language to this, it's very simple, actually. Then once you get used to it, if you're drawn to do, can be a kind of lectio divina, to slowly sit with the obscurity of a text and underlying it as almost a kind of a meditatio. If you're drawn to it, it's going to teach its own.
- [31:31]
Kirsten Oates
It's reminiscent to me of Meister Eckart, as I read Gallagher and Meister Eckart. It's got a similar kind of sense to it.
- [31:40]
Jim Finley
That's a very good insight. See, because notice in St John of the Cross, he gives a certain way to pray in passage through a dark night. Notice in Teresa of Avila, she gives a certain way to pray as you enter the fourth mansion. Notice in a ladder of monks, Guigo ii, he has a certain way to pray. With Eckhart, there's no way to pray.
- [32:02]
Kirsten Oates
Right.
- [32:04]
Jim Finley
Because what he does is he teaches a path of detachment, which meaning, don't have closure in any thought about anything at all. Don't reject anything, but just know that. Don't rest there as if it's enough. And as you learn to be released from your dependence on thinking, a brighter light starts shining to existence itself. The birth of the word in the soul, in life itself. And Marcel is very much like that. It's true. Merton was very much like that too. Merton never offers a way to practice contemplation. He gives insights into it, but mainly he's concerned about the way of life, of how do we taste the divinity of the rhythms of existence itself. And so Merton and Eckhart and Marcel, you see that same thread kind of running and others as well.
- [32:54]
Kirsten Oates
And you said Merton was the one that introduced you to Marcel.
- [32:58]
Jim Finley
Yeah, he'd give talks to the novices and he would mention St. Augustine and different people. So it would always be St. Marcel. But it wasn't until I studied metaphysics with Dan Walsh, and he would start talking about these medieval philosophers as well as contemporary philosophers. And he spoke so highly of Marcel. So then when I got Marcel and started reading him, I was so moved by how beautiful his mind is. I just thought what a stunning presence Marcel is. And I've been reading him ever since, over the years.
- [33:30]
Kirsten Oates
I love that story from your memoir where you talked about how you never thought of yourself as intelligent, and then you started studying philosophy and metaphysics, and your brain just lit up with understanding and excitement. Yeah.
- [33:43]
Jim Finley
You know, it's interesting. I was 18 at the time. It's really interesting when a person discovers a gifted dimension of themselves they didn't know existed. You know, when they first light up about music or dance or poetry. You know what I mean? Where mathematics, like, they light up inside, like something like lights up. And that's what it was for me. And then I merged. See, the metaphysic and the mystical were woven into each other simultaneously. And it's that how they each mirror each other was really kind of foundational for me, along with all the world religions and mystical lineages. And then later, I saw it as the depth dimension of healing. As a psychotherapist, that is the depth dimension of the healing encounter. I think this way.
- [34:28]
Kirsten Oates
It's one of the reasons I'm excited to study this alongside you, Jim, is just knowing that about your life and how this language awakened you to this aspect of yourself. Yeah. You knew someone who met Marcel?
- [34:43]
Jim Finley
Yes, there was a woman who came to one of my retreats. She had moved to France, and she didn't know French. She just moved to France from England, I think. And Marcel invite people once a week to come to his living room at night, to sit together in a circle, an intimate setting. She was invited to one of the professors to sit in on those evenings. And even though she didn't understand a word of Marcel, being in his presence was so moving to her. So she learned French. So she gave me three volumes of Marcel's writings in French. I was studying French for a while, but I never stayed with it. But I was so touched by how moved she was by his presence. And I think with all these mystics who, when we read them in a sincere way, you sense the presence of Marcel. That's why I say, who was he historically, to help understand who he is spiritually, because his deathless presence is in the beauty of his voice. You know, it goes right to our heart. It speaks to us it's perennial.
- [35:50]
Kirsten Oates
One of the interesting things about him is that he wrote a lot of plays and they weren't popular. And he was disappointed by that.
- [35:58]
Jim Finley
Yes, he was disappointed, see, because he's so concerned about life. Yeah, because when you really look at it, Shakespeare, whatever, the powerful thing about a play, it reveals us to ourself. See, it helps us see a dimension of life about ourselves. So his plays, the characters in the play are embodying his philosophy. You know, they're embodying the sense of being, they're embodying fidelity, they're embodying. And he was disappointed that it never really caught on.
- [36:26]
Kirsten Oates
Jim, how do you think Marcel's insights help us with our modern challenges with everyday life?
- [36:33]
Jim Finley
I think this is true of the mystics too. I think it's true of Jesus and the Buddha faith. The thing about modern life, I think, and I think of the current political scene and the war in Ukraine and so on, we get so caught up in the intensity of the historical situation. It closes off experiential access to the depths, dimensions of our life this way. That's what trauma is, really. Trauma is a traumatized capacity to be experientially grounded in the abyss like depth that's sustaining us always, come what may, even up to the moment of our death, we get reduced to the outcome of the situation. Oh, how's this going to turn out? Not that it doesn't matter how it turns out, and not that we shouldn't be present as we're called to do so, to be a force toward the good as we think it should work. But it's to be grounded in an inner peace is not dependent on the outcome of our efforts because it's the peace of God on which everything depends. And I think Marcel helps re establish us in that.
- [37:39]
Kirsten Oates
Wonderful.
- [37:40]
Jim Finley
But I think also I have to say this too. Lastly, he re establishes us in that insofar as we linger in it long enough to let it soak in, see if we just read it in passing before we turn on the TV and have lunch, doesn't touch us at all. So we have to be drawn by the beauty of his language to sit with it to so can find a grounding place within ourself of that which he speaks. And I think that's how he's helpful.
- [38:08]
Kirsten Oates
Wonderful. Well, I'm excited to linger on Marcel with you this season, Jim, and I'm sure our listeners will be also. And so what a great introduction. And we'll put the details about the books. You'll be using in the show notes so that if anyone wants to read along, they can get the books. And I think that's it for our first introduction. Thank you. Dorothy and Corey in the background and Vanessa, now we have some additional support. And Jim, thank you so much. I'm excited to do this season with you.
- [38:46]
Jim Finley
Yeah, me too.
- [38:53]
Kirsten Oates
Thank you for listening to this episode of Turning to the Mystics, a podcast created by the center for Action and Contemplation. We're planning to do episodes that answer your questions, so if you have a question, please email us@podcastsac.org or send us a voicemail. All of this information can be found in the Show Notes. We'll see you again soon.
- [39:25]
Jim Finley
Do you feel called to walk a more contemplative path? The center for Action and Contemplation is an educational nonprofit supporting the journey of inner transformation. Our programs and resources will help grow your consciousness, deepen your prayer practice, and strengthen your compassionate engagement with the world. Learn more about our resources such as publications, podcasts, email series and events@www.cac.org.