0:00

You're listening to a podcast by

0:02

the Center for Action and Contemplation.

0:04

To learn more, visit cac.org. Hello,

0:08

everyone. This is Kirsten Oates, and

0:10

I'm here with James Finley, and we

0:13

want to invite you to join us

0:15

for the Turning to the Mystics virtual

0:17

retreat, December 5-8. Over

0:20

the course of those four days,

0:22

we'll be engaging in an interior

0:24

pilgrimage, mirroring the journey

0:26

laid out in the 19th century

0:28

Russian mystical text, The Way of

0:30

a Pilgrim. And kind of

0:33

wondering like what you might expect in

0:35

being on this retreat. My

0:37

hope for you would be encouraging

0:40

insights that help

0:42

you to realize you're already on this path

0:45

of longing. And also

0:47

you might receive guidance in how

0:50

to be true to it and

0:52

follow it, because it's very subtle, because

0:54

it's interior, it's in our heart. So

0:57

I would hope there would be encouragement and

1:00

a sense of guidance and inner

1:02

clarity about this path

1:04

and how to be true to it. To

1:07

surrender to the path is to surrender to God,

1:10

because He finds His way to the realm of the heart.

1:13

And the realm of the heart is that place

1:15

where our life and God's life are one. And

1:19

how do we find our way to that oneness is

1:21

hidden deep within us in an

1:24

experiential way and learn to

1:26

live by it and share it with other people day

1:28

by day. So

1:30

I look forward to our time together, prayerfully

1:33

kind of walking through these insights about

1:35

God's oneness with us in life itself.

1:38

If you'd like to

1:40

join us, please head

1:43

to cac.org/retreat to register.

1:46

We hope to see you there. Greetings.

1:52

I'm Jim Finlay. And I'm Kirsten

1:54

Oates. Welcome to

1:57

Turning to the Mysteries. Welcome,

2:06

everyone, to Season 10 of

2:08

Turning to the Mystics, where

2:10

we've been turning to T.S. Elliott and

2:13

his poetry in Four Quartets.

2:16

Today is one of our special coaching

2:18

sessions where we offer guidance

2:20

in ways you might continue on with the

2:22

text and deepen into it. In

2:25

this episode, we're going to

2:28

share a meditation that we've

2:30

pulled together using seminal passages

2:32

from Four Quartets. This

2:35

is something you can use as a meditation

2:37

or a prayer in your regular practice. I'm

2:41

going to guide you in the meditation, and

2:44

then after we've meditated together, Jim is

2:47

going to practice Lectio using

2:49

the exact same passages that are

2:52

in the meditation. He's

2:54

really going to role model how

2:56

you might deepen into this meditation

2:59

through a Lectio practice. What's

3:02

going to happen is I'm going to invite you

3:04

to settle in and get ready for a meditation.

3:08

You'll hear a little bit of music, and

3:11

then the words of the meditation will

3:13

begin. There'll be

3:15

a point in the meditation where the

3:17

bell rings, and that's an invitation to

3:19

sit in silence. The

3:21

bell will ring again. There'll be

3:24

some words to close the meditation

3:26

and then some music to finish.

3:29

If you'd like to follow along with the

3:31

meditation and have the words in front of

3:33

you, you'll find them in the show notes.

3:35

There's a document with the

3:37

meditation there. So

3:40

let's get ready to meditate together. Perhaps

3:45

just start by focusing on your breath without

3:48

just trying to change it, but

3:50

just noticing how you're breathing.

3:55

And use this as a way to settle

3:57

into your own body and your own space.

4:03

And then perhaps lowering your attention

4:05

from the busy thinking mind down

4:08

into your heart. You

4:11

could do this by looking down at your

4:14

heart, putting your hand on your

4:16

heart, and just grounding your attention

4:18

there. Now

4:23

I invite you to join me in opening

4:25

yourself to God's presence, wisdom,

4:27

and guidance. In

4:30

God we live and move and have our being.

4:33

God, please guide us and

4:36

inform us and give us clarity as

4:39

we meditate together on these words

4:42

from T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets. If

4:54

all time is eternally present, all

4:57

time is unredeemable. To

5:01

be conscious is not to be in time.

5:05

Only in time is time

5:07

conquered. Come

5:10

this way, leaving

5:12

behind being distracted from

5:14

distraction by distraction.

5:18

Come to pray where prayer has

5:20

been valid. Come

5:22

this way to be redeemed from fire

5:26

by fire. Be

5:29

still. Descend

5:31

only into the world of

5:33

perpetual solitude. Put

5:36

off sense and notion. Let

5:40

go of the need to verify, to

5:43

instruct yourself, inform

5:45

your curiosity, or report

5:47

back to anyone. Allow

5:50

but a little consciousness. Be

5:54

still and let the

5:56

dark come upon you, which shall

5:58

be the darkness of God. God. Be

6:02

still. Wait

6:04

without hope, for hope

6:07

would be for the wrong thing. Wait

6:11

without love, for

6:14

love would be of the wrong thing. Wait

6:18

without thought, for

6:20

you are not ready for thought. To

6:24

possess what you do not possess, you

6:27

must go by a way of dispossession.

6:31

What you do not know is the

6:34

only thing you know. Then

6:39

the darkness shall be

6:41

the light and the stillness

6:43

the dancing, restored

6:46

by that refining fire.

6:49

Here, the intersection of

6:51

the timeless moment, the

6:53

impossible union, a condition

6:57

of complete simplicity, where

7:01

past and future are

7:03

conquered and reconciled. Here

7:07

is where you are and nowhere,

7:09

never and always, where

7:13

time has been redeemed, and

7:16

all shall be well and

7:18

all manner of things shall be well. you

8:36

With the drawing of this love and the

8:38

voice of this calling, we

8:40

shall not cease from exploration. And

8:44

the end of all our exploring will

8:46

be to arrive where we started and

8:49

know it for the first time. And

8:52

all shall be well, and all

8:54

manner of things shall be well, and

8:56

the fire and the rose are

8:59

gone. May

9:01

it be so. Amen. So

9:29

Jim, I'm just going to invite you to share

9:32

some initial thoughts about this prayer

9:34

and meditation and how we might use it

9:36

going forward. Yes, yes,

9:38

very good. When

9:40

we read the poem, we listen to it

9:42

being read. We sense the beauty

9:45

of it. And

9:47

we can also sense that it's challenging. What

9:51

I want to do here, and I think this is

9:53

what matters most really, is

9:55

how to read the poem as

9:58

prayer, as Alexio Divina. Because

10:01

that's what counts really with all

10:03

these mystics, all these mystics teachers,

10:05

these are that way. So

10:08

what we want to do is internalize it to

10:11

help us deepen our experience

10:13

and response to God's presence in our life. And

10:16

slowly walk through it prayerfully this way. And

10:19

so what I'm going to do is share

10:21

with you what comes to me as I

10:24

sit with it. And if you're so

10:26

inclined, you could maybe take a journal,

10:28

like write it out. And

10:31

line by line, say what comes

10:33

to you. Because that's what counts as your life.

10:37

And I also want to say that in

10:40

this reflection, I'll be going faster

10:42

than we would go if we were doing it in

10:44

meditation. Because I want to just touch on a way

10:48

to approach each one that you

10:50

can consider your way to approach it. But

10:53

in real life, you just might take one point and

10:55

be with it for 20 minutes. And

10:58

Lexio then do a sitting in silence.

11:00

And so you would just be very

11:02

real and personal with it. So

11:06

I'll begin then following the

11:08

meditation of these seminal passages.

11:11

If all time is eternally present, all

11:13

time is unredeemable. And

11:17

for me, my own experience is this,

11:19

of it for me, is

11:21

in my childhood and adolescence I went through a lot of

11:23

trauma. And

11:26

furthermore, for years and years afterwards,

11:29

something would happen that would remind me, was

11:31

similar to the trauma, I'd re-experience it in

11:34

my body. So

11:36

if all time is time present, all time

11:38

is unredeemable, it's fixed. It's

11:41

said like I want to go through the rest of my life this

11:43

way. I went through a lot of therapy and I learned to be

11:45

more freed up from it. And

11:47

so the question would be, in your

11:49

own life, where has there been something

11:52

in the past that's been

11:54

painful or difficult, challenging, maybe took a

11:56

toll on you? And

11:59

it's part of who you are. And maybe in

12:01

some way it follows you around You

12:03

know some way your remembrance of it or maybe it could

12:06

be something out of your own brokenness That

12:08

you did you know hurt yourself for others. I've

12:10

done things that I know that I

12:12

did out of my brokenness Meaning

12:15

it's unredeemable like it's set this

12:17

way then to be conscious is

12:19

not to be in time But

12:23

only in time as time conquered and And

12:27

it's interesting remember in the poem. He gives

12:29

two examples Of

12:32

being conscious and really he means

12:34

falling into a state of spontaneous

12:36

meditative awareness He

12:38

talks about starts to rain you

12:40

get under the Cover of a great barber and you

12:42

hear the big drops of water falling on the leaves

12:45

or sitting in a drafty church at a

12:47

smoke fall And

12:49

so the issue would be notice sometimes

12:51

these moments are very intense As

12:55

soon as we can look back we are graced with

12:57

it when we were very young actually we can look

12:59

back It says very often they're

13:02

extremely subtle But

13:04

the point is this it's a

13:06

moment in time in

13:09

which you fell into a graced sense

13:12

of sustained attentiveness in

13:14

a certain depth of presence and Feeling

13:17

at home like a homecoming. It

13:19

was like a quietness like a

13:22

qualitative enrichment And

13:24

a moment of time beyond time Then

13:27

time reinstates its claim on you again, and

13:29

you head on So every

13:31

so often in life we go through this

13:33

way and so we're being invited I think

13:35

I've been graced with a lot of these

13:37

I think growing up for me I

13:39

just Tendency that way I guess Then

13:42

when I was in the monastery for six years

13:44

living in silence chanting the song It

13:47

was really it was almost like a

13:49

perpetual state of timeless time Really

13:52

it's so serious actually and

13:54

then in leaving the monastery too. I've always sense

13:58

that this timelessness of time So

14:01

for you would have been your moments, maybe

14:04

real subtle, maybe you haven't thought

14:06

about it for a long time. Like

14:09

your heart was grazed with something

14:11

and you rested in it for a

14:14

moment. And just to be aware, what

14:16

are the far reaching implications of that?

14:18

Because what it suggests, really,

14:20

and what this is headed for, is

14:22

the intuition that in these moments is

14:25

not something more is given, but

14:27

a curtain part and you fleetingly glimpse

14:29

to what every moment is, including

14:31

this moment. And in

14:33

that awareness, then, you realize

14:35

we're suffering from depth deprivation, skimming

14:38

over the surface of things. We're

14:41

like homesick for the

14:43

depths of ourselves. And in which God's

14:45

oneness with us is hidden. And

14:47

so what have been your, like what

14:49

have been your moments this way, like

14:52

this? Jim, I love what

14:54

you shared about your personal journey. And

14:58

it really resonates with me that if

15:00

all life is

15:02

just a continuation of more

15:05

of the bad things that occurred in my

15:07

life, whether they happened to me

15:09

or whether I did things that I regret,

15:12

or the world itself too, full

15:14

of pain and suffering, if

15:16

that's all there is, just

15:19

over and over, even my healing

15:22

is just opening me to be ready for more of the same.

15:24

And so this

15:27

idea that there's something deeper and more

15:29

trustworthy and more beautiful is

15:31

very comforting. I

15:35

do think, too, there's another piece of this, too. We

15:38

can look back to just a wonderful thing that

15:40

was in our life for a person, and it

15:42

was lost. And

15:44

you live with the loss of it this

15:46

way. And sometimes you contributed to the loss

15:49

when you look back. So that's true. There

15:51

is a kind of existential courage where you

15:53

make the best of it. But

15:55

we would hope there's something better than

15:58

this. pointing towards

16:00

that. So then

16:02

what starts to grow in us is

16:06

the desire to abide in the depths

16:08

of leadingly glimpsed. And

16:10

this is the path, that starts path talk. Because

16:13

what we feel the need to see to come this

16:15

way, what way, is the

16:17

way of leaving behind being distracted

16:20

from distraction by distraction. See,

16:22

don't distract me now at being distracted by

16:24

this, I'll be distracted by you later. So

16:27

how do we learn to be liberated from

16:29

a string of distractions and settle

16:31

into this enriched presence? And

16:34

this is where we kneel in prayer, kneel

16:36

where prayer has been valid. And

16:39

so what prayer then is, prayer

16:41

then is we can freely choose

16:43

a stance that

16:46

offers the least resistance to

16:49

being overtaken by the timelessness and

16:52

the eternality of time in the presence

16:54

of God. And

16:56

so we kneel where prayer has been valid. And for us,

16:58

it's our living room. You know

17:00

what I mean? It's that our, hopefully our home is the

17:02

place where prayer has been valid

17:04

because we live there as a

17:06

person of prayer. And so we

17:08

come this way where prayer has been valid. He's

17:12

gonna be giving us a set

17:14

of guidelines for interior prayer. And

17:17

it's at two different levels. One

17:20

level is Lectio Divina,

17:23

meditation and prayer. And

17:26

Lectio Divina is sustained attentiveness.

17:29

We would take the words of T.S. Eliot as

17:31

a mystic teacher. And we

17:34

would hear God's voice speaking

17:36

through us through T.S. Eliot's words.

17:39

It God's personally inviting us to

17:41

be liberated from the tyranny of time

17:43

this way. And that's our Lectio, that

17:46

attentiveness. Then the metatatio,

17:48

then we reflect upon it.

17:51

See journal it out, we have to sign off on it.

17:54

How does this pertain to me? Like

17:56

what sense do I make of this? Or what

17:58

is it I don't understand about this? You

18:01

kind of blend it into yourself

18:04

and your reflective mind that's given to you

18:06

in this silence. Then

18:08

the prayers from the heart center,

18:10

desire, help me with this. We

18:12

ask God, I can't be

18:14

closer to you without you guiding

18:17

me to be closer to you. Or I can't

18:20

realize I'm already infinitely one with you

18:22

without you revealing to me that you're

18:25

already infinitely one with me. Help me

18:27

this way. The

18:30

second phase is where in

18:32

this reflection it reaches such

18:35

a point of quiet sincerity.

18:39

It falls into contemplation. That is, it

18:41

falls into wordlessness. It

18:43

falls into kind of a oneness,

18:46

a quiet oneness in

18:48

which in some subtle way we

18:51

in God mutually disappear as dualistically other

18:53

than each other. And we're resting. It's

18:55

a foretaste of heaven. And

18:57

so this happens quite naturally. And by the

19:00

way, we're doing Lectio now. We're doing Lectio

19:02

now together. And

19:04

each one of us in our own way,

19:06

I know I am, we're already, there's kind

19:08

of an inner metatatio going on. That's because

19:10

we're reflecting on this. See, how is this

19:13

given to you? How is it given to

19:15

me? And the prayer.

19:17

So this is a kind of a language that embodies

19:19

that. And it

19:22

also then embodies a kind

19:24

of falling into the silence. But there's

19:26

another way to look at it, too. I'm thinking of chanting the

19:28

Psalms in the monastery. Sometimes

19:30

it's not so much the silence, but

19:33

rather the rhythm of the words

19:35

is itself are words that are

19:37

beyond what words can say. So

19:40

it isn't the words of the poem

19:42

or the prayer or the Psalms are

19:44

interrupting the silence, the falling into the

19:46

silence, but rather this

19:48

logos, this word, this rhythmic flow

19:51

and pattern. I think

19:53

when we read these mystics out loud, they talk

19:55

that way. I mean, their language has

19:57

this, it follows this kind of...

52:00

contradiction. And in the impasse

52:02

and sequential thought, a deeper

52:04

awareness flows free. Yeah.

52:07

And so it breaks the thread of sequential

52:09

conclusions. And again, for each of us, we

52:11

can ask ourselves, where have we experienced that?

52:14

You know, like this paradox where we kind

52:17

of stopped short and held

52:20

in it, break a sequential

52:22

thought, a light shined through

52:24

insight with this awareness. Never

52:27

and always where time has been redeemed.

52:30

And this is the redemption of time.

52:32

See, time is redeemable. It's just so it

52:34

comes back to Bert Norton in the very

52:36

beginning. And then he goes

52:38

again, Julian of Norwich, and all shall be

52:41

well, and all manner of things shall

52:43

be well. And again, I think

52:45

my sense is this, the

52:47

present moment already is infinitely

52:49

better than well, because

52:52

it's God. But all

52:54

shall be well, and that with God's grace, I

52:56

shall realize it. And

52:58

I believe it because I'm already starting to realize it

53:01

now. So it isn't just

53:03

that I'm going to realize it when I die of

53:06

through all of eternity. But now

53:08

in the timeless eternity of time, in

53:10

this very eternality of this moment,

53:13

makes it celestial, makes it

53:15

kind of like eternal life. So we can be

53:17

so surrendered over and

53:20

transformed in dying to

53:22

everything less than God, that when our biological

53:24

death does happen, nothing will happen. I mean,

53:26

something will happen. But if we've

53:29

already died completely to everything less than love,

53:31

and since love is eternal. And

53:33

so it's like birth and death

53:35

kind of intermingled and transcended in

53:38

this contemplative awareness, all

53:40

manner of things shall be well. And

53:43

then we put in a closing for the

53:45

prayer, and it's really a reminder

53:47

of what you often say about, you know,

53:50

that we hope we don't break the thread.

53:52

And this poem, I think,

53:54

speaks to that so beautifully, that at the

53:56

end of our time of silence, that this

53:58

love continues to draw. draw us forward, that

54:01

we try not to break the thread with

54:03

that love, with the drawing of this love

54:06

and the voice of this calling, we shall

54:08

not cease from exploration. Yeah,

54:10

just it reminds me of how we try not to

54:12

break the thread, but it always breaks

54:14

on our end, but it never breaks with

54:16

God. Exactly, that's it. Our confidence is in

54:19

that. Yeah. Exactly.

54:22

And at the end of all, our

54:24

exploring will be to arrive where

54:26

we started and to know it for the

54:28

first time. And I feel like

54:30

this is where going through this poem, you're

54:32

repeating some of the things you've said

54:35

throughout this season, but each

54:37

time I hear them, it's almost like I'm hearing

54:39

them a little deeper, almost like

54:41

for the first time I find something

54:43

new in them. Yeah, it's like the

54:45

refrains of a song. That's why repeating

54:48

ourselves is not redundant, because it's endless.

54:51

And I also think this mysterious thing about

54:53

what we arrived where we started. See, I

54:56

think in one sense, we

54:58

look back where we started in our

55:00

childhood, and

55:02

the first stirrings of these sensitivities,

55:04

although in reflective consciousness, we weren't

55:06

even beginning to be able to

55:09

that sense of wonder that children have.

55:12

But it goes even deeper than that, because it

55:15

isn't that we had our beginnings in

55:17

our birth, because our conception,

55:19

our birth isn't where we began, it's where

55:21

we appeared out of the eternity of God.

55:24

So it's the beginning, the Buddhists

55:26

say, beyond beginningless beginnings, beyond endless

55:28

ends. And it

55:31

has this quality to it. And we'll know

55:33

for the first time, Naomi, like you say,

55:35

each time it's fresh, like

55:37

this. It never

55:40

gets old. It's

55:42

the quality of it, isn't it? When it bursts

55:44

through, it has that quality

55:46

of newness and aliveness. It

55:48

is eternal newness. That's right.

55:52

And we end again with, and all shall be well,

55:54

and all manner of things shall be well, which

55:58

to me, when I read those words, I automatically

56:00

get tears in my eyes. There's something so

56:03

comforting and compassionate

56:05

about those words. Yeah. And you know, there's something

56:08

I was doing when we did Julian, and it's

56:10

true with T.S. Eliot.

56:13

It touches us, so she lived as a recluse. The

56:16

thing is, it isn't just that she

56:18

said those words, but she was

56:20

saying what had become of her. You

56:23

know, she was its incarnate presence.

56:26

And that's what gives the words such power, you know,

56:28

it resonates so deep because

56:30

of the depths that it comes from in her.

56:33

Then it touches us because it resonates the

56:35

same depth in us, which

56:37

is the teaching, which is the path. So,

56:40

lovely. Yeah, beautiful. And

56:42

the fire and the rose are one, may it

56:44

be so amen. Amen. And

56:47

so I think, really, I think we hope that

56:49

in this time together, it's helped the listeners to

56:52

write off on this, that they're so inclined

56:54

to set a certain tone of how they

56:57

can pray with this or live with this

56:59

through the years is endlessly enriching for them.

57:02

It's been such a beautiful invitation, Jim.

57:04

Like each line you've gone through, each

57:06

phrase is an invitation to

57:09

look at our lives in a fresh light

57:11

and in this deeper way. So what a

57:14

beautiful session. And I wanted to

57:16

let our listeners know that this

57:19

guided prayer will be available in the show

57:21

notes. We've written it out so that if

57:23

people want to read it to themselves or

57:25

read it to others, they'll have

57:27

it. And then also we've put in

57:29

some instructions for Lectio Divina

57:31

and how you might, if that's a

57:33

new practice for you, how you

57:37

might go about it with this poem. We've put some

57:39

instructions there in the show notes as well. So,

57:42

yeah, we hope this has been helpful. By

57:44

the way, I was glad that you did

57:46

that with the Lectio. And again, they go

57:48

back to the archives and listen to Guigo,

57:50

the second, the latter to heaven and listen

57:53

to that series too, because he kind of

57:55

walks through it very slowly. And

57:57

what you presented kind of summarize

57:59

the essence that you put together.

58:02

Yes, that's wonderful. That's season four.

58:04

And you go step by step

58:06

through each aspect of the Lectio

58:08

practice. That's right. And then you

58:11

said the contemplation emerges unexpectedly out of

58:13

that, this unit

58:15

of state. So beautiful. Yes,

58:17

beautiful. Well, Jim, thank you

58:19

for just a wonderful season,

58:22

turning to a poet. It's

58:24

been just a real gift

58:27

and I've enjoyed it so much. And

58:29

just so much depth in such

58:31

a succinct kind of

58:33

quality. It's been wonderful. Thank you.

58:35

You're welcome. Yeah, it's a really gift for me

58:37

to share it. Beautiful. So I

58:39

think we'll be back next with the listener

58:41

questions. So we look forward to hearing

58:44

everyone's feedback and the questions that

58:46

arise. And yeah, we're excited to

58:48

hear from you all. Thank

58:57

you for listening to this episode of Turning to

58:59

the Mystics, a podcast created

59:01

by the Centre for Action and Contemplation.

59:05

We're planning to do episodes that answer your

59:07

questions. So if you

59:09

have a question, please email us

59:11

at podcasts at cac.org or

59:13

send us a voicemail. All

59:16

of this information can be found in the

59:18

show notes. We'll see you again

59:20

soon. Do

59:29

you feel called to walk a more

59:31

contemplative path? The Centre

59:33

for Action and Contemplation is

59:35

an educational nonprofit supporting the

59:37

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59:40

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59:45

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59:47

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59:50

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