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listening to a podcast by

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the Center for Action and

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Contemplation. To learn more, visit

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cac .org. Greetings.

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I'm Jim Finley. And

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I'm Kirsten Oates. Welcome

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to Turning to the Mystics. Welcome,

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everyone, to Season 11 of Turning

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to the Mystics. where we're

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turning to the philosopher Gabriel Marcel.

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And I'm here with Jim

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to dialogue about his third

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session on hope. Welcome, Jim. Yes,

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good. I'm looking forward to our dialogue.

0:41

Jim, your session on hope was so

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beautiful, and I'm looking forward to

0:45

dialoguing about hope. But

0:47

I find it helpful to

0:49

reground us in Marcel's vision

0:51

before we move into the

0:53

path aspect of hope. So

0:55

if you don't mind, I'll take

0:57

a path at explaining Marcel's vision and

0:59

then you'll add to it. So

1:03

Marcel's helping us understand

1:05

that we can experience reality

1:07

in two different ways. We

1:10

can experience it as the realm

1:12

of the problematic where we recognise

1:14

problems to be solved, we

1:16

analyse things, we're trying to

1:18

understand things and then

1:20

we can experience reality in

1:23

the realm of mystery

1:25

and this mystery opens

1:27

up onto things like

1:29

love, like faith,

1:32

and ultimately what myself

1:34

calls being. And we

1:36

might experience a sense of

1:38

this oneness with being and through

1:40

that relationship, our oneness with

1:42

all beings. So

1:45

Jim, what have I got right

1:47

there? He's inviting

1:49

us to reflect. on

1:52

the interior dimensions of our

1:54

own experience, of our life, and

1:56

of our self, reality. And

1:59

so the problematic is everything

2:01

that is dualistically other

2:03

than our self, where

2:05

we seek an answer or a solution. So

2:08

the examples that we use, if my

2:10

car won't start, or

2:12

if the roof is leaking. These are

2:14

problems, and whenever there's a

2:16

problem, we look for a method

2:18

to solve the problem, or we look for

2:20

someone who has expertise in how to solve

2:22

the problem. And then once it's solved, or

2:25

a math problem, once we get the answer,

2:27

we move on to the next problem. But

2:29

he said, but mysteries are different in

2:32

the sense that when we turn toward

2:34

a mystery, we realize that

2:36

we're included in what we're turning towards. So

2:39

when I ask what's it mean to be human, it's

2:41

always, it's myself as a human

2:43

being that's asking, what is

2:46

consciousness? It's me in my consciousness

2:48

that's asking what is consciousness. We're

2:50

asking what is love. It's me

2:52

in my capacity for a desire

2:54

for love and what is love.

2:56

So these are mysteries and that

2:58

I'm turning towards, and not to

3:00

myself in a reductionistic sense, like

3:03

everything back to my opinion, my

3:05

feeling, but the opposite is

3:07

true. That the mystery of myself,

3:09

and this is the vision from ourself, is

3:12

that the mystery of myself

3:14

is that I'm, the very mystery

3:17

of myself extends out into

3:19

and is woven into and is

3:21

an embodiment of. the mystery

3:23

of humanity, the mystery of consciousness,

3:25

the mystery of love, and

3:27

ultimately to the mystery of being,

3:30

which he sees as infinite, sublime.

3:33

And really, Kenneth Gallagher points out, it's

3:35

really God. But here,

3:37

he's looking at it from

3:39

the standpoint of religious consciousness of

3:41

the ultimate, outside the world religions.

3:43

Later in his life, when he

3:45

became Catholic, he lived as a

3:48

devout Catholic until his death. as

3:50

lineages of religious consciousness.

3:53

But here he's trying to see that

3:55

somehow God's present in reality itself, in

3:58

consciousness itself. And

4:00

so the mystery then is that

4:02

the mystery of myself is that

4:04

I extend out into and I'm

4:06

woven into and I access the

4:09

infinite mystery of God. that's

4:11

giving itself and manifesting itself

4:13

and giving the mystery of itself

4:15

to me as the mystery

4:18

of myself. So it isn't

4:20

just that I have where we

4:22

have a relationship with God, we

4:24

are a relationship with God. We

4:26

are an interpersonal communal unit of

4:28

mystery and that's the vision of

4:30

ourself. And he calls it the

4:32

ontological mystery, namely ontology, meaning

4:34

our very being. So then the question

4:36

is, being aware of

4:38

the, how we tend not to

4:40

be aware of that, trapped

4:43

in the ego. And it would then

4:45

lead to moments where it comes shining

4:47

through into consciousness. That

4:49

is, there's a moment where we

4:51

become conscious of this unit of

4:54

mystery of ourself. And that's what he's

4:56

interested in, are these

4:58

moments. And then how, in

5:00

becoming conscious of this unit

5:02

of mystery, how we

5:04

can then as these moments,

5:06

these grace moments fade, how

5:09

we can cultivate the habit

5:11

of being ever more habitually established

5:13

in this consciousness of the

5:15

unit of mystery, because the intuition

5:17

is it isn't something more

5:19

is given to us in these

5:21

moments, but a curtain parts,

5:23

and we fleetingly taste the abyss

5:25

-like, depth -like divinity of every

5:27

moment of our life, including this

5:29

moment. So how can I,

5:31

then by meditating very carefully on

5:34

moments where it shines into

5:36

consciousness, how can I, in

5:38

my remembrance of that moment, find

5:40

a path where I become habitually

5:42

more established, like

5:44

the divinity of my day -by -day

5:46

life? So that's Marcel. That's one

5:48

way of putting it. So

5:50

lovely. And Jim,

5:52

that statement you made that Marcel

5:54

is pointing to these moments

5:56

when we recognize We are

5:59

a relationship with God, is how you said

6:01

it. So we are a relationship with God. And

6:03

because everything in reality is

6:05

a relationship with God, we're

6:08

in relationship with everything in reality. And

6:10

it's that relationship that creates

6:12

the thou. Is that right? That's

6:15

exactly right. That's a thou. He

6:17

says again, he's actually Martin Booper.

6:20

I it and I thou. So

6:22

I it is from ourselves

6:24

the problematic. It. Thou

6:28

is where we see a person

6:30

and we see that the presence

6:32

of the person is the embodiment

6:34

of the infinite presence of God. And

6:37

this is why the Thou then

6:39

fills the entire horizon of our being.

6:42

that as we see what's

6:44

objectively real about the

6:46

beloved father, mother, sister, brother,

6:48

lover, spouse, grandmother, teacher,

6:50

student, vow, and also extends

6:52

to the vow dimensions of nature, the

6:54

darkness of the night, the smell of

6:56

flowers this way. So

6:58

we're very aware of the

7:00

factual reality of the

7:03

person. But to our

7:05

love, and through our awareness, we're

7:07

grace to see the Thou

7:09

dimension of the person. The

7:11

presence of the beloved as

7:13

Thou is at the very presence,

7:15

is the infinite Thou of

7:18

God, presencing itself as the presence

7:20

of Thou. And then also

7:22

the way, it isn't just this

7:24

interpersonal, but it's interpersonal

7:26

that I recognize the Thou

7:28

dimensions of myself, that

7:30

I myself, by

7:33

the generosity of God, by

7:35

very presence, is the

7:37

presence of the presence of God

7:39

manifesting itself as my presence. It's

7:41

really then a mystical experience. And

7:44

so he's looking then for moments, he's

7:46

inviting us to reflect on these

7:48

moments where we're like a momentary mystic.

7:51

And then as he describes this, where

7:53

he walks to it, we listen

7:55

to it. And at this level, the details

7:57

are never the same. But

7:59

the underlying reality is always the

8:01

same. We can tell ourselves helping

8:03

us to put words to moments

8:05

that we've experienced. He's

8:08

very practical that way. He's helping

8:10

us to reflect on this grace

8:12

giftedness that we tend to be

8:14

graced by when we walk right

8:16

past it. We're not to pause

8:18

long enough to be habitually stabilized

8:20

in it. And he's trying to

8:22

help us do this. And this

8:24

is where he's a teacher. Yes. And

8:27

he's writing this way to help

8:29

us recognize that we spend

8:31

most of our time trapped in

8:34

the experience or the realm

8:36

of the problematic. And

8:38

that's become the norm for society,

8:40

the norm for individuals. And

8:42

so he's helping

8:44

us recognize that about ourselves,

8:46

being stuck in primary

8:48

consciousness. That's exactly right. That

8:51

I'm nothing but the self things happen too. that

8:54

I'm nothing but the self,

8:56

that the outcome of the present

8:58

situation has the authority to

9:00

determine who I am. But

9:02

here he's saying, that's all the

9:04

realm of conditioned states, of

9:07

the fluctuating ups and downs

9:09

of life. But how can

9:11

I then find in these

9:13

fluctuating patterns of conditioned states

9:15

the unconditioned presence, the transcendence

9:17

shining through these conditioned states?

9:19

And that's what he's trying to help

9:22

us. tease out or to

9:24

find. Yes. And

9:26

then what I love about

9:28

Marcel is that he not only

9:30

helps us recognize those moments, but

9:32

also he points to the fact

9:34

that then we can align ourselves

9:36

to those moments beyond the

9:39

moment. And he's very much talking

9:41

about the way we can align our

9:43

thoughts, which then aligns

9:45

our actions and behaviors. I

9:48

think that's just so helpful for Marcel,

9:50

the way he gives us clear examples

9:52

of that. Yes. And how

9:54

Kenneth Gallagher puts it too,

9:56

and quoting Marcel, that

9:59

these moments where we're graced with

10:01

this unit of realization is

10:03

a summon bonum, a supreme

10:05

good in time that transcends

10:07

sequential time. But

10:09

it is a supreme good only

10:12

if the moment in time that

10:14

transcends sequential time is habituated in

10:16

sequential time itself. And

10:18

that's our fidelity. That's

10:20

our habituated hope. And that's what

10:22

makes it path talk. I'm

10:24

in via on the way. How

10:26

can I live in this

10:29

habituated state that I fleetingly graced

10:31

my heart, but I

10:33

know as an experiential touch of

10:35

what this moment is, and really

10:37

it was a touch of who

10:39

I ultimately am as the manifested

10:41

presence of God and my nothingness

10:43

without God. And that's

10:45

Marcel. That's such

10:47

a wow moment. For me, Jim, what

10:49

you just said is such an aha moment.

10:51

So I'm going to get you to

10:53

repeat it actually so we can hear it

10:55

twice so people don't have to rewind

10:57

at this point. You

10:59

can say it twice in a row.

11:02

But this idea of that we can't

11:04

make the moment happen. We can't

11:06

make the moment of the I

11:08

thou moment happen. That's not within our

11:10

power to make that happen. But

11:12

what is within our power is to

11:14

incarnate it in time. beyond the moment, I think

11:16

is what I heard you say. Yes,

11:19

yes. If the ontological mystery

11:21

of this trans -subjective communion, that

11:23

my very presence is embodying

11:25

the infinite presence of God

11:27

being given to me as

11:29

my very presence, that's the

11:31

mystery. And

11:33

then there are certain moments

11:36

that ontological mystery, which is

11:38

the truth of ourself, the

11:40

very being of ourself, breaks

11:42

through into our consciousness of

11:44

it. So I

11:46

can't make these moments where I

11:48

become conscious of it happen. We

11:50

saw this with all the mystics. But

11:52

what I can do is this. I

11:55

know that in this moment

11:57

where this came shining through, that

12:00

my heart did not deceive me. And

12:03

that in that moment,

12:06

I fleetingly was immersed

12:08

in the unit of mystery that

12:10

this very moment in every moment of

12:12

my life is. That is,

12:14

I, in this moment of

12:16

my awareness, as it passes, I

12:18

become aware of my tendency not to

12:20

be aware. But even

12:22

though I'm not aware of it,

12:24

it's endlessly always aware of me. And

12:27

therefore, I can cultivate a

12:29

faith, a fidelity

12:31

in these moments this way.

12:34

So my fidelity then, which is

12:36

the path, is in echoing

12:38

God's infinite fidelity to me and

12:40

giving the infinity of God to

12:42

me as my very presence. So

12:45

he's saying, well, what is

12:47

that path? He's looking like

12:49

a, what's an abituated sensitivity

12:51

to the divinity of the

12:53

ordinariness of ourselves and others

12:55

and life itself, really. And

12:57

so our freedom lies in

13:00

our will and our desire to

13:02

kind of live in alignment

13:04

in the resonance of the truth

13:06

of what we now know,

13:08

what we gained in that experience.

13:11

Now you hit on a big thing, this

13:13

is really true about freedom for myself. See,

13:16

because we're free not to do

13:18

this. And we often

13:20

don't, so we call it G .K.

13:22

Chesterson, that the philosopher is

13:24

the person who pauses to ponder

13:26

what the average person walks

13:28

by in haste. So it's

13:30

true. My cell phone just won't

13:32

off. I can choose to just move on. Sadly

13:35

enough, I do often enough, but I

13:37

can choose not to move on.

13:39

And that's why reading Marcel is Lectio

13:41

Divina, because as we just

13:43

stay with him, the pedagogy,

13:45

he slows us down enough to

13:48

be present to him. So the

13:50

very act of listening to him

13:52

itself becomes the moment of realizing

13:54

the moment we're listening to him.

13:57

is itself embodying this

13:59

very any talking about. And

14:01

then when we close Marcel or blow

14:03

out our candle and go on our

14:05

day, whatever it is, we ask for

14:07

the grace not to break the thread

14:09

of that. And little by little, it

14:11

becomes an ever more habitual sensitivity. to

14:13

the divinity of the rise and fall,

14:16

the rhythms of our day, which is

14:18

path. That's the path. In

14:20

sequential time. In sequential time.

14:22

It's very close to T .S. Eliot. A

14:24

lot of this was time and eternity. So

14:27

it's in sequential time

14:29

I live in the

14:31

habitual grounded awareness of

14:33

the eternality of what

14:36

never passes away. It's ribboned

14:38

through everything endlessly passing away. So

14:41

that in the end that primary

14:43

consciousness isn't our primary. Exactly

14:46

right. Yes, exactly

14:48

right. A Jesuit priest,

14:50

William Johnston, he studied

14:52

at Sophia University in Tokyo. He

14:54

studied under another Jesuit priest, and

14:56

they were Zen senseis. They practiced

14:58

as Zen, as Christians,

15:00

like Christians as Zen.

15:03

And one of his insights

15:05

is that in day -by -day consciousness,

15:07

the problematic is in the

15:09

forefront. And this intuitive

15:11

unit of sensitivity is always there. It's

15:13

kind of in the background. In

15:16

certain fleeting moments, it

15:18

reverses roles. And the

15:20

unit comes shining through

15:23

the customary. So

15:25

what meditation practice is, is

15:27

cultivating the habit. where little

15:29

by little the underlying unit

15:31

of consciousness and the problematic

15:33

awareness of the passage of

15:35

time starts slowly changing roles,

15:37

and while we're actually engaged

15:40

in the sitting, absorption,

15:43

in whatever form that takes, in the

15:45

presence of the beloved reading a

15:47

childhood goodnight story, lying awake in

15:49

the dark listening to your breathing smell,

15:51

the sound of the rain, and

15:53

whatever that practice is

15:55

you can experience yourself

15:58

shifting these into this more

16:00

unit of state and then

16:02

you're saying I'm asking as I

16:04

go through my day I

16:06

have to live my life the

16:08

ups and downs of the

16:11

day but little by little over

16:13

time that would become an

16:15

habitual underlying sensitivity to the unfolding

16:17

details of my day that

16:19

every moment of my life is

16:21

unexplainably this very abyss -like

16:24

unit of mystery that we're now talking

16:26

about, shining out to the gift

16:28

of walking down a hallway and opening

16:30

a door and the voice of

16:32

the friend, the smell of a flower.

16:35

We're trying to be habitually established

16:37

in this. And

16:39

Tim, would it be true to say

16:41

it's no small task for the ego

16:43

because in that moment where we're taken

16:45

up into the I Thou moment,

16:47

the ego disappears? Yes.

16:51

It's not like it's getting

16:53

clear guidance and like in a

16:56

classroom like, do this, do this,

16:58

do this. It's because it kind

17:00

of disappears from itself and it's

17:02

a resonant. This is where Marcel II

17:04

echoes Thomas Merton. Remember the true self and the

17:06

false self. So when Merton

17:08

talks about the true self, he means

17:10

what Marcel's talking about, this ultimate

17:12

identity. In this life it's veiled.

17:14

When we die past the veil of

17:16

death, it'll be unveiled. Then there

17:18

are certain moments It's unveiled,

17:21

like it's luminous. But

17:23

it's unveiled in a veiled

17:25

way. Because the ego that's

17:27

transcended, it's obscure. It's very

17:29

deep and real, but it's

17:31

obscure. And so the false self

17:33

is not the ego. God wants us to

17:36

have a healthy ego. Our self

17:38

-reflective bodily self and time and space

17:40

in relationship with others and with the

17:42

earth. Because if our ego isn't

17:44

healthy, we suffer. And other people

17:46

suffer. This is what mental health is all

17:48

about. The

17:51

false self is an illusion the ego

17:53

has about itself and it has the

17:55

final say in who we are and

17:57

it doesn't easily give up that illusion.

18:00

It can't help itself. It's

18:02

just the ego. So what

18:04

is this path where love kind

18:06

of quietly infuses that fear

18:09

and dissolves or heals it or

18:11

melts it so that it

18:13

comes shining through? I really

18:15

appreciate that tie back to season one

18:17

that you did on Thomas Merton on

18:19

the true self and the false self.

18:21

And so the false self would be

18:24

the self that might be totally attached

18:26

to the realm of the problematic and

18:28

can't see past it. Yeah. That

18:30

my false self is that my

18:32

self worth and identity is actually

18:34

determined by the outcome of this

18:37

present situation. Yes. is

18:39

determined by what this person thinks of me

18:41

or what I think of myself. And

18:43

so really what it

18:45

really is, it's really the

18:47

ego is the conditioned

18:49

state of internalizing, fluctuating

18:51

conditions. And I'm

18:53

nothing but the sum total of

18:56

those fluctuating conditions. So that's

18:58

the problem. We tend to relevantize the

19:00

absolute, some kind of

19:02

vague ethereal thing, but we absolutize

19:04

the relative that I'm just

19:06

nothing but who I think

19:08

I am, who I'm trying to be.

19:10

It's so one -dimensional and claustrophobic. And

19:13

so Marcel is so good at,

19:15

he's helping to see these moments

19:17

where there's a luminous effulgence or

19:19

richness come shining through it all.

19:21

And not to break faith with

19:23

our awakened heart. See

19:25

how to stabilize ourself in

19:27

that. And that's one way of

19:29

understanding Marcel, all these mystical

19:31

teachers, really. Wonderful. So

19:34

I love the way Marcel

19:36

gives real life examples of this

19:38

and that's how he helps

19:40

outline this path. And in

19:42

your first session, you talked about fidelity

19:44

and you brought that up again today

19:46

that it's actually God's fidelity with us

19:48

that starts to shine through in our

19:51

will and our thoughts and our actions.

19:53

And we talked about the either

19:55

our moment being like an

19:58

event and then the fidelity is

20:00

the way we align our will

20:02

and our actions and our thoughts to that.

20:04

And so I'm wondering, we're about to start

20:07

talking about hope. Is it

20:09

building on fidelity or is

20:11

it another aspect of Gabriel's

20:13

path? We talked about this

20:15

before where, in a way,

20:17

Marcel is echoing St. Paul, you

20:20

know, the faith, hope, and love, and the greatest

20:22

of these is love. And by love he means karyatosh,

20:25

you know, God's love. And he

20:27

says, so faith is the substance of

20:29

things hoped for. And what's hoped for is

20:31

the realization of the love. that

20:33

is already the reality of who

20:35

we are. And so, Marcel

20:37

is saying, well, St. Paul is

20:39

doing theologically, explicitly. He's

20:42

doing implicitly. It's hidden

20:44

in the very ontology. It's

20:46

our very being. And

20:49

then he goes on to say, with this

20:51

very goodness of her, being clearly for Marcel is

20:53

God. But he leaves

20:55

that implicit. He's trying to

20:57

find God in life itself and

20:59

being itself. And so this is

21:01

true. This is our fidelity. And

21:03

fidelity is God's fidelity to us

21:05

in giving the infinite presence of

21:07

God to us as a mystery

21:10

of our own presence. Next,

21:12

there's God's fidelity to us

21:14

where that fidelity is grace which

21:17

shines through into consciousness. This

21:19

moment. And that's the Thou

21:21

moment. Now when we

21:23

see the beloved as Thou, the

21:25

Thou always was Thou. But

21:28

when the Thou moment, it's like

21:30

a revelation. come shining through.

21:32

And then we live in fidelity

21:34

to the Thou dimension of

21:36

the friend, lover, brother, sister, mother,

21:38

whoever, in ourself, the Thou

21:41

dimensions of ourself this way. And

21:43

so we seek to live in fidelity to

21:45

that. So with hope then,

21:47

he's looking at this, it's the

21:49

same thing. But now he's

21:51

looking at it specifically in terms of

21:54

time. Because usually when

21:56

we think of hope, We

21:58

are hoping for the hopeful outcome

22:00

of a present unresolved

22:02

situation. So I sure hope

22:05

this situation, I'm invested in it.

22:07

I sure hope it turns out the way I

22:09

want it to turn out. That's

22:12

hope. And sometimes the hopeful

22:14

is kind of superficial. Like I hope

22:16

the Dodgers win the game. But sometimes

22:18

I hope my marriage doesn't fall

22:20

apart. I hope my child doesn't

22:22

die. And really, if I get

22:24

the diagnosis, this is what Marcel is saying, I

22:27

get a terminal diagnosis is

22:29

hope. But then he's saying

22:31

this, what is Lord Leo looking for? What

22:34

is it then when a

22:36

person hopes, but

22:40

they hope in a way that isn't

22:42

dependent on whether they recover or

22:44

not? And this

22:46

is where we start comparing hope

22:48

to Elizabeth Kubler -Ross. on

22:50

acceptance as the stages of dying.

22:54

So in carefully studying the patterns

22:56

of death, she sees

22:58

that denial, the terminal

23:00

diagnosis, we deny it because we don't

23:03

believe death applies to us. Next,

23:05

when we realize it is happening to

23:07

us, we try to strike a bargain with

23:09

God, if you let me live. And

23:13

then when the bargain doesn't

23:15

work, there's anger. and

23:17

then depression. And this is the ego self

23:19

coming to the end of itself. But

23:21

then she says, some people come to acceptance,

23:23

and this is what Marcel is talking about.

23:26

And Marcel is freedom from the tyranny

23:28

of death in the midst of

23:30

death. So when you look into

23:32

the face of the dying loved one who's in

23:34

acceptance, it's the gate of heaven. So

23:36

this is what Marcel is saying, that there's a

23:38

kind of a hope. Not

23:41

that just hope that, I

23:43

want to get better. We

23:46

might put it this way, if I'm in the

23:48

presence of a person who's in this state of

23:51

hope, I

23:53

only can hope that I

23:55

myself will come to this,

23:57

hope this person's in. And

23:59

the hope we said earlier is this,

24:02

when Jesus is the Christ, whatever

24:04

it is to be human, whatever

24:06

it is to be God is

24:08

inseparably woven together into a singularity

24:10

that's eternal. Jesus

24:12

was also, you might say, was a Jewish

24:14

mystic. And all mystics have

24:16

their own language for this unit of

24:18

mystery. And for Jesus, it was the

24:20

kingdom of God. So

24:22

in some verses, the

24:24

kingdom of God is God's ultimate victory

24:27

over all forms of suffering and

24:29

death, where the lion will lie down

24:31

with the lamb as victory. Secondly,

24:33

he said, sometimes we should

24:35

work for the coming of the

24:38

kingdom by being ever more Christ -like

24:40

and loving in time, bearing witness to

24:42

this love. And

24:44

then another passages, the kingdom

24:46

of God is already here.

24:49

Epistemology is the philosophical understanding of

24:51

what it means to understand. And

24:54

so we understand that it's

24:57

already unexplainably here as an

24:59

event in consciousness. It

25:01

isn't something we're waiting for. Rather,

25:03

what was already unexplainably there, really

25:05

before the origins of the universe,

25:07

hidden with Christ and God forever,

25:09

comes shining through. And

25:12

so he's going to be talking about a

25:14

person in death who's in this deathless

25:16

state, transcending death in the

25:18

midst of death, and he's holding it

25:20

up poetically for us to reflect

25:22

on. And then look for certain moments

25:24

where we can kind of discern

25:26

that we've tasted something of that. You

25:29

know what I like? Poetically, this makes sense.

25:32

You know, this rings true. It's subtle, but

25:35

it makes sense. And how

25:37

can I learn to be more

25:39

habitually established in that sensitivity, the

25:42

eternality of myself, that

25:44

I'm eternal, that my

25:46

body's dying, but we're all

25:48

eternal. We don't,

25:50

nobody dies. Wonderful.

25:53

A couple of things I want to

25:55

reflect back from what you just

25:57

said. One is, you said

26:00

that Marcel's talking about hope in

26:02

terms of time and so what I'm

26:04

hearing is that the hope is

26:06

that time doesn't have the final say

26:08

on who we are. That's right.

26:10

And it's a relationship with God that's

26:13

eternal and that has the final

26:15

say on who we are. And

26:17

then the other thing you

26:19

talked about was how fidelity, hope

26:21

and love being woven and

26:23

intertwined and so this hope Time

26:26

doesn't have the final say on

26:28

who we are. It's God's fidelity to

26:30

us that has the final say

26:32

on who we are. Yes. So

26:34

here's the example that we used as

26:36

a child on a merry -go -round. We don't

26:38

understand human nature unless you understand why

26:41

a child on a merry -go -round will wave

26:43

at its parents every time around and

26:45

they always wave back. The

26:47

inside is this. Every

26:49

time the merry -go -round circles around

26:51

where the child comes into view, That's

26:53

where they emerged in time.

26:56

Yes. And then we wave like this.

26:58

But the very circularity with which

27:00

they emerged in time is the circularity

27:02

with which they're going to disappear

27:04

in time. And so what's

27:06

in time is our appearance is in

27:08

time. But the point is the

27:10

moment where we appeared in the world

27:13

in time, in our conception, in

27:15

our birth, isn't where we began. It's

27:17

just like the child, when they

27:19

swing around and they come into view,

27:21

they didn't come into existence the moment

27:23

they came into view. It's the child

27:26

that they already, inexplanably were, is coming

27:28

into view. So likewise, when

27:30

we circle around and we come

27:32

around and we come into time,

27:35

is that God is exhaling us out

27:37

of the eternal presence of God

27:40

hidden with Christ and God before the

27:42

origins of the universe. It's the

27:44

eternality of ourself of who God eternally

27:46

knows us to be. And

27:48

we're being exhaled by God

27:50

into time. So that in

27:52

time, and we're here for a very short

27:54

time really, basically to know how to

27:56

love. And then what

27:58

happens in time, when the moment

28:00

of death and God's good time,

28:02

God inhales. and we disappear as

28:05

mysteriously as we came, but the

28:07

circle completes itself in eternity. So

28:09

what he's suggesting is this, is

28:11

that it's really true that

28:13

we're still in time and

28:15

manifested time in the circularity,

28:18

but we can glimpse that

28:20

birthless, deadless divinity of our

28:22

self is fleetingly shining out

28:24

in time itself since ascending

28:26

time. And in that certain

28:28

moment, then see, we're a momentary

28:30

mystic. And that's a

28:32

subtle point where as we listen

28:34

to it, it's so poetically subtle, but

28:37

it's so delicate we can

28:39

tell he's trying to help us

28:41

put words to something that

28:43

we can't explain. But our own

28:45

heart, as we listen to

28:47

it, we know it's true and

28:49

it matters very much this

28:51

way. And so this is Marcelian

28:53

teachings helping us. Turning

29:01

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30:07

e -x -i -l -e. What's

30:10

been interesting for me,

30:12

having listened to your session

30:14

on Marcel, is

30:16

to notice how often I use the word hope. and

30:19

so I'd like to go back

30:21

and kind of distinguish hope in

30:23

primary consciousness and I'd also like

30:25

to talk about it in relation

30:28

to prayer. So Marcel

30:30

talks about what he would

30:32

call desire and I guess it's

30:34

like desire of the ego

30:36

that we can use the word

30:38

hope in a sense of

30:40

desire and it could be a

30:42

desire as trivial as my

30:44

team winning the game or a desire

30:47

that my child will get well as

30:49

serious as I have a sick child

30:51

and I'd like them to get well.

30:53

He's differentiating that type of

30:55

hope based on the

30:57

circumstance turning out one way

31:00

or the other. So

31:02

one, have I got that right? And

31:04

then two, I'm really curious about how

31:06

that applies to prayer because there's a

31:08

lot of people that pray for the

31:10

child to get well. That's

31:12

true. Kenneth Gallagher makes a slight

31:14

allusion to this, but

31:16

Gregory Sadler, who gave some lovely

31:18

lectures on Marcel, he's going to be

31:21

a guest on the podcast. He

31:23

kind of completes in Marcel's

31:25

own passage on the ontological

31:27

mystery, on the philosophy of

31:29

existence. He says,

31:32

there seems to be a

31:34

principle in being, which

31:36

is in connivance with

31:38

us, that it

31:40

cannot will, but we will. but

31:42

what we will, provided

31:44

that what we will is worth willing.

31:47

And we will it with all of our

31:49

heart. And so it's this

31:52

way. This is the subtlety.

31:54

Let's say my child is dying

31:56

sick, seriously ill. Yes,

31:58

I really do will that my

32:00

child will recover. And

32:02

God willing, I hope the child does recover.

32:06

My heart will break if my child

32:08

dies. But what

32:10

I'm searching for, and this is what the grieving

32:12

process is all about, is that

32:14

the deathless presence of my

32:17

child will be intimately revealed to

32:19

me as I walk in

32:21

the memory of my child's death.

32:24

That my child doesn't

32:26

die because nobody dies. My

32:29

child's appearance with me in

32:31

time is gone. And

32:34

I'm going to be gone too soon enough.

32:36

This is all temporary. But

32:38

shining out to the temporal

32:40

fleetingness of our self is the

32:42

eternality of our self. And

32:44

so in connivance with me,

32:47

provided that what I desire is

32:49

worth desiring, I really desire

32:51

that I might learn to experientially

32:53

abide in the deathless beauty

32:55

of myself and everything. And

32:57

I will it with all my heart. I

33:00

will it with all my heart. And

33:02

so that's, I think that's the

33:04

path talk of our self. Yes. Also,

33:06

I can be in happiness state. I

33:08

come in a relationship with someone I

33:10

love very much, and we're together, and

33:13

we are together. Everyone's fine, and I'm

33:15

fine, and that's fine. And we should

33:17

be grateful for that. But

33:19

also, we can see shining

33:21

out to these conditions conducive

33:24

to happiness. A

33:26

certain depth of presence that

33:28

transcends the conditions to happiness. Because

33:30

these conditions, as happy as

33:32

they are, are

33:34

passing away. But hidden

33:37

in the depth of these good

33:39

times is the goodness that never passes

33:41

away. And how can I, in

33:43

the very midst of the goodness of

33:45

good conditions, see within the

33:47

goodness of good conditions where you're

33:49

passing away a kind of effulgence for

33:51

love shining out that will never

33:53

pass away? Yeah, it works

33:55

both ways. Yes, that

33:57

kind of movement from primary

34:00

to secondary consciousness. That's right.

34:02

And you're introducing this term

34:04

for myself. So primary

34:06

reflect consciousness is a subjective

34:08

factual, it's real. Secondary

34:11

consciousness is the consciousness

34:13

that sees the inadequacy of

34:15

primary consciousness. And

34:17

it sees it in grace

34:19

moments where the light shines

34:21

through. in the

34:24

realization of a presence that transcends

34:26

it. See, we see the

34:28

inadequacy of primary in that we've

34:30

engrossed with the fleeting taste

34:32

of this presence that transcends the

34:34

objective and the factual. And

34:36

so the secondary consciousness is

34:38

in a meditative state that we,

34:40

in freedom, we choose to

34:43

try to stabilize in it. Another

34:46

contrast Marcel makes, which I

34:48

found really helpful also, was

34:50

he contrasts hope in the

34:52

problematic or in primary consciousness,

34:55

he compares it to optimism and

34:57

that this hope he's talking

34:59

about is not optimism. And

35:01

I find that helpful because the

35:03

optimistic person can often sound like

35:05

they have more of an eternal

35:07

hope, like of course they'll get

35:10

better or even if they don't

35:12

get better, everything will be fine,

35:14

that kind of optimistic

35:16

hope but still grounded

35:18

in that primary consciousness

35:20

and in spiritual circles

35:22

that can be bypassing,

35:24

spiritual bypassing, not being

35:26

grounded, if it's not

35:28

grounded in this sense

35:31

of eternal hope. That's

35:33

exactly right. Let's say, first of

35:35

all, there's a certain benefit of being

35:37

optimistic. Yes. But

35:39

to think about where

35:41

you're an optimistic person is

35:43

actually your optimism is a

35:45

psychological defense against the inevitability

35:47

of the tragic. And

35:49

it really is a kind of a denial. So

35:52

when the tragedy does happen, you fall apart. And

35:55

that tragedy where it falls apart is

35:57

a crisis. But if you let it,

35:59

the crisis can take you to a deeper place.

36:02

So that's a subtle point. It

36:04

reminds me too, where

36:06

Marcel talks about hope as a

36:08

risky business and he says...

36:11

that in ego consciousness or in

36:13

primary consciousness, another defense can

36:15

be to be pessimistic, because if

36:17

I don't expect the good

36:19

outcome, I can't be disappointed. That's

36:22

right. You see, he's

36:24

saying that we need to be very

36:26

careful not to hope too much. He

36:28

says, so this is the

36:30

spiritually unawakened person is cautioning us,

36:33

like hopes of risky business, because if

36:35

you start hoping it was never

36:37

going to happen, to protect yourself, don't

36:39

hope so much. Yes. but

36:42

ourselves saying, but that really

36:44

fails to take into account the

36:46

depth that we're now speaking

36:48

out of. And so this

36:50

is why he says this, when this

36:52

person is dying and they know that

36:54

they're dying, if by human standards, we

36:56

know it's inevitable that the faith's already

36:58

settled, the diagnosis is settled and you're

37:00

only going to live so much settled. So

37:03

the person who then

37:05

hopes in that simply refuses

37:07

to take into account the

37:10

outcome of the situation. Because

37:12

the outcome of the situation is

37:14

finite in time. But the

37:16

person's hope is the infinite eternal

37:18

life of God shining through

37:20

and transcending all possible outcomes. And

37:22

so the person simply dismisses

37:25

the validity of the questioning of

37:27

their hope. Because they

37:29

kind of see all those concerns

37:31

are actually finite. in

37:33

terms which is being transcended

37:35

in the gift of this, the

37:37

eternality of the deathless presence

37:39

of themselves, all of their

37:41

bodies dying, there's come shining through the

37:44

deathless presence of themselves, the being unborn

37:46

will never die and they're living in

37:48

the light of that. I

37:50

love the way he uses

37:52

these real world examples and he's

37:54

taking us back to the

37:56

hospital room and I considered in

37:58

the last episode on fidelity

38:01

myself as the person in the

38:03

hospital room experiencing that scene.

38:05

And so now I'm going to

38:07

switch to be now the

38:09

person in the bed. So we

38:12

had these potential two events

38:14

going on, the visitor experiencing

38:16

God's fidelity for the dying

38:18

person and trying to live in

38:20

alignment with that. And then

38:22

we have the dying person who

38:24

might have an event of

38:26

experiencing this hope. which transcends

38:28

time and death and so that

38:30

they live in hope. I really like

38:33

the way Marcel is so clear

38:35

on what's happening and this quote, I

38:37

love this quote, to the outward

38:39

eye the case is closed. It

38:41

is merely a matter of

38:43

waiting for time to accomplish in

38:45

fact what is already achieved

38:47

in principle. And

38:50

that's just such a

38:52

stark thing about death. When

38:54

you know someone's going to

38:57

die and their presence is still

38:59

with you in time But

39:01

you you have the deadline of

39:03

it right in front of

39:05

you and it's such a stark

39:08

moment Yes, you're singing on

39:10

something here. That's important. I think

39:12

see I think that when

39:14

somebody dies and The depth to

39:16

which we miss them so

39:19

The pain of their physical absence

39:21

is in direct proportion to

39:23

the depth of the love So

39:25

this is what grieving is

39:27

really we have to go through

39:30

Otherwise we're it's another form

39:32

of an optimistic mystical talk Avoiding

39:34

the tragic that I look

39:36

around the beloved's gone for God's

39:38

sake and therefore I so

39:41

miss the familiarity of

39:43

the patterns, the intimate patterns of the

39:45

way we were together. And now

39:47

I look around, the person's gone. I

39:49

have this example. I don't if

39:51

we've shown this before or not. Years

39:53

ago, I told Marina, I love

39:55

lovebirds. You know, I just love

39:57

love. So for my birthday, she got a

39:59

pair of little lovebirds. They're like little jewels.

40:01

They're like little bright colored finches. And she

40:03

gave this in a big cage. I'm looking

40:05

at it now. It made out of bamboo.

40:08

And they had these little blood birds in it.

40:10

We live here at the ocean. In

40:12

the summer, we always leave the door wide open. And

40:15

one of the blood birds squeezed out to

40:17

the bamboo bar and flew out the door.

40:20

And the other blood bird froze

40:22

because their life was circling

40:25

around each other. So I let

40:27

the other one go. It

40:29

flew out the door too. So

40:31

we have to know that feeling, the

40:33

unbearable, where we freeze. But

40:36

then if we don't panic, this is what bereavement is.

40:38

This is why if we don't go through bereavement, it

40:40

turns into depression. If we just

40:42

go through the stages of bereavement, we

40:44

freeze at first, it's unbearable. But

40:47

if we look very, very close, like

40:49

I would say, it isn't that I would

40:51

say to Maureen after she died, I

40:53

loved you so much. I thought, no,

40:55

that's not true. You're dead and I still love you. And

40:58

not only that, I really believe that

41:00

from a depth of love I can

41:02

understand, you're infinitely in love with me.

41:05

And so we start seeing the

41:07

deathless presence of the beloved shining

41:09

through and unexplainably one with us

41:11

in the absence of the beloved. And

41:14

I think this is very close to

41:16

what you're saying or Marcel would talk

41:18

about the importance. You know, it's like

41:20

T .S. Eliot talking about time and

41:22

eternity in the war. and

41:24

the violence and the darkness of

41:26

the world and it's out of that

41:29

darkness and the acknowledgement of the

41:31

darkness that the light that is of

41:33

which Marcel is speaking and he

41:35

is speaking Jesus is speaking shines through

41:37

it and carries us along. It

41:39

doesn't take the darkness away but

41:41

it unexplainably sustains and gives itself in

41:43

the darkness because we see a

41:45

light shines in the darkness and the

41:47

darkness grasp it not. But even

41:49

though the darkness, which is the unawakened

41:51

part of our self, doesn't grasp

41:53

it, it's still shining. And then there's

41:55

a moment it awakens us to

41:57

itself. And he's going to be saying,

41:59

he sees that as salvation. Yes,

42:02

yes. And I

42:04

love the way this is, we're

42:06

grounding it in such practical examples.

42:08

So the person that's left behind

42:10

when the loved one dies and

42:12

how we move back and forward

42:14

between the needs of the ego, the

42:17

needs of the healthy ego, trying

42:19

to be grounded in this infinite

42:21

reality. Marcel takes

42:23

us also deeply inside the person

42:25

dying who's been told that

42:27

it's merely a matter of waiting

42:29

for time to accomplish, in fact,

42:31

what is already achieved in purpose.

42:35

He said his hope takes

42:37

the form of an unwavering

42:39

refusal to reckon on possibilities

42:41

for anyone can tell him

42:43

that his recovery is not

42:45

contained among the possibilities. Hope

42:47

here is the active refusal

42:50

to succumb to despair, to

42:52

acquiesce to the

42:54

tabulability of being. There's

42:59

a lot of psychotherapy saying is

43:01

being with someone who keeps inviting you

43:03

to pause and listen to the

43:05

feeling level to what you just said.

43:07

because we're always skimming over the

43:09

depth of what we're looking for. So

43:11

Marcel keeps slowing us down and

43:13

slowing us down. So we're always

43:15

invited to pause. How

43:18

does this resonate with me? We're like,

43:20

where am I at? You're with respect to

43:22

all of this. And it's kind of

43:24

like this almost, I think another way of

43:26

saying it is this. It's

43:28

saying that I've been graced,

43:31

the word that comes to me

43:33

is incandescence. You know, something

43:35

as molten white hot shines. It's

43:38

so unexplainably incandescent that

43:40

it makes everything that

43:42

might or might not

43:44

be, I see as

43:46

ultimately illusory and unreal to me.

43:49

I've been carried over by God

43:51

into the deathless presence of God,

43:53

presencing itself as my deathless presence

43:55

in a luminosity that I cannot

43:57

explain. And so quite frankly, thanks

43:59

for your concern, but you're not

44:01

relevant to me. And the fact

44:04

that I may be dead in

44:06

an hour is not my concern. Although

44:09

I might no longer be present in

44:11

time and space in an hour, the

44:14

eternal presence of me

44:16

eternally shines bright. And

44:18

so even though I'm not yet

44:20

dead, I've already crossed over into

44:22

kind of an eternity beyond time,

44:24

even though I'm still in time.

44:27

This is what makes the person,

44:29

and it's why we're dying as

44:31

a mystic. And so Marcel is

44:33

saying, why wait till the 11th hour to

44:35

live that way? Because we're

44:37

all melting like candles,

44:39

our own death's already in

44:42

the mail. So why not

44:44

see the very talk we're having right

44:46

now, the people listening to this talk, the

44:48

moment in which they're listening to us

44:50

have this conversation, is it self -passing

44:53

away? in the moment in which you

44:55

and I are having it as passing

44:57

away, but shining out through this talk

44:59

that's passing away, and in the moment

45:01

they're listening to it passing away, is

45:03

the luminosity that which never passes away. And

45:06

I think that's the touchstone

45:08

that Marcel's always, like all the

45:10

mystics, is trying to help

45:12

us sit with. Well.

45:15

Jim, you read from

45:17

Marcel about disponibility. It

45:20

says, disponibility is the presumption of hope.

45:22

Could you help me unpack that a little

45:24

bit? Yeah. Responsibility is a

45:26

French word. It's not an English word.

45:28

And it means translated as availability. Availability.

45:32

And so what a way of

45:34

looking at it is, is this

45:37

hope is the availability, experiential

45:39

availability of God's infinite

45:41

availability to me and giving

45:43

itself to me as

45:45

the reality of me. And

45:48

that's the availability. On

45:50

page 86. It

45:52

says that the conditions

45:54

which underlie hope make

45:57

despair possible. The

45:59

death of hope leads to despair, not

46:02

the reign of good common sense. See,

46:04

because he said despair is

46:06

only possible within the context of

46:08

a world formed by what's

46:10

possible. So if they

46:12

say, I think your chances of surviving

46:14

the diagnosis are very good, we go shoo.

46:16

Like I think I think I think

46:18

I'll be okay and and let's say I

46:20

do get better, but I get better

46:22

only because so I can die later see

46:24

What do you think about it? It's

46:28

just that's the thing about heaven.

46:30

No only the dead need apply

46:32

So the question then is but

46:35

how can I though? I'm still

46:37

in time How can I die

46:39

to the tyranny of time and

46:41

this way this is really a

46:43

salvation How can I, in the

46:45

midst of time, die

46:48

to the tyranny of time

46:50

by experientially not breaking faith with

46:52

my awakened heart and the

46:54

shining forth of the deathless eternality

46:56

of myself that never dies

46:58

and learn to live by that

47:00

and share it with others

47:02

day by day?" That's such an

47:05

interesting thing to note to

47:07

say that this true hope makes

47:09

despair possible, the conditions which

47:11

underlie hope. makes despair possible, turns you on

47:13

your head a little bit. Yeah, yeah.

47:15

Let me put it another way. If

47:17

I, at the psychological level, this might

47:19

be so true. If I

47:21

get a terminal diagnosis and

47:23

I experientially think that I'm

47:25

nothing but my bodily reality

47:27

and time being able to

47:29

wake up the next morning

47:31

and I'll still be here. And

47:35

that very unsinkable thought that the sun will come

47:37

up the next morning and I won't be there

47:39

to be it. I'll be gone.

47:41

That makes despair possible, especially if the

47:43

doctors are telling me, trust me, you're

47:45

not going to be here. And

47:47

that's why only in

47:49

tabulability, only by tabulating the

47:51

possibility, which is this

47:54

contingent hope, but it's always contingent

47:56

upon how our fingers crossed. And

47:58

that's what makes despair possible. But in this

48:00

hope, despair is not possible. It's

48:03

a piece. It's not dependent on

48:05

the outcome of the situation because

48:07

it's the peace of God in

48:09

which everything unexplainably depends. And

48:11

we're crossing over into this. And this

48:13

is why he says, I like this too,

48:16

where he says, therefore it's very

48:18

much grounded in patience. Because

48:20

we need to be very patient with

48:22

ourselves. Because this is so subtle, like

48:24

a general rain, we let it kind

48:26

of walk with it till it soaks

48:29

in. And also it is grounded in

48:31

humility. And humility is the

48:33

rains fall from our hands. I

48:35

cannot explain this. And I don't need

48:37

to, but my heart knows that

48:39

it's true. The humility

48:41

is trust in love.

48:43

It's trust because

48:45

the outcome of the

48:47

situation that I'm

48:49

in, regardless of

48:52

its outcome, is unexplainably

48:54

trustworthy. because it's

48:56

the presence of God presencing itself

48:58

and shining through the situation, regardless

49:00

of what the situation might be,

49:02

even if you're hanging on the

49:04

cross. And therefore, it's

49:07

the same as trust, it's

49:09

trustworthy, and then also it's the

49:11

same as love, which he's going to

49:13

be looking at next. He

49:15

says, to hope is

49:17

not to thrust oneself forward,

49:19

but to retire absolutely in

49:21

favor of an absolute. Hope

49:24

has no weapons, it knows

49:26

no technique. It could

49:28

know none, since techniques avail only

49:30

in the world of having. But

49:33

that world has no room for

49:35

hope, only for success or failure.

49:38

You know what this reminds

49:40

you? In psychotherapy, with

49:42

trauma, but I think spiritual

49:44

direction. You can

49:46

kind of tell when the person

49:48

is coming to a very vulnerable

49:50

place. There's a kind

49:52

of a trust in the alliance

49:54

with you That they kind of

49:57

risk waiting to share and they

49:59

don't know what they're going to

50:01

say But the quality what they

50:03

say has this feel to it,

50:05

you know its presence It's like

50:07

a depth of presence shining out

50:09

to the very vulnerability that they're

50:12

risking with you. What's hopeful for

50:14

me in all of this Is

50:16

this line here where he says

50:19

Hope is essentially an appeal to

50:21

a creative power with which

50:23

the soul feels herself to be

50:25

in connivance. That's right. So

50:27

it's innate in me. That's

50:30

right. That's what we were saying

50:32

earlier. Marcel himself, when you look at

50:34

in his own writings, the existence

50:36

of philosophy, it's in

50:38

connivance with me provided that

50:40

what I hope for is

50:42

worth hoping for, and

50:45

namely, it's love. or fulfillment, or

50:47

eternity, and also that I will it

50:49

with all my heart. So

50:51

I would put it this way, another way.

50:54

Let's say that what Marcel

50:56

is talking about is

50:58

embodied in our hope in

51:00

these reflections, like

51:03

what moves me, what moves you

51:05

and I to dialogue like this.

51:08

It is that there's a principle

51:10

in reality itself. They

51:12

can't will what we will and

51:14

willing that these talks will be helpful

51:16

and Also, hoping it will be

51:18

helpful because hoping that will be helpful

51:21

is worth hoping for because we

51:23

sure hope it's helpful And that's how

51:25

it's in connivance with us and

51:27

that's how it's always in the present

51:29

There's a kind of a subtle

51:31

way in the midst of the unresolved

51:33

task at hand if it has

51:36

the ring of the sincerity about it

51:38

So I'm over being carried along

51:40

by this hope, not for

51:42

hope, for what I hope might

51:44

happen in the future, but

51:47

rather it's living in a hope that

51:49

I might realize within myself there's nothing

51:51

to hope for because nothing's missing. It's

51:54

unfolding in the very arc of

51:56

my sincere effort. It shines out

51:58

and I'd be ever more sensitive

52:00

to that and share that with

52:03

people. That's comforting

52:05

too because even If I

52:07

find myself on my

52:09

deathbed and I can't get

52:11

past the circumstances and

52:13

freely orient to this hope,

52:16

the hope, it doesn't exist in time

52:18

and it will carry me forward through

52:20

my death and I'll land there no

52:22

matter what. That's exactly right.

52:25

And you mentioned this in earlier talk too with

52:27

Merton, where he talks about the

52:29

moment of our death. And he

52:31

said, when the hour of your death

52:33

comes, it's already on its way. your

52:35

death, all the listeners were all going

52:37

to die. It's already coming. You

52:40

say, when the hour of your death finally comes, you can get

52:42

all the people in the room with you that you want. They

52:44

can all get up in bed with you if you

52:46

want, but you're dying alone. And

52:49

you're that alone right now. And

52:51

you'll never find the intimacy you're

52:53

looking for by avoiding that aloneness. For

52:56

as in that aloneness, we come

52:58

upon this, never less alone than one

53:00

alone. The infinity

53:03

where aloneness turns into solitude

53:05

and solitude then turns

53:07

into hope then is the

53:09

actualization of that. It's

53:12

already upon me and it's

53:14

carrying me along unexplainably. Don't ask

53:16

me to explain it. I

53:18

can't and I don't need to

53:20

but like pardon me. I

53:22

don't speak English. kind of

53:24

beyond. So it's almost like, like the

53:26

mystics, he's putting words to something that's

53:28

like right at the edge of what

53:30

words can't say. Yes, yeah. And he

53:32

just stays there. And the

53:34

pedagogy is we just stay with

53:36

them. The acumenative effect of it

53:38

starts quietly raining in on us.

53:40

You know I mean? Like a

53:42

certain quietness. And it always

53:45

flips things around because even the

53:47

way you're talking there about the aloneness,

53:49

we die alone. And that it's

53:51

in that solitary kind of

53:53

communion with God that we find

53:55

ourselves, but then that opens up

53:57

on our connectedness and communion with

53:59

all things. So it just continually

54:01

keeps flipping us around, each

54:03

flip being a deepening cycle

54:05

in a way, the winding path.

54:08

That's exactly right. See that we're all

54:10

alone, but we're all alone together. Yes.

54:13

That our aloneness is woven into

54:15

the aloneness of everyone. This

54:17

woven into the aloneness of God, who

54:19

alone is God, giving its aloneness to us.

54:21

It's like that. Yes. It's on and

54:23

on and on. So, yeah,

54:26

there you go. Yes. Well,

54:28

I love that there's an

54:30

audience of people that love

54:32

to hear us talk about

54:35

death and dying and the

54:37

diagnosis where it's factually true

54:39

that you will die. Isn't

54:42

that true? And by the

54:44

way, no, this is really true.

54:46

I mean, when the loved one dies,

54:48

it's sad and it'd be flipping to

54:50

like, you know, high five and don't

54:52

worry, you're just dying. There's

54:54

nothing to it. I gotta go have lunch.

54:56

It's not like that at all. But at

54:58

the same time, he's saying this, we're all

55:00

gonna die. But what he's really trying to

55:02

say, and that is there's a sadness in

55:04

it with the loss and there's fear in

55:06

it when it's our death, but it's not

55:08

just sad and it's not just scary. And

55:11

we're trying to acknowledge the

55:13

fear but see something shining

55:15

through the fear that transcends

55:17

it. That's the hope that

55:20

there's nothing to hope for

55:22

because nothing's missing. There's the

55:24

eternality of ourself shining out

55:26

beyond time in the midst

55:28

of time. There's

55:30

something that's happening in time that

55:32

is very meaningful for a lot of

55:34

people. And I wonder, Jim, if

55:36

you might say a little prayer for

55:38

Pope Francis who As of

55:40

today, we have news that he's

55:42

in the hospital and very, very sick.

55:44

And so we don't know the

55:46

factual prognosis, but I wonder how we'd

55:48

pray in this way from what

55:50

we've learned today for Pope Francis. Because

55:55

you know, Richard Rohr had a big

55:57

family. He went to see Pope Francis

55:59

and we have this thing coming up

56:01

with the Vatican. We were planning to

56:03

be there with Pope Francis and apparently

56:05

it's not going to... My sense is

56:07

this. Here's

56:10

the example I use. Merton

56:12

says, in the Brevary, they would talk about

56:14

different saints on feast days of saints. And

56:17

so Thomas Merton says, yesterday

56:19

in the Brevary, we read about

56:21

a pope who was dying. And

56:25

when he was dying, he

56:27

got out of bed and

56:29

removed his pontifical vestments and

56:31

died on the floor, which

56:33

is only right. But

56:35

one can't get over the fact

56:37

he was wearing pontifical vestments on in

56:40

bed. He said, my

56:42

brothers and sisters, our miters

56:44

even to bed, pontificating

56:46

with our finger raised.

56:48

He said, God help all of us,

56:51

really. So I think if

56:53

anything, the death of the Pope

56:55

bears witness to the deathless nature

56:57

of all of us. That's

56:59

the gift of a happy death

57:01

this way. And we pray that He's

57:03

in that experience in His dying

57:06

days. That's right. And that's why we

57:08

say too that He's moving, He's

57:10

at that moment where we're all going

57:12

to, where He's moving from this

57:14

lived experience that God's oneness with us

57:16

veiled. in the powers of

57:18

the soul, like in our mind and our

57:21

insights and our memories about the path

57:23

and our desires and intentions. Vail,

57:25

efficacious unto holiness. And

57:27

he's crossing over into

57:29

unveiled infinite destiny and glory.

57:33

So what Marcel is saying, that

57:35

somehow there's a mystical awakening

57:37

for even though we're still

57:39

here, there can

57:41

be kind of an

57:43

unveiled communal oneness. shining

57:46

out in veiled ways

57:48

because it's obscure. And

57:51

all these mystic teachers, including

57:53

Marcel, they have

57:55

this quality of subtlety, of

57:58

delicacy, and we're calibrating

58:00

our heart to a fine enough

58:02

scale where we can tune into that

58:04

subtlety and learn to live by

58:06

it. Amen, and

58:09

thank you for today, Jim. Yes,

58:11

thank you. Wonderful, and thank you

58:13

to Corey and Dorothy and Vanessa

58:15

who are supporting us in the

58:17

background. I look forward to our

58:19

next dialogue. Me too. Thank

58:26

you for listening to this episode

58:28

of Turning to the Mystics, a

58:31

podcast created by the Centre for

58:33

Action and Consumption. We're

58:35

planning to do episodes that answer

58:37

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58:39

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58:41

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58:43

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58:46

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58:48

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58:50

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