A Coaching Session on the Way of a Pilgrim

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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James Finley (0:08)

Greetings, I'm Jim Finley.

Kirsten Oates (0:11)

And I'm Kirsten Oates.

James Finley (0:13)

Welcome to Turning to the Mystics.

Kirsten Oates (0:23)

Welcome, everyone, to Season 9 of Turning to the Mystics, where we've been turning to The Way of a Pilgrim by an anonymous author.

And I'm here with Jim, and today, we're going to go have our coaching session, talking about how we might apply lessons learned from The Way of a Pilgrim. So Jim, welcome.

James Finley (0:43)

Thank you.

I always look forward to these coaching sessions. It helps people experientially, you know, find their way in the actual practice and walk through the unfolding of things as they, and their fidelity to it. So I'm looking forward to our time together.

Kirsten Oates (0:59)

Yes, yes, me too, very much. And in today's session, we're going to do three things. Firstly, Jim is going to give some coaching on how to approach the text. Then I'll lead a meditation that Jim and I have put together using words from the book. And finally, Jim will act as my spiritual director as I share my experience of trying the prayer in the hopes it might help anyone else who's trying the prayer on this season.

So now I'll hand over to you, Jim.

James Finley (1:32)

Yes, I want to share with you how it helps me to sit with this text and really to sit with all the texts that we've been citing this way, because for me what it is, is to sit, to be in the presence of the words of a mystic is a way of learning to be in the presence of God. So it's like a moment of communion with God embodied in the graced awakening power of the words of this awakened mystic that guides us this way.

And so I'd like to reflect on it in that, how it helps me, and see how this might also help you sit with the texts and all the texts. First of all, it's worth noting that the story begins, the pilgrim story begins, in the midst of his day by day life and devotional sincerity. He's living his life, we're living our life this way. And for him, it's reduced to its simplest terms. Because he has some dried bread in it on his back, which sustains his bodily existence from birth to death. And over his heart is the Bible. So he's kind of led by God in the midst of his day by day life. And just like with us, we have our earthly belongings that sustain our bodily being from birth to death. And over our heart we have the sincerity of our desire for God and gratitude for God's presence in our life and so on. And so to see, too, that the story reveals us to ourselves. Because if the pilgrim would not have been awakened, as he is going to be awakened mystically, 19th century Russia, he would have lived his life with devotional sincerity. If he died, he'd be with God in heaven right now. Just like all of us in our devotional sincerity, someday we'll all be dead and we'll all be in heaven with God right now. It's more than enough, really, this way.

In this sense, then, anyone can say the Jesus Prayer in our devotional sincerity. It's a very lovely, touching prayer, really. And it's kind of mysterious because, see, Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me. We're asking for the mercy that's already there because it is God, it's all-merciful and permeates us with this oceanic mercy. So really, we're asking for God to have mercy on us and to help us in the ways we tend not to live in the mercy of God that's always there and have mercy. So there's a kind of mysterious intimacy to the prayer itself that's so consoling that we can say throughout the day or wake up in the middle of the night or throughout the day, and it's a gift in itself.

But the turning point for the Pilgrim, and really it's for all these mystics we've been studying, is he's in the midst of his life of devotional sincerity. He's at Liturgy, 21st Sunday after Pentecost, and he's hearing the scriptures being read, the kind of customary patterns of his life.

And he hears the text, the pray always, and he's heard the text before because every year the 21st Sunday after Pentecost, they read that text. I know this is true in the Roman Rite, but in the Orthodox Rite, 24th Sunday, I know what the reading is in the Roman Rite, so there's that. And also, it's in the midst of this, then, that there's an awakening event for him, like a quickening, which is an enhanced enrichment of his devotional sincerity. And this event is not the hearing of the Scriptures because everyone in the church heard it, see? Nor is the event that he's perplexed by it. Like, how can we pray always? Because we're often perplexed by the things of God. There's many things we don't understand. We sit with it and see guidance and read the Scriptures and so on.