Bonus: The Gift (A Meditation on Advent)

Jim Finley (0:00)

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Greetings. I'm Jim Finley.

Kirsten Oates (0:11)

And I'm Kirsten Oates.

Jim Finley (0:13)

Welcome to Turning to the Mystics.

Kirsten Oates (0:23)

Welcome, everyone, to this bonus episode of Turning to the Mystics.

It's coming to you in a time of advent, which is such a significant time in the Christian calendar that we thought Jim might help us pause and take a moment to reflect on this mystical meaning of advent. So Jim, thank you for taking the time to lead us in this reflection.

Jim Finley (0:48)

Yes, thank you very much, Kirsten. Thank you, yes.

Yes, you know, I must say, actually, I had something else prepared, and then just this morning, as I was preparing, I have this image I want to share with you now came to me, something that I've shared a long time ago. I haven't thought of it in quite a while, so I'll share it. I'll share it. And then we'll do a little sit at the end, as a kind of a mystical sensitivity to the mystery of the birth of Christ in our life.

The image here is a kind of a parable or a story of imagining that there's a child who dreams of having a pony. And as Christmas is approaching, the child tells the parents how much he'd love to have this pony, but the child also makes sure, she's very aware that it's too much to hope for, you know, to hope for a pony. But as it so happens, the parents get the pony and they keep it hidden away. And on Christmas morning, when the child comes out under the Christmas tree, there's the presents there. And the child opens up one present at a time. Here's a pair of socks from grandma and here's your video game. And the child says, oh, thanks and all that. And so then the mother says, well, I guess that's it. Like that and that's it. Then the mother goes, oh, wait a minute, wait a minute. What's this? Come on. And they take the child out into the back and there's the pony.

So the moment the child's face lights up that the gift too good to hope for is given.

We can say this about the parents. They're not there. That is, they're not there dualistically observing themselves observe the child being surprised. Rather, they're lost in the child's face that love does it to them. Love does it to them. And yet when they look back on that moment, they don't look back on it as loss, but they look back on it as a pure gain. It is as if for a fleeting moment, the gate of heaven opened. And what their heart knows is true that ultimately only love is real, was revealed to them.

Now, with this imagery in mind, what if when God created you, God gave you the gift of your life and it's all wrapped up and it takes you 90 years to open it? The older I get, I keep increasing that age, I keep advancing in years. So let's say the moment of your death is the moment the lid comes off the box and you're able to see what God gave you in giving you you. And when the lid comes off the box, you see that what God gave you in giving you you was God.

And just stunned by it, like amazed by it, you look up into the face of God and God's not there. God's lost in your face, lost in God. The God that love does it to God and love does it to you. And this is why there's no God who's dualistically other than the miracle of you. And this is why there is no you other than the miracle of God like this. Now with this imagery in mind, this poetic imagery in mind, we might say that this moment of being mutually lost in this unit of mystery of love is a very poetic way of speaking of the mystical experience.

The mystical experience, that is, these moments, these intimate moments of realized oneness that come to us in these ways we've been talking about in the writings of these mystics, that wash over us in the midst of nature or intimacy with another person or solitude or birth or death or creativity. They come as they come, they're given to whom they're given. But there is a moment in which we realize, when Jesus said, I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly, that that life is at once God's life and our own as one mystery like that. So this then is the birth of Christ. This is the birth of the birth of the unity of mystery of this one life given to us.