Coming Soon: Turning to T.S. Eliot

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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James Finley (0:13)

Coming soon on Turning to the Mystics.

In season 10, we'll be turning to guidance to the poet, TS. Eliot, in his poem Four Quartets. I'm turning to him because I was first introduced to TS. Eliot when I was in the monastery by Thomas Merton. Merton was a poet, and a deep respect for TS. Eliot's poetry. And also for the poetic voice as carrying mystical connotations or dimensions to it. And so I've been reading TS. Eliot over the years. I find it very beautiful and moving, so I thought it would be good to share it with our listeners and help them in their own spiritual journey. You know, I think at the heart of all these sessions is bearing witness to mystical experience. And mystical experience in the broad sense is experiencing and responding to God's presence in our life. And so we're continuing on with that. But instead of returning again to one of the other classical mystics in the Christian tradition, we'll be doing more of those in future sessions. I want to be turning now to TS. Eliot as a mystically awakened poet who shares in poetic language this mystical dimension of our life, like the divinity of daily life. So in that sense, that's the continuity of this session with all the previous sessions. The poetic voice embodies and bears witness to the intimacy of the unexplainable dimensions of our lives. It's not like linear discourse that defines and concludes things. Rather, it's endlessly evocative in giving voice to the interiority of our lives and how to live in fidelity to those depths and to share it with others. And I think that's the gift of the poetic voice. I think when we listen to poets, it helps us listen to the poetic residences of our own voice. That a lot of times when we're just being spontaneous or reflecting on something, when you really think about it, there's a kind of a poetic immediacy. This happens a lot in psychotherapy too. There's like an immediate self-disclosure of something about yourself. And so it helps us get in touch with that dimension of our own voice and how to live by those sensitivities within ourself.

Our journey with TS. Eliot begins on September 9th. Blessings. Till next time.

SPEAKER_1 (3:06)

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