Dialogue 1: Everything is Possible

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 12 of Turning to the Mystics, where we're turning to the Christian mystic, Brother Lawrence, and his book, Practice of the Presence. And I'm here with Jim to discuss his first session. Welcome, Jim.

James Finley (0:38)

Yes, good. I look forward to our dialogue today.

Kirsten Oates (0:42)

I loved the first session. You only covered a small amount of text because it's just so deep. The teaching, beautiful. And I wanted to start with something that you actually said towards the end of the session. And you said that brother Lawrence just hits this one note. You said it's like he plays a violin with one string on it. But the string he's playing is the whole orchestra. So I wondered if you could help us understand that one note a little better.

James Finley (1:10)

Yes. He's so distilled. He's very distilled in the sense of presence. Because if we stop and think about it, the infinite presence of God is boundaryless. It's the presence of God that's infinite. And it's also the infinite presence of God presencing itself as a gift in the miracle of our presence. In our nothingness without God. And the presence of the world, the presence of the universe. So presence then is the thing. Because presence is always the presence of someone. It's the very presence of the person. It's not the qualities or the attributes or whatever, but the intimacy of their presence. And that's where he stays, like right there.

Kirsten Oates (1:59)

I see. So the one string is God's presence. But then God's presence opens up, is ribbon through every piece of reality. So it's the whole orchestra.

James Finley (2:09)

Right, the smell of flowers, the sky moving across the sky, standing up and sitting down. The endless modalities of our presence is the manifestations of God's infinite presence is our life in that. So he just stays right there.

Kirsten Oates (2:24)

Yeah, yeah. Well, what's striking about him too, and his story is that he didn't set out to write a book. So this was just how he spoke to people. This was what he wrote in his own journal every day to help support his own practice.

James Finley (2:42)

That's right.

Kirsten Oates (2:43)

So it's interesting to see it come together in a book as this one note that leads you to the whole orchestra.

James Finley (2:50)

That's right. You know, sometimes I think with these mystics that we explore in Turning to the Mystics podcast, like John of the Cross and Teresa and so on, you get the feeling that the people that went to them for spiritual direction said, you know, we're so benefit from the depth of your teachings on God's oneness with us, but you're not going to be here forever.

So if you'd write them down, write it like write it out. And I think so a lot of that was the motivation for a lot of the writings of these mystic teachers. But what happened with him is no one, it wasn't as if he was asked to write it out. It was lovely about it. He wasn't writing all this out for anybody. He was writing it out as a way to be present to himself in the presence of God. That's kind of so the very integrity of his text is that one note also, yeah.

Kirsten Oates (3:45)

Yes. And he was a cook. His occupation wasn't even to give spiritual direction, was it?

James Finley (3:52)

No, he was a laborer, uneducated that way. And also what's key then, as we listen to him being so present, we become more present in the listening to his presence. See, so we were being lured in to the very mystery he's inviting us to discover. And we're already in it by the fact that we're touched by the presence of what he's saying. It's like breathing. It's that kind of immediacy to it.

Kirsten Oates (4:24)

And I love, in the book, you get to listen in on his conversations with Joseph of Beaufort, and you get to read his private letters that he wrote to dear friends and people he was in conversation with. And you really get the feeling that this presence, he recognizes it as so healing, so helpful. So he really wants to share it with others who are interested.

James Finley (4:53)

Yeah, I get this sense from him. I remember this is what it felt like being with Thomas Merton. You get the feeling that if you went to him for spiritual direction, that you'd be in the presence of someone who is very present. He'd be very present. You also get the sense that he was very present to you. And because he was so present, sometimes we're in the presence of someone who's more present to us than we are. And he would join us. He wouldn't give a sermonette or a teaching. He'd listen to us first. And then he would join us with where we are in our concern. And it would roll out from there. And so I think when he writes, he writes that way to you. Like we're just drawn into it.