Dialogue 2: Chapter 10, The Long Text

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 six of Turning to the Mystics, where we're turning to Julian of Norwich, the 14th century mystic.

And I'm here with Jim, and we're going to be discussing his second reflection. Welcome, Jim.

James Finley (0:37)

Good to be back together again.

Kirsten Oates (0:38)

Yes.

James Finley (0:39)

Exploring Julian, it's very good.

Kirsten Oates (0:41)

Yes.

I was amazed that in reading chapter 10, it's so short, it's only a few pages, and you've gotten these two very deep reflections out of it. So the second dialogue is also about chapter 10, but there's so much depth in one chapter. Do you think every chapter is like that, Jim?

James Finley (1:02)

I do. I chose this because it does two key things that are key to all the mystics.

The distinction between seeking, I found him and I lost him and I had him and so on, and then the dropping to the bottom of the ocean as her metaphor for the mystical awakening. So it's like her way of where each of the mystic teachers are concerned about clarifying that transition. And then secondly, specifically for her, or brings out into the open our understanding of the cross, like God befriending us and our suffering and our death, and in this mystical image of Veronica's veil. So it brings, but in a sense, all the chapters of her book are like that.

It's just very intuitively dense in a disarmingly kind of simple language. I mean, but like everything she says counts. You have to sit with it and let her take you there.

Kirsten Oates (2:01)

And she had these visions, she had a near death experience, and she's reflecting on the visions she had. I did have a question, like these additional visions, like the one about the ocean, Veronica's veil, did they come later as she was reflecting on the initial vision or were they a part of that first experience?

James Finley (2:21)

My understanding is, is that there's the original showings at the edge of death in this ecstatic state in which she saw these vivid, intimate realizations of Christ crucified and also God revealing to her the meaning of the Cross is love. His meaning was love, she says. So there's that.

Then she spends the rest of her life living in fidelity to that and then seeing her life in the light of those visions.

So what she does then is she takes the first vision, for example, and then she sits with solitary silence, like a kind of Alexio, kind of in the light of the vision. And then in the process of that kind of meditative silence, she's given renewed and more interior visions, or not the dramatic imaginary visions of seeing. But it's like with us, in our mystical awakening, in our daily quiet time. There's flashes and tastes and insights and the deepening of understanding. And so in a way she's drawing out through years of kind of refined insight into the depth of what's revealed there. And I think our own life is like that. There's an initial awakening that gets set us on this path. It might not be as dramatic as hers, but there was a first awakening. But the longer we sit with it and walk with it, there's more flashes and intimations along the way.

And she's sharing hers with us. And as we read her, we join her. You know, she helps us to see these things too.

Kirsten Oates (4:04)

Thank you, Jim. That's really helpful to understand. And you did, I'm quoting you, but in the last session, you did talk about this idea of trying to align our heart with hers and align our intention with hers because she's helping us on this path.

So it's just helpful to understand that, that she could have just written down the visions, but she spent a long time in this contemplative way unpacking them and being able to communicate about them in a deeper, clearer way.

James Finley (4:33)

Yeah, see, I think when she was in her anchor hold in her cell and one window looking out at the altar so she could see the mass, then the other one on the street and people would come for direction because they sensed her holiness, like contemplative spiritual guidance. And then I think what it was is she realized that maybe they told her, look, the day's coming, you won't be with us anymore.