Dialogue 2: Fidelity

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 (0:24)

Welcome, everyone, to season 11 of Turning to the Mystics, where we're turning to the teachings of Gabriel Marcel. And I'm here with Jim to dialogue about Jim's second session on fidelity.

James Finley (0:39)

Yes, exactly. Glad to get into this again for the people, yeah.

Kirsten Oates (0:43)

I'm so looking forward to our discussion, and I just wanted to remind everyone we're using the philosophy of Gabriel Marcel by Kenneth Gallagher. And so the quotes we'll be quoting today are from that book.

James Finley (0:56)

Yeah, chapter five of that book.

Kirsten Oates (0:59)

Excellent. Chapter five, Roman numeral one on fidelity.

James Finley (1:04)

Right.

Kirsten Oates (1:05)

So I think just to situate ourselves back into the realm of Marcel, you've shared with us, Jim, that Marcel shares vision and path aspects to his view of the world. Fidelity is the start down the path aspects. He has these three path aspects. But I thought it might be helpful before we talk about fidelity to situate ourselves in the vision aspects of Marcel's path.

James Finley (1:33)

Yes. And notice also, we saw this in all the mystics also. They start out by bearing witness to what reality looks like through awakened eyes, but the spiritual worldview of the contemplative way. And this is what Marcel does.

So his approach to this, we saw that each mystic has his or her own voice of expressing this. He talks about a winding path as a way of in our daily life, where we constantly meet the interface of aspects of our life that are problematic, as distinct from those that are mysterious. The problematic, the problem that we face is when we seek an answer or a solution to a problem that's dualistically other than ourselves. So the example we use is that my car won't start, is a problem. The roof is leaking, is a problem. I can't figure out a certain math problem, is a problem. So when it comes to problems, we look for a method to solve the problem, or we go to someone trained in the use of the method to help us solve the problem. Then once we solve it, we're done. We move on to the next problem. So there is the reality, the problematic of our lives. The realm of the mysterious is different. And when we turn to mystery, we realize that we're turning towards aspects of reality that cannot be objectively set over dulystically other than ourselves. It includes us. So example, if I ask, what does it mean to be human? It's myself as a human being that's asking, what does it mean to be human? What does it mean? What is consciousness? It's me and the reality of my own consciousness, asking about consciousness. Or if I ask, what is love? It's my very self and my desire for love and my gratitude for love, this exploring and asking about love. And so I cannot separate myself that I'm always involved in the mystery. So these are mysteries and not problems. But he doesn't mean that this is key to the Marcel's vision. He doesn't mean it in a reductionistic sense, where everything refers back to myself as my opinions, my conclusions, my answers, my beliefs. He means the opposite. He means that the mystery of myself extends out into and is woven into the mystery of humanity itself. And also my consciousness is woven into the mystery of consciousness itself. And my love is woven into the mystery of love itself. And ultimately speaking, that my consciousness is woven into being, that's what he means by the ontological mystery, he means the mystery of being. And by mystery of being, he means that which is infinite, which is eternal. And we're being kind of very free about making explicit about fullness of being being God. And so this is implicit in Marcel, we'll look at this closer later. And so what it really means then, what mystery is, is that the mystery of myself extends out into and is woven in to the mystery of God, who's extending out and woven into and given to me as the mystery of me. So I'm caught up in a transubjective communion with God. And that's the whole realm of mystery. So he presents it first by inviting us to just reflect upon this, like just to kind of quietly. And there's another key thing for Marcel in this, primary reflection is objective and factual. It refers to the problematic that has its own reality. The secondary reflection is a reflection that recognizes the inadequacy of primary reflection. And it recognizes it because we kind of begin to get immersed into mystery. And really to be immersed in mystery is to be immersed in presence. It's in so far as I'm grounded in presence, I start to see the non-objectifiable mystery of myself. So he says, this is the insight, this is the vision. So then the question is, if this vision rings true, say it rings true, but I realize how much I get caught up in the problematic. I get caught up in the concern about the outcome of a situation. But what the person is going to think of me is, is this going to be okay? Not okay. And I kind of, I'm like I'm skimming over the depths of my own life, caught on the surface of the problem. But there are certain moments where the mystery shines through. And this is where we talked about the Thou moment. So the Thou moment is where there's someone that I love, and I see them objectively. I know what they look like and who they are. I know their history. I know their personality. I know all of that. But to know them as Thou is to experientially realize who I know them to be and my love for them. And what I realize them to be is that the infinite presence of God is presencing itself in and as the presence of the beloved and there are Thou unto me. And then when the one who is Thou unto me returns the favor that I'm Thou is Thou, you have the reciprocity or the union of love. And in this union of love, we realize that the two of us together, and this also applies to family, father, mother, sister, brother, friend, just love. That all of us are the Thou of the infinite Thou of God, who's being poured out and given to us as the Thou of ourselves. And there are certain moments, and this is going to help us to see this, there are certain moments where it flashes for us. If we recall way back when we first started with Thomas Merton, where he says, The world and time are the dance of the Lord and emptiness. And he says, We don't have to go very far to catch echoes of that dancing. And he gives some examples. He said, when we're out walking alone and we turn to see a flock of birds descending, where we know love in our own heart, where we're reading, we're looked down into a child's upturned face. And there are endless other examples, the quiet hour at day's end, lying awake at night listening to our breathing. There are certain moments, sometimes they can be very intense, transformative. But usually they're very, very delicate. And so he's pointing out these moments where the thou shines through. The thou is our very ontology, it's our very being, but where it shines into our consciousness.