Dialogue 2: The Teacher Arrives

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 nine of Turning to the Mystics, where we're turning to The Way of a Pilgrim by an anonymous author.

And I'm here with Jim, and we're here to reflect on Jim's second talk for this season. Welcome, Jim.

James Finley (0:39)

Yes, so good. It's one of my favorite texts, actually, in the Mystics, so glad we're doing this together.

Kirsten Oates (0:46)

Yes, me too. I've just been so enjoying this season and this book. It's just wonderful.

So, Jim, you've given all of us an invitation to let the word and events of the Pilgrim shed light on our own lives and the way our lives unfold. And then you and I also offered an invitation for people to send in their own stories of pilgrimage or their own stories of being quickened this way. And so in today's episode, we're going to go through some of the elements that the book's teaching us about this journey. And so if someone's thinking they might write into us, they might choose one of these elements and how that played out in their life.

Just starting with the overarching theme, and the overarching theme is that we are all pilgrims and we're on a journey to God.

James Finley (1:45)

Yes, let's say a pilgrimage is a journey in a movement towards spiritual fulfillment.

And we wend our way through our days. But ultimately speaking, we're all on this pilgrimage toward God because when we breathe our last breath, we cross over into God. So in via, on the way through time, we're trying to go into ever deeper realizations of God's oneness with us and God's guidance with us, and then to express and share that with others.

Kirsten Oates (2:19)

And the Pilgrim starts with just life as usual. And you pointed out how he has the kind of daily essentials. He's got his food, he's got a certain set of tasks, and then the Bible in his pocket over his heart representing God's loving presence.

So we're kind of just living our lives as usual.

James Finley (2:41)

And again, suggesting that the details of our life are probably vastly different than the Pilgrim's. But the point is all of our belongings, our home, our furniture, our clothes, all that, you think of it, they sustain our bodily existence through time, really. But if over our heart, the scriptures and our passage through time is the eternity of God's love guiding us through our days into God. So in that sense, we're in concert with the Pilgrim. You know, we kind of see ourselves in the same light.

Mm-hmm.

Kirsten Oates (3:15)

What I just love about this book is it's so embodied. Like, it's really about the concreteness of our lives. It really reflects that so beautifully.

James Finley (3:24)

Yes. And I think something, too, another good thing about this text, and another book that's like this is Teresa of Avila's The Life, her spiritual autobiography, her life. Because when you get right down to it, it's our life, it's our very life. Like Thomas Merton once said in the monastery, wouldn't it be interesting when you die and face God, and you find out God isn't even at all interested in your spirituality, God's infinitely interested in you.

And so it's our very life, it's the living of our life. And the book kind of concretizes that. We see that also in the gospel, God revealed in the life of Jesus, he lived his life.

Yeah, exactly, yeah.

Kirsten Oates (4:03)

So it's so helpful.

So he's in his usual life, and his life, he's living the Christian life.

And then he goes to church, and it's the 24th day after Pentecost, 24th Sunday after Pentecost. And he hears Paul's words, pray without ceasing, and he's quickened. And you talk about this as the next element. So life's going on as usual. And then out of nowhere, he's quickened. And what's fascinating about the quickening to me is that he would have heard this scripture many, many times, he's been to this church probably many, many times, and out of nowhere, it speaks to him in a much deeper way.

James Finley (4:44)

That's right, that we're living our, this life of devotional sincerity in our own way, if it's given to us to do so.

And then from time to time, our grace with the quickening, that we usually don't see coming this way. And it comes in many forms in all the realms of life, and love found and love lost, and day by day, whatever the journey is. And in this case, it happens in church. And it happens in church, in hearing something heard many times before, but hearing it for the first time in a new way. Because it accesses him with an inner necessity. See, like a riddle or a coin, like how can this be this way? And it says it forced itself upon his mind. See, that was the grace, like where the stirring begins. And so he is about to open up an unexpected new phase of his life. And that our life is this way. From time to time we are granted quickenings.