The Way of a Pilgrim: Session 2

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

You're listening to a podcast by the Center for Action and Contemplation. To learn more, visit cac.org.

James Finley (0:07)

Greetings, I'm Jim Finley. Welcome to Turning to the Mystics.

Greetings, everyone, and welcome to our time here together, turning for trustworthy guidance to The Way of a Pilgrim, one of the classic texts in the Christian mystical tradition.

In the previous session, we set the tone for a whole approach to this, and really all the mystics. The tone being the fact that because it's written as a personal narrative, we can say that when the pilgrim shares what he experienced, we can say literally he was really experiencing that. And whatever anyone told them, someone really did tell him that. But at a more interior level, his experiences are metaphorical openings into the interior depth dimensions of his life. It's just like in the gospels, when it says that Jesus said this to this person, they said this person back, we can say that in a moment in history, Jesus really did say that. The person did say that, or Jesus did this. But really, what we see there in each thing that Jesus says is a timeless depth dimension of the presence of Jesus in our life. And so the text then, the interiority of the text is letting the words and the events of the pilgrim drop down into and shed light on the interior events of our own unfolding life. And so at the deepest level, for example, we're all pilgrims at this deep level. We're on a journey towards God. It's where we are. And also it's true that he says that he's a pilgrim of the humblest birth and that he has some dry bread in it on his knapsack that sustains him through time. So too, we have our clothes and our furniture and our house. But when you really look at it, it's sustaining our bodily presence through time. And also over his breast pocket in his heart is his Bible, which is this deathless presence of God letting us know we're the beloved that will never die. God's, we are sustained in God's love. So the whole book then is read in these deeply personal layers of ourself, like guiding us. So as we listen to the pilgrim, the pilgrim's guiding us. And then when the teacher, when the pilgrim meets the teacher, the things the teacher says, not only is guiding the pilgrim, the things the teacher says is guiding us. And so it's woven into the immediacy of the timelessness of these timeless teachings, the spiritual teachings. And another, one of these timeless points is he's living this life of devotional sincerity, living the Christian life, efficacious unto holiness. He's at liturgy. And he hears Paul's letter to the Thessalonians being read to pray always. And he's quickened by it. And so the next point is this, is that from time to time, we're interiorly quickened or accessed by something of the things of God that maybe we've heard many, many times before. But for the very first time, it opens, it sheds a light on us and in us in a new way. And also sometimes, in this case, it's a dilemma, something we just assumed we understood. Now we don't, I'm so sure at all that we understand it. And it's like any time that we love someone very much, we don't know someone very well at all. You take a lot of things for granted. But if you love them very much, any concern that you see that they're troubled by something or burdened by something or knowing something, you're moved by your love, like an imperative to pursue it. And so his own awakening heart is being pursued by God and opening this up as a dilemma. And it also knows that this deep dilemma, the quickenings for the Pilgrim and for us, we can't think our way through them. Thought will not bring us to the awareness that he longs for. It's not thinkable, it's realizable. But it's realizable at a level that transcends thinking. And he says, what am I to do? It has something of us. And so he's on a journey to resolve this dilemma, the grace dilemma of his awakening heart. And in this journey, he meets people just like we do, on our journey. We can all look back on how we got to this particular point in our life now in the search for God, and see certain people in our life, certain events in our life, certain shifts in circumstances that only known to us at the time contributed to where we are right now leading us onto this path. And so he shares with us the sequence of his own unfoldings to the day. And one thing he knows is that listening to sermons, any talk about ceaseless prayer does not tell his own awakening heart what he needs to know about ceaseless prayer. It's not a topic or it's not some thing given from a pulpit to encourage people. He's looking for the actual substantive realization that alone will satisfy him this way. And the next, another deep lesson he learns is that really he's being too literal here. It's not a ceaseless prayer, but rather it's a prayer that embodies God's ceaseless desire for God. It's an echo of God's ceaseless desire for him and for all of us. So what is the prayer that embodies this longing this way? And so in a way then, it's the longing itself that is the prayer. That the longing for God is, God is the origin and the author and the sustaining substance of the very longing itself. It's God's oneness with us in the longing itself this way. And what we're doing is surrendering to the longing this way. And it's along this way then, as he moves on and on and on, he gets to a point he doesn't even know where he's going anymore. A treacherous land. That is, what's happening is he's losing his bearings, an old reference points on which he used to allow to guide him, and now no reference points are adequate anymore. And yet, the ones that would be adequate have not yet appeared. And it betwixt and between these two worlds, for John of the Cross is the dark knight of faith, really. And so he's being led by God, mysteriously along this journey, and then he says finally then he meets his teacher.