Stories from The Healing Path (Part 3)
How do you discern which direction to take on The Healing Path? We often stand at many crossroads while navigating a healing journey. After the release of CAC faculty member James Finley’s new book, The Healing Path: A Memoir and an Invitation, we invited several members of the CAC community—Ed, Bonnie, Sarah, JoEllen, and Arthur—to share their reflections of the book with us—and with you.
James Finley writes, “The Light that shines out from our graced moments illuminates the path.” We hope you’ll find illumination with these stories from the healing path.
How would you describe your own healing path?
Arthur: I am still on my healing path. I have had three experiences in my life that have caused me trauma: accepting I am gay, requesting to be relieved of my ordination vows, and struggling to reconcile my life with a verbally abusive father.
The first two I have come to terms with, but I am still working on the third.
Sarah: My path has been meandering and circuitous. The traumatic loss of my dad in a car accident when I was 10, and the ensuing downward spiral of my older brother into addiction catapulted our family into a disorienting few decades.
My faith in God, nurtured both from an early age by both parents and through our local Methodist church community, was the thread that held me together. My dad would pray with me each night and with his help, I memorized Psalm 23 and Romans 8:28. Those have been sustaining words to me throughout my life, especially when I’ve encountered bouts of depression. They tether me to my dad across space and time in mysterious ways.
In the second half of life, I’ve found the healing path is grounded in contemplation, silent retreats, turning to the mystics (both the podcast and in reading them), spiritual direction, and the arts. I recently trained in Spiritual Direction and am slowly building a practice. As a parent of two teenage boys, one of whom is autistic, I am also finding rest and slowing down as valued sources of healing.
Bonnie: I have been blessed to have two remarkable therapists who have helped me come to terms with a traumatic childhood. Both were spiritual people, so that dimension of healing was included in our work. I don’t believe I would have been able to heal from the extensive trauma without that spiritual support.
JoEllen: My path is ongoing, but I would say a positive recovery from workaholism. I grew up with post-Great Depression parents (who I adore to this day), and work was the most important thing. I allowed my work to define me.
What was the most challenging chapter in the book, The Healing Path?
Bonnie: Because I have known Jim for quite a few years, it was challenging to see and feel him in so much terror throughout several chapters of the book. I wanted to sit next to him and comfort him. The depth of Jim’s honesty about the impact of trauma and his willingness to share his intimacy with God is such a great blessing.
Sarah: The most challenging chapter in the book for me was Refuge. It broke my heart to hear about what happened to James in the monastery by the priest who had offered him so much consolation and support. It devastated and saddened me to know that James was thrust back into the traumatizing place of his childhood. It made me realize how many people suffer at the hands of others. It overwhelmed me with anger and emptiness.
Arthur: The most challenging chapter was Refuge. I have struggled to reconcile my life with a verbally abusive father. In my 30s, my dad’s verbal abuse worsened, especially to my mom. She would talk about how unhappy she was and how dad treated her. I felt powerless to help.
Later my parents moved in with me. I then experienced firsthand what my mother was going through, and I would say something and get into a fight with my dad. My mother asked me not to fight with my father, so I spent years listening to my father abusing my mother and did not know what to do.
What are some passages you’ve underlined or quotes that stuck with you?
Sarah: On page 20, James writes, “For in looking back at these moments, I can see how I was being led by God into enigmatic and paradoxical waters in which I was invited to realize that ultimately speaking there is no wall, no barrier between the polar opposite realms of trauma and transcendence that meet and merge and interpenetrate each other in endlessly varied ways throughout our lives.”
Here, he is writing about his wife Maureen’s deathless presence. This really hits home with me as I think about my family—my dad and his sudden death, my brother and his addiction, my son, and the dysregulation he experiences that can lead him to have violent outbursts toward me, and my mom, who is currently in the last stages of Alzheimer’s.
In all this trauma, there are transcendent moments. My brother, now 21 years sober, is caring for our mother. They used to fight, scream, and yell, and now there is this beautiful, caring love.
Ed: There were many passages that resonated. Often, Jim uses the same words in the book he uses in the Turning to the Mystics podcast to reinforce his messages. That was most helpful.
Arthur: James writes, “Until finally, she exhaled but did not inhale, leading me to realize that the moment of death itself is not an event but a cessation, a ceasing of the next life-sustaining inhalation.”
My father was not physically abusive, but he was emotionally abusive. He died at 88 from dementia and kidney failure. He died under Hospice care at home. I remember the nurse telling us that it was time, that dad’s heart was beating very slowly. It was only a few seconds when she said he was gone.
At that moment, the realization hit me that 88 years of memories, 88 years of experiences were gone and could never be recovered. Also, I had lost my final opportunity to make amends with my father. In one heartbeat, everything was lost.
However, James also writes, “To appreciate the practical relevance of such an understating to us here, we can ponder what it means to say that when you and I die and cross over into God, we will cross over into the eternity of this moment in which you and I are reading and writing these words in God in whom all that is passing away eternally subsists.”
These words give me hope that I can still reconcile with my father. When I crossover, I will be able to sit with him and absorb those lost years of memories and experiences.
JoEllen: I resonated with Jim’s experience in the sheep barn, encompassed by God. I wish everyone in the world could have a similar experience. Then, on page 137, Jim’s daughter tells him what she hopes for when she comes to visit ten years from now. It reminded me of conversations with my father after he retired and had been looking back on his life. He said everything I taught you was wrong; life is more important, not work. He told me what he hoped I could change.
Bonnie: There are quotes on every page that have the potential to transform the way we perceive ourselves and God. Jim writes, “We begin to realize that when we are born and take in our first breath, God is exhaling himself, whole and complete in and as the gift and miracle of our very life. We move on in our passage through time, sustained by God, inhaling/exhaling, inhaling/exhaling through all our days. Then, when the moment of death finally arrives, we exhale and do not inhale. And in our final exhalation God inhales us back into the infinite depth of God, which is our true and eternal home.”
I am 80 years old and while I am in good health, I know that death could come at any moment. Reading this every day helps me be ok with that. Jim also writes, “I have come to understand God as a Presence that protects us from nothing, even as we are inexplicably sustained in all things.”
So many people I have met in 30 years of offering therapy have trouble with a God who didn’t rescue them from the torment of their childhood. If I can carry this message to them, then perhaps they can experience God as the comfort and presence that is always there.
How has The Healing Path impacted your contemplative practice?
Ed: Knowing more about Jim’s personal history and what he overcame reinforces his excellent teachings and practices in the Turning to the Mystics podcast.
JoEllen: I have been contemplating the first breath and the last breath that James writes about in the book. I appreciate that thought and visual.
Sarah: I use passages of the book as a Lectio Divina practice and have found the words sinking into deeper depths, helping me to access that younger, smaller self who is in need of tending. I find the closing blessings in each chapter to be especially moving and profound. Lately, I’ve been having a hard time sticking with centering prayer but starting with one of these blessings will provide more grounding and quieting.
Arthur: James Finley’s words give me hope and encouragement as I am still working on establishing a contemplative practice.
The Healing Path: A Memoir and an Invitation can help spark or sustain your own healing journey. Learn more and order a copy from the CAC online Bookstore today! Purchasing from our online bookstore is an easy and effective way to support our mission to journey together on the Christian contemplative path of transformation.
Join us for a one-day online retreat with The Healing Path author James Finley! Can you follow the thread of your own healing journey? Sign up for Healing Stories: Finding God’s Presence in Trauma, Aug. 26, 9am–5pm PT. Space is limited to create a more intimate online experience.