Jim Finley:
Greetings. I’m Jim Finley. Welcome to Turning to the Mystics. Greetings, everyone, and welcome to our time together exploring the trustworthy guidance found in the teachings of Gabriel Marcel. In the previous session, we explored fidelity as a path or a way of life to be more habitually established in the mystery of God being poured out and given to us as the mystery of ourselves in our nothingness without God.
And in this session, we’re going to continue on the path, this time moving from fidelity to hope. Again, I’m still in Kenneth Gallagher’s summary of these teachings with the quotes. We’re in chapter five of Kenneth Gallagher’s book, Access to Being: Fidelity, Hope and Love, and we’re moving from fidelity into hope, which is on pages 81 to 86 of Gallagher’s book. So that’s where we are.
He begins, like he always does, with practical realities of daily life. And he begins by saying that hope usually psychologically refers to the ways that we hope that a certain situation that we’re in the midst of turns out the way we hope it will. So it may be anything from a project at work to a relationship, to a diagnosis of health. That’s the normal passage of hope.
And looked at it in this way, the psychological level, which is important, it’s understandable, there’s a word of prudence that Marcel is going to give around this understanding of hope and how he’s going to be suggesting hope that transcends this. What is the psychological day-by-day way we tend to speak of hope? He’s talking about hoping in the inexhaustible oneness of God, in the very mystery of ourself, like an inexhaustible hope that we will ever more deeply realize there’s nothing to hope for because the infinite generosity of God already is completely given to us.
And he’s going to be guiding us in moments where this flashes forth, where we fleetingly taste it, and then the path in which we can be more vitally established in that hope, the ultimacy of hope. He goes back though to say someone who’s just listening to this or as we listen to it in day-by-day awareness, the way we’d normally speak of hope, is to hope invincibly.
He’s trying to help us find an invincible hope. And now I’m in the top paragraph on page 84. Gallagher says, shedding light on Marcel, “Now, acting in this way seems to lay ourselves open to the disappointment of not having our demand fulfilled or hope fulfilled is against this imprudence that the responsible investors of life caution us. Hope is a risky business. We can avoid foolish risk by not expecting too much.”
So he’s talking about this invincible hope as a path to realize that the mystery of ourselves is the home of the infinite mystery of God being poured out and given to us as a mystery of ourselves. And the hope then is that we might be more habitually established in that there’s nothing to hope for and that the infinity of God’s already being given to us as the mystery of us.
And so our hope is that we might ever more deeply realize that and learn to live by it. And so he’s talking then about hoping in that ultimate sense. He makes the observation, this is us now from the psychological point of view as we typically would think of hope day-by-day. “Now, acting in this way seems to lay ourselves open to the disappointment of not having our demand fulfilled.
And it’s against this imprudence that the responsible investors of life caution us. Hope is a risky business. We can avoid foolish risk by not expecting too much.” I want to reflect on the practicality of this is what he’s talking about. If we look at life, we see that sometimes the things that we hope for occurred, and that gives us a basis for the things we’re presently hoping for, the ongoing blessings that we hope will continue on, will continue to occur.
And therefore, we continue hoping that the things we presently hoping for, fingers crossed, will also continue to turn out. And therefore, we hope that the present situation of unresolved outcomes will turn out the way we hope is all completely normal. But we also know that life is such as that what we were hoping how something was going to turn out didn’t turn that way at all.
As a matter of fact, it ended in some traumatizing disastrous way for us. And here I want to speak personally for me how this is so true. I’m here in Marina del Rey in Southern California, and I’m speaking to you in February 2025, right here near at the ocean here where I live. And just a few weeks back, there was horrible fires here driven by a hundred mile an hour winds.
And just utter devastation. So I’m on the third floor of this condo. The lady owns the second floor. They have a home in the Pacific Palisades. Their house burned down. It’s gone. There’s a woman who lives down the street. She did her doctorate in Julian of Norwich. Sometimes we come and talk. Two years ago, her and her husband I think had this dream house. It burned down. And so you see the footage. There’s just ashes everywhere.
We know that the hope that we hope something turns out is always mingled with the possibility of despair. Because the unforeseeability of life, there’s more ongoing blessings ahead, but there’s also more unforeseeable tragedies ahead and we can momentarily fall into despair that the way we hoped didn’t turn out that way at all. And a lot of psychotherapy is dealing with this and sorting it out and processing it and so on.
If Marcel is trying to take us to a deeper sense of hope, and here again I’m very openly here putting explicitly terms of faith in God that’s implicit in Marcel, which Marcel himself says his faith, but it’s like finding the presence of God outside religious traditions this way. And so for us in the Christian tradition, Catholic tradition, which Marcel became Catholic and lived in the Catholic tradition, where Jesus says is a passage in the Gospels, “To be wise as a serpent and simple as a dove.”
To be wise as a serpent is not to be naive about how unfair and how cruel and how tragic life can be. Jesus was executed. Things don’t often… Often enough they don’t turn out at all the way everything seemed to be lost. But he said, “Don’t become so aware of the times of utter loss and devastation that you become the cynic and you forget how to be simple as a dove. For how can we find in the depths of tragedy itself an invincible presence that doesn’t prevent the tragedy, but shines mysteriously in the tragedy itself.”
This is why often in psychotherapy after the fact and sometimes even during the tragedy itself, in the midst of painful loss, we discover within ourself the pearl of great price, the invincible presence which can’t be lost. Why can’t it be lost? Because we can’t have it. Because we don’t have it because it has us. Because it’s the infinite mystery of God giving itself away as the infinite mystery of ourself and our nothingness without God. This is the hope.
The hope is that we might learn to be habitually established in this. So what he does then is he always grounds this deep hope that shines out and transcends the hope of an outcome because it’s really a hope of realizing nothing’s missing because the infinite presence of God is presencing itself as the presence of ourself in the midst of the situation. Even the situation of utter loss is laid bare that which is not being lost in the lost.
So here I’ll read the passage. Again, similar as with fidelity, he gives example from death. We’ll be looking at other examples too. Looking for how to understand this deeper hope is this depth of hope. “Let us take the case of a man suffering from a fatal malady, a malady that has been so certified by the doctors attending him. To the outward eye, his case is closed.
It is merely a matter of waiting for time to accomplish in fact what is already achieved in principle. Yet the man persists in hoping for recovery. His hope takes the form of an unwavering refusal to reckon on possibilities. For anyone can tell him that his recovery is not contained among the possibilities which the cosmos has in store, but he hopes. He takes his stand within a realm where the ‘sum total of possibilities’ is a meaningless phrase.
Through his hope, he exists in a realm of creative being which is beyond inventories. Despair is bound up with what is inventoriable. Hope rears itself on the act of refusal to succumb to despair, to acquiesce, to the tabulability of being. It’s not so much a wish or an obstinate desire as it is a prophetic affirmation, ‘I shall get well.'” And this Marcel thinks is akin to the will whose fiat is a defiance of the world of what can be.
But here’s the key. It isn’t that I shall get well in the sense in which I’m not going to die. But as I die, I’m grounded in a hope that’s not diminished or threatened by my death. And Marcel says, he uses the word here disponsibility. “And disponsibility is an experiential availability. Disponsibility that begins in finite communion. The person’s on the deathbed hoping in the midst of their dying as they die.
Disponsibility that begins in finite communion and is consummated in the total openness that turns the soul to a source beyond the world. For hope is essentially an appeal to a creative power with which the soul feels herself to be in connivance. As such, it is the opposite of self-aggrandizement. Patience and humility are the indispensable commitments to authentic hope, a hope which is at the same time trust and love, for these are not separable.
The efficacy of hope lies in its forswearing of egocentric armament. To hope is not to thrust oneself forward, but to retire absolutely in favor of an absolute. Hope has no weapons. It knows no techniques. It could known none since techniques avail only in the world of having. But that world has no room for hope, only success or failure,” he says. And I want to use an example again that I used in a previous session which I think for me helps to see this.
It’s a saying that we don’t understand human nature until we understand why a child on a merry-go-round will wave at its parents every time around. So every time the child swings into view again, he waves at his parents and the parents are laughing. They wave back. And the child keeps waving until a child disappears again only to appear again. And here’s the insight, that in us that appears in time, everything that appears in time, ends in time.
See, we were all conceived, we were all born, we all appeared in time, and that which is appearing in time will end in time because we’re all dying very, very soon. Now, none of us will be here. But the point is this, just as the point at which the child swings around and comes into view is not the point where the child begins, it’s where the child appears. So in our conception, in our birth, it isn’t where we began.
Rather, it’s where God exhaled us out of the eternal depths of God hidden with Christ and God forever before the origins of the universe. It’s the unborn self in us, because God contemplating us in Christ forever is never, never, never not known who we are in divinus, in God, eternally in God. And this self, it was never born as a self that never dies. So the appearance, the appearance in time disappears in time as it appears in time.
But here we’re saying what it is is who appears in time is not the one who begins in time. It’s the one who hopes in this way is in the midst of the eternality of themselves that never began, transcending time shining out in the very moment that they’re hoping. And this is why it’s so moving to be with them. We also referred to this earlier in fidelity as Elisabeth Kübler-Ross on the stages of dying.
And she studied these dying patients very carefully, and she found that it goes through phases. So this first, denial, you can’t believe it’s actually your turn to die. And then you move into bargaining, you make a deal with God. Then when the bargaining doesn’t work because you’re still dying, there’s anger. And then the anger gives way to depression. And these are the stages of the ego in time coming to the end of itself.
But then she says, “There are some people who will come to acceptance.” She says, “Not everyone comes to acceptance.” She says, “What acceptance is is freedom from the tyranny of death in the midst of death.” So looking into the face of the dying loved one and acceptance as the gate of heaven. And this is the point. See, the point is that we’re all eternal.
Just as there’s the unborn self, this unborn self that we are is the self that never died. Exhales us onto the earthly plane. We’re here in time for a very short time really basically to turn out to love. And then in God’s good time, God inhales and the circle completes itself. But here the circle completes itself and the person is still here, but they’ve already crossed over.
They already crossed over. And in the state of crossing over, like grounded in a kind of clarity, not for the having, in a sense then we’re saying that they’re a momentary mystic. And that’s why we’re so moved to be in their presence. So what Marcel is saying, “Why wait until the 11th hour to become one?” In other words, why not realize now in this moment of time which is passing away?
So in this reflection that I’m sharing with you right now, I’m sharing this reflection in time, and this reflection is continuing on in time, and it’s going to come to an end and it’ll be over, because everything that appears in time ends in time, including this session. But what we’re bearing witness to in this session that begins in time and ends in time is that which never begins and never ends, which is shining out in the eternality of our ourself.
A mystery that never passes away that’s endlessly ribboned through everything endlessly passing away. Marcel’s inviting us to get a sense of this. Marcel talks about this connivance with us, and I want to talk about other ways where we realize hope other than death. This is page 26. “Hope consists in asserting that there is at the heart of being beyond all data, beyond all inventories and all calculations, a mysterious principle which is in connivance with me, which cannot will, but what I will if what I will deserves to be willed and is in fact willed by my whole being.”
I’d like to reflect on this. It isn’t just at the moment of death. I’ll use the example in sharing these talks. I hope these talks are helpful. I really do. But I also hope and I also sense that the fruit of these talks is worth hoping for. This is why Marcel points out or Gallagher uses the phrase, it isn’t that I hope the Dodgers win this year, they win the pennant. Because that’s not hope, that’s desire.
That’s why we can be disappointed when our desires aren’t met, but desires of the ego, the desires of time. So I hope, I hope then that these reflections are helpful. And I also hope or I trust that what I’m hoping for is worth hoping for. I think these talks matter. They mattered to me. They unexplainably matter. Of course, they matter. How could incarnate infinity intimately realize not matter? Go figure.
That’s not going to happen. Of course, it matters, but I have to will it with all my heart, if I don’t invest myself this way and share myself or give myself in the sharing of it. So this mystery, which is really the mystery of God, is in connivance with me and cannot but will but what I will provided what it will is worthwhile and this is worthwhile which makes this moment a graced moment.
Likewise, all those listening to these reflections. As you listen, there’s your intention, there’s your hope that in being present at Marcel’s reflections will guide you to be ever more deeply aware of the eternality of yourself that never dies in the passage through time in which death is already in the mail. And this is what makes Marcel’s teachings Lectio Divina. Later on we’re going to be talking about how to pray with Marcel.
But what Marcel does, notice all the mystics do this too, there’s something in the rhythm or the cadence or the tonal quality of Marcel’s voice, that carries us along and draws us into the depth of which he speaks. It isn’t that we can claim to comprehend it because it’s not comprehensible, but we sense the truth of it. And the truth of it, we sense the beauty of it.
And so this is our hope that we might be ever more habitually grounded in the realization that there’s nothing to hope for because nothing’s missing. Notice too then, in the midst of the gracious act, this talk, a loving intimacy with somebody, any form of service to the community, we realize this hope that in us which will never die is being enlightened and quickened by God to share and let become a channel through which God’s voice can speak to or touch or be with these people in this way.
Marcel’s trying to help us become habitually established in this sensitivity of hope. And I’m now on page 83. “In this hope we’re talking about, in the moment where we’re sensing we’re in this moment, what was hidden then becomes manifest. That the archetypal hope is the hope of salvation. The individual objects which seem to preoccupy it can all in turn be transcended and the soul empowered in an unconditional trust which excludes unfulfillment. Is that possible?
Like the skeptic in us, aren’t we overstating our mark? Aren’t we forgetting the unforeseeable ability of circumstances this way? And yet how can this be? To hope in someone is to extend credit to him to trust that we may count on him not to let us down. This is true of all hope. But our credit is because they might let us down. Like with someone who hopes in us, we might let them down. But it is exhaustible except when there’s a question of hope in all of its purity.”
And that’s the purity that he’s talking about, which is really the purity of God’s hope for us. So our hope is an echo of God’s hope for us that we might be ever more deeply aware that we are through the generosity of God, the very presence of God, in our frailty and in our limitations. I’d like to add another piece of this too for me. I want to share something. It gets back to the fires burning again.
With trauma, if we try to understand trauma, Marcel is inviting us to say the trauma doesn’t consist in all the traumatizing things that can and sometimes do occur, nor does trauma… The word trauma, the etymology, the word is woundedness. Nor does the foundations of trauma, the traumatizing effects that situations of trauma can have on as post-traumatic stress disorder, flashbacks and all of that.
As much of a struggle as all that can be, the foundations of trauma is the traumatized capacity to habitually abide in the presence that’s unexplainably presencing itself in giving itself away as our very presence, as a presence that never dies. And that’s what he means by experiential salvation. That we learn to live by this. There’s another reference here I think that also applies with fidelity. Thomas Merton points out in one of his talks I think we shared in the reflections.
The word martyr means witness. The martyr’s death is a death which bears witness to the eternality of ourself that never dies, bearing witness to the illusion of having life. For the martyr doesn’t give up on life, they bear witness the illusion of having life. Because it’s not for the having. See, it’s the infinite precious that has us and giving itself to us as our very presence. And you see this running through all the mystics and the fathers of the church and so on.
But one of the early martyrs of the church, Saint Ignatius of Antioch. We said this in the fidelity talk too because I want to merge fidelity with hope. Saint Ignatius of Antioch, there’s a letter that he wrote to his congregation as he was being taken to Rome to be martyred, to be fed to the lions in Rome. And he got word that his congregation was trying to pull political strings to stop the martyrdom. And so in this letter, he asked them not to do that.
He said, “Because the lion’s teeth will grind my body to make bread for the Eucharist. And in the morning when the sun comes up, it’ll be me. But when I actually get there and start to walk in, if I change my mind, don’t listen to me because I’m in water over my own head of a truth that I know is true, but the fragility of my own ego isn’t up to it.” But the ego that’s not up to this is the ego that this shines through, because it’s a divinity that shines the simplicity and the sincerity of our ordinariness.
The word became flesh and dwelt among us. So the martyr then doesn’t give up on life. They bear witness to the illusion of having life, because life’s not for the having. Rather, life is the infinite presence that has us and giving the infinity of itself to us as our very presence. It’s deathless and eternal and shining out through the fragility of the self that’s dying even as I speak and even as you listen, like endlessly passing away the shining forth of that which never passes away.
Moving toward a conclusion here. Saint Paul writes in a letter to the Hebrews that faith is the substance of things hoped for. Earlier, see, we were talking about fidelity. Fidelity is this experience that what we hope for, namely ultimate fulfillment in God, the substance of that is already here in faith. And we were saying too, so Jesus as Christians and the Christian dispensation of this, Jesus is the Christ, the one in whom is revealed.
Whatever it is to be God, whatever it is to be human is inseparably woven together as one forever. But another way of looking at Jesus also is that Jesus was a Jewish mystic and as a mystic teacher. He was always looking for ways to help us see this what Marcel’s trying to help us see. He’s talking about, what is that? And each mystic, and we saw through all the mystics that we’ve been looking at, each mystic has his or her own words for this.
So this is Marcel’s language for this. But Jesus’ language for one of the ways that Jesus speaks of this has to do with how Jesus uses the term the kingdom of God. So in some passages in the gospel, the kingdom of God is God’s ultimate victory over suffering and death, where the lion shall lie down with the lamb. So God is not worried how all this is going to turn out because in the ultimacy of the unfoldings of it all and time shall be no more.
There’s that. In some passages, Jesus says we should work for the coming of the kingdom by bearing witness to this through love and through mercy and through kindness, being ever more Christ-like, ever more vulnerable, ever more open, bearing witness as we walk the walk. In other times, he says the kingdom’s already here. The epistemology of realized eschatology.
Epistemology is the depth dimensions of knowing. It’s a quiet knowing that this ultimate victory of love is already present as an event in consciousness. This event in consciousness shines forth in certain moments such as the person on their deathbed. But also notice this too, it gives itself in certain moments if what we hope for is worth hoping for and we hope for it with all our heart.
That somehow whether it be these sessions or teaching a class or taking care of a dying parent, whatever it is, we would hope that in the details of all that that’s passing away, there is shining forth that which never passes away in all this passing away. There’s this realized eschatology that is already completely present, but hidden. But it reveals itself in a hidden way, in this way. You can’t draw it down to the open to look at it because there’s no it to it. It’s not objectifiable.
But we can, and this is what all the mystics do and this is what Marcel is doing, we can bear witness in a poetic language that resonates and reverberates with what in our heart we know is true. And we can’t explain it either and we don’t need to. So for Marcel then, we might say this, I hope that with God’s grace, I’ll be ever more habitually established that there’s nothing to hope for, in the sense that everything I could possibly hope for is already unexplainably present, as the infinite presence of God presencing itself forth in me now in the vulnerable sincerity of me being here just the way I am.
And so too with each of you listening to this, that we might also share this hope and cultivate it. So with that then we’ll end with a sit. And again, as always, just sign to sit with whatever this is that strikes you about this. How could you be more open to what resonates within you and what it’s asking out of you and so forth. The sincerity of being in the presence of God in the light of Marcel’s teachings.
So with that then and that spirit then, let’s begin with a prayer. Fold our hands and bow. Repeat after me. Be still and know I am God. Be still and know I am. Be still and know. Be still. Be. And bow. We slowly say the Lord’s Prayer together. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen. Mary, Mother of Contemplatives, pray for us. Saint Ignatius of Antioch, pray for us. All you angels and saints in the fullness of God eternally present with us, pray for us. Blessings until next time.
Kirsten Oates:
Thank you for listening to this episode of Turning to the Mystics, a podcast created by the Center For Action and Contemplation. We’re planning to do episodes that answer your questions. So if you have a question, please email us at [email protected] or send us a voicemail. All of this information can be found in the show notes. We’ll see you again soon.