Jim Finley:

Greetings, I’m Jim Finley. Welcome to Turning to the Mystics. Greetings, everyone, and welcome to our time together, Turning for Trustworthy Guidance to Gabriel Marcel’s teachings on love. As with our prior two sessions on fidelity, and then on hope, we’re still in passages in Marcel, and commentary, found in chapter five of Kenneth Gallagher’s book, The Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel. And now, we’re at Roman numeral III, page 86 to the end of the chapter.

So Marcel begins in a very kind of down-to-earth-kind of experiential way about love. Gallagher says on Marcel, “Marcel approaches his understanding of love as any experience, which opens us to another,” can be called love, “Until in the end, we may not only say that communion is founded on love, but that communion is love,” so we’ll begin there, that when we speak of love as any experience that opens us to another, it’s love that delivers us from the notion that we’re a separate, isolated-unto-ourself person. It’s being adequate for understanding the mystery of who we are, that somehow, the mystery of who we are includes an openness in love towards another. And also, I would say this too, as we move toward the other, and that we move toward the other as lovable, and we move toward the other as having a value in their very presence that we recognize, and therefore, we seek to merge and be one with that value that we see in the other. And so, for example, what we used before in previous sessions in marital love, when one is holding the beloved in their arms, they wouldn’t say that they’re holding love itself in their arms, but neither would they say the beloved that they’re holding is dualistically other than love.

Rather, they would say the presence of the beloved that they’re holding, they recognize this infinite presence of the infinite love of God, presencing itself, and giving itself to us, as incarnate in the presence of the beloved that we’re holding. And here, right away, we start to see this unit of communal sensitivity. And while this is true of marital love, it’s true of all forms of love, father, mother, sister, brother, lover, spouse, beloved teacher, beloved student, beloved community, grandmother, grandfather, this way, the beloved. Also, in this thou dimension, that we see that moves us towards this, is we also see this interpersonal communion. Also, it’s always intrapersonal, that we, ourselves have a value in the depth of ourself, and therefore, in love, we seek to be ever more one with and open to, and grounded in that depth, which we recognize in the depth of the mystery of our ourself is the mystery of the infinite love of God, giving itself to us as the very depth of ourself, in our nothingness without God.

And also, even broader also, it includes the earth, the thou dimension of the earth. St. John of the Cross is out, walking alone in the mountains. And he said, “In possessiveness of heart, we’re tempted to try to possess it like real estate. We walk along, and it goes kind of deeper, and we see the Beloved has passed this way in haste.” And then he says finally, “My Beloved is the mountains, that the world itself is God’s Body, that is bodying forth the love that’s uttering and into being, which is the sacramental divine dimensions of the darkness of the night, the smell of flowers, the earth, the world, what is.”

He says also, Kyle goes on to say, “All this poetic, beautiful language of love is thou, it’s true.” But what he also invites us to look at is very often, some of the deepest, most intimate suffering that we endure, we experience in love, and the desire for love. Gallagher writes, “In the first place, if love really reaches the being of the other, then how can it be exposed to error?” And yet, it is no uncommon observation that love is often bestowed on unworthy recipients and callously betrayed by them. “Does this not make it look as if love were all along a thought of itself to be made contact with the being of another, was really flirting around a fictitious idea of our own devising?”

“You’re not who I thought you were to be. You are no longer the one that I love,” is the explanation that’s wrung from person when the scales of illusion falls from their eyes. I’d like to reflect on this, really. When we love somebody, lover, spouse, brothers, friend, what we’re drawn towards are the characteristics of the person that we find lovable. And so what we find in them are their qualities, their character. We see maybe that they’re understanding, that they’re kind, that they’re humble, that they’re sensitive, that they’re honest, like a litany of lovable characteristics.

And in those lovable characteristics, we then move toward them, want to be one with that, with them in the lovable characteristics. But then, what happens is that as we get into the trenches of the relationship, we discover other qualities start emerging that are unloving. The person is unkind, quick to anger, cynical, judgmental, insensitive, aloof, addictive, indifferent, etcetera, et cetera, et cetera. And you are not who I thought you were, because when we first moved towards it, we’re at our best. We’re kind of really putting it on.

This is good. But over time, when it starts leaking through, or these other qualities, it starts shining out this way. It goes like this. Now, here’s the thing, and he talks about this more. He has a lovely book called Homo Viator, the human person, the journeyer, and he talks about the sifting out over time.

What he implies here is this. If I tell the beloved … It might be my father, my mother, my sister, my brother, my spouse, whatever. When I point out to them that this aspect of themselves is hurtful, not just hurtful to me, but it’s also hurtful to themselves, if they take that in and they take it to heart, and they commit themselves to working on that, they’re all the more lovable to us. And likewise, they return the favor and let us know that living with us is no walk in the park either, and we have certain kind of iffy ethics coming out. And as they pointed out to us, and if we acknowledge that, if we say that, “Thank you for that,” “I’m going to work on that,” the more we sincerely work on it, the more lovable we become.

So interestingly enough, it’s these very characteristics that drew us to the person that are still there, but unexpectedly, kind of paradoxically, it’s the very characteristics that are hurtful and unloving, which one pointed out become all the more lovable. He said, “But the real problem,” Marcel says, “Is that the finite self refuses to admit.” They kind of dig in, either because they know it’s true, but they don’t care, or they won’t admit it because they’re in denial. They don’t see it. They won’t let it in. And insofar as they won’t let it in, they won’t deny it, then we have to do our best to keep pointing out to them, “This is hurtful, this is hurtful.”

And sometimes no relationship is perfect, whether it’s your father, your mother, but sometimes if the hurtful aspects of the self are so pervasively hurtful, we realize it’s antithetical to love, and it’s hurtful to love. And here’s what’s really sad about it, when we look at a lot of therapies about this, we can see how sadly we went on for how long we went along with that. The price paid for the half-lived life is bitter, either because we’re afraid to be alone or because we don’t really think we deserve better, or it’s a ritualistic reenactment of our family of origin, and we are unconsciously drawn to it and it plays itself out. And so we come to these places where then, we sometimes, if necessary, we have to end the relationship, end the relationship for the sake of love, and for the sake of the truth of love, and for the truth of ourself. So it isn’t just …

Carl Jung talks about the shadow, and the shadow is the unacknowledged aspects of the self, which are these broken places within our ourself. But also, another way of looking at the shadow, that part, aspect of ourself we don’t see is we don’t see the divinity of ourself. See, we don’t see that we’re worth all that God is worth, and our nothingness without God because we are God’s manifested love, giving itself to us as the mystery of who we are. So it’s really kind of honoring the light of love, like the light of the divinity of ourself, that we face the truth and sort that out in the midst of conditions, living in the light of the unconditioned, and that goes the way it goes. But Marcel would kind of invite us to be considered, be sensitive to these patterns.

And the details around what we’re talking about now are never the same because it’s as unique as our signature, our fingerprints. We recognize the patterns, that each of us is a unique addition of this universal story, and this is one of the patterns, and Marcel is helping us to see that about characterization. But then, he then moves on to say, “But if we’re drawn to what’s characterizable …” Because that’s how we … You have to start somewhere.

You recognize qualities, their personality, and their givens, and you start … It’s real. What he’s really talking about is this love, that is the infinite … And he uses the infinity of being, but Gallagher, he’s very clear implicitly. He’s talking about God.

God is love. What he’s really talking about is that he’s now going to offer a series of aphorisms about the ultimacy of love. And that’s what he’s talking about, as with fidelity. And so the vision of ourself is that the mystery of ourself opens out upon and extends out into the mystery of consciousness, the mystery of love, the mystery of being human. And it also opens out upon the mystery, or the infinite mystery of the infinite mystery of God, and God infinitely giving the mystery of God away is the mystery of who we are.

That’s the vision aspect. So we’re looking at fidelity, and we’re looking at hope, and now we’re looking at love as modalities, or that vision that is our very ontology, our very being, shines through into consciousness. So that’s what he’s really looking at. And then, how can we then learn to live in the light of that, the truth of ourselves, shining into consciousness? And here, it’s love.

So here, it’s now a series of aphorisms like holy sayings. And notice that each one of these is worth sitting with it. And so it makes it Lectio Divina, like it’s very evocative on what the implications are, and we sit with it, and it begins this first aphorism. “Love only addresses itself to what is eternal, immobilizes the beloved above the world of genesis and vicissitude.” I’d like to comment on this saying.

What’s this mean that the beloved, thou is beyond genesis? And really, what it means is, beyond genesis, it’s beyond becoming. It’s beyond becoming in time like evolving states, and I’d like to use here the image of parents with a newborn infant. It’s really true, the child is in this genesis. It’s in its beginnings. It’s going to go through developmental phases of internalizing abilities, and reflection, and speak all of that.

But what’s so fascinating about the newborn infant is that even though the child is sitting there in its littleness, the parents are smitten by the love in them that allows them to see the thou of the child, that when they’re in the presence of the infinite or in the presence of God, and therefore, it transcends beyond becoming, because it’s already unexplainably there, like shining out. It also reveals them to themselves as capable of seeing that. It also reveals them to themselves that beneath their abilities as adults, they can walk around and talk and sort things out. This thou dimension they see in the infant is shining up from the thou dimension of themself. It transcends their abilities. And also vicissitudes, and the vicissitudes are our wavering ways.

It’s like we were saying about being … We were talking about fidelity, yet there is fidelity. But what’s interesting about us is we’re also so faithfully unfaithful. It’s amazing how faithfully unfaithful we are. It’s a give and take situation.

But here’s the other side of it. But even though we’re so faithfully unfaithful, we’re so unfaithfully faithful, because we’re still here. But shining through our vicissitudes is the unwavering plenitude of the love that transcends and permeates the vicissitudes themself, like it permeates and transcends the very patterns and rhythm of our vicissitudes of a certain holiness about them, because God’s incarnate in the fullness, not just when we’re at our best, but God’s infinitely given to us when we’ve lost our way. The love of being is to say to Him, “Thou at least shall not die.” Back to eternity.

Now, again, we’re staying with eternity. “Thou at least shall not die.” It will do no good to say that, “Nevertheless, he will die,” since all things come to an end. Things, natura, the thing, the body, everything comes to an end, for the prophetic affirmation of love is precisely a proclamation that the Beloved as beloved is exempt from the penalties of thingness. It’s true that in your thingness, they mean you’re growing older by the minute.

You’re going to die, so am I. But the thou that I see you to be is exempt from the penalties of thingness, and that’s the eternality of the self, which is the eternality of the eternity of God, being given to us as the eternality of ourself. And so we saw this in T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, this mysterious interplay of time and eternity of deathless and shining out through death, and so Marcel’s kind of inviting us to sit with this, see that, “Although I die, I do not die.” Another thing he’s kind of inviting us to see, I think here is, “How can I learn to die to all the ways I get caught in thinking and believing I’m nothing but the self that dies, that I can’t see past the closed horizon of the self that’s passing away? And how can I be healed and see the eternal love that’s giving itself to me as eternality of myself shining through?”

And this is what makes Marcel’s invitation Lectio Divina, because as we sit and listen to him, it rings true. We can tell it’s a kind of a poetic language that allows us to help find words for things. It’s hard to find words for it, but it’s that very fullness without which everything else is incomplete without this. The more we love Him, the more we love the person as Thou, as the Beloved, the more we comprehend Him as authentic being, we would say as authentically the presence of the being of God. The more we love Him, the more we comprehend Him. That is the more we love Him, the more we comprehend Him, that is interiorly realize Him to be truly a being.

The more we love Him, the more we comprehend Him as authentic being, the more we can be sure of His perpetuity. The more I can’t explain it, but my love for you, I know this, you’re forever. And guess what? So am I. So I was passing away, but in the love for each other and the passing away is shining bright that which never passes away at the limit where total assurance …

That is at the limit where this assurance becomes possible. “I know it, I know it. I know that I know it.” Sad, but I can’t explain it, becomes possible. It could only be because the beloved’s thingness, that is who they are in the passage through time, is swallowed up in an absolute and indefectible presence.

It’s carried over into the presence that’s in the presence of the beloved, and the same is true of ourselves. Really, to love a creature, Marcel would agree, is to love him in God. Only in the absolute does the promise of eternity with which all love is regolent. And regolent, I had to look this up, regolent means it shimmers and shines, and has also the etymology of the odor of sanctity. It’s like the smell of incense or the smell of flowers.

It has about a … Love is regolent, so it has the odor of that which never dies this way. It’s kind of atmospherically, unexplainably sensed. And only in that love does it attain to unconditionality. In other words, only then do I attain to the unconditionality that transcends and endlessly permeates the conditions that I’m living in, and those conditions are themselves incarnations of unconditionality.

Praise the Lord. So this is really religious consciousness. This is discernment. This isn’t just psychological discernment, it is that. But really, it’s a kind of a discernment of the divinity of ourself, but it’s outside.

In other words, when spirituality becomes religious, it becomes religious when it becomes infinite. Incarnate, infinity, intimately, really. He’s talking about, “How is it possible to find God in life itself?” Present in life itself. And not as a series of abstractions like God is eternal and God …

But how is it possible to find life itself in the intimacy of ourself, being awakened to the incarnate infinity of ourself, others in all things? As we read Marcel, we get this sense … We’re so grateful that he’s helping us to listen to such things, because we’re grateful because they’re true, but they’re subtle. Subtle, subtle, subtle. So this is Marcel, them being the teacher.

This is what most teachers do. They just keep us in this sensitivity this way. “Only in the absolute as a promise of eternity with which all love is regolent attained to unconditionality.” This is not a matter of inference or argumentation. It isn’t a matter that I’m inferring it, where I can prove it logically by a series of proofs that come to a conclusion.

It simply means that our experience of presence is truncated. My ability of presence is traumatized, or it’s limited. And our assurance is sapped, unless they arise with an enveloping absolute that overfloods our very limitations itself. So it’s in the very midst of our limitations that the tasting of the limitlessness of ourselves in everything is obscurely realized. And Marcel is saying, “This is love’s waves.” See, this is love giving itself to us.

Continues on with aphorisms, “Not only perfect love but all love insofar it is love, is haunted by this illimitable presence.” That is the meaning of the prophetic, “Thou shall not die.” “Through my love, I grasp you as participant in a presence, which cannot fail.” That’s lovely. And not only are we participants in the love that doesn’t fail, because the love that doesn’t fail never fails to be giving itself to us as the mystery of ourselves, which is love.

Which is love. “There is no question of loving God or creature, since the more I really love the creature, the more I am turned to the presence which love lays bare.” That’s very nice. I don’t have to choose. Thomas Burton says that somewhere, “We can’t love somebody too much, but we can only love them in misguided ways.”

I’d like to share an example of this, that I came on recently. The sociologist, Peter L. Berger, has a lovely little book called A Rumor of Angels. So I’d like to share it, guys. I think it kind of poetically touches on this too. Imagine that a mother’s awakened in the middle of the night and her little infant is crying.

She picks the infant up, she sits in the rocking chair, she’s rocking back and forth and patting, and she says to her little crying infant, “Don’t cry. Everything’s all right. Don’t cry. Everything’s all right.” Peter L. Berger says now, in actuality, that she even says that she’s dying, because everybody’s dying, and the baby she’s holding is dying.

But she doesn’t tell that to the infant. Says, “Honey …” I think you’re scared now. Listen to this. “Therefore, to be a good parent, do you need to be a good liar, or is it this way? Honey, don’t cry.”

“Everything’s all right. Yes, you’re dying, and I’m dying, and it’s unexplainably more than all right, because although we die, we do not die.” We almost say when the baby’s crying, and she gets out of bed and she’s putting on her bathrobe, she’s almost vesting for liturgy of consolation, to be consoled by the truth of what she’s telling her infant, how unexplainably true it is, and I think this is what Marcel’s talking about. It’s not a question of loving the creature or God. It’s not a matter of loving the infant or God.

There’s no or, and it’s this incarnate, atmospheric, inter-pervasiveness of the eternality of ourselves that never passes away endlessly, ribboned towards everything endlessly passing away. This is why Marcel believes that there’s a subterranean connection between faith and its ontological plenitude that is in being, and the unconditioned love of creature for the creature, because if I love the creature unconditioned … And by the way, this isn’t just my love for another person is conditioned, but there is a certain way, and my conditioned love, there’s a depth of the unconditioned dimensions of my love, shining out through my conditions, is the unconditioned love of a creature because there’s no such thing as the creature at all. It’s in any way other than the infinite presence of God. Presence itself is the presence of the creature.

And it’s not just another person, this also applies to us, and it also applies to animals, and also applies to the darkness of the night into the trees of the forest, this way. And so he’s moving us toward this all-encompassing like love given to us. And I like to end then with an observation. “If love,” he says, “Is the act of refusal to treat itself as a subject …”

That is someone might say, “Oh, that’s just a subjective wishful thinking,” love refuses to accept that, because love knows it’s not true. And I’d like to end with a final comment and kind of explicitly talking religious language, which is implicit in Marcel. As we go through our days, the love that allows us to see the thou dimensions at the Beloved is always a transcending and ribboned in the conditions of the Beloved, and those conditions of the Beloved are conditioned, fluctuating states. And so there’s like an ongoing process of constantly letting the truth of love speak to those conditions. So when the conditions of the Beloved …

And they, back to us. Like we help each other out here, father, mother, sister, brother ideally. We let each other know what our growing edges are, so by admitting it, we can keep growing. And also, we can also see the ways in which we don’t admit, because we don’t know how to admit. We’re afraid to admit.

And so I’d like to know specifically a Christian note. It’s very interesting that in our faith, that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word is with God, and the Word was God, and all things are made through Him, and without Him is being nothing that has been made, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The word for flesh, it isn’t the … And the Word of God became humanity, but rather, the Word of God freely chose to become flesh. That is God freely chose to become identified with that in us that won’t admit, with that that’s broken.

He got executed, so that the world that God so loved, He sent His only begotten Son is the world that stones the prophets, and those two worlds are inside of each one of us. And so there’s just this ongoing delicacy of love, to be endlessly authentic and real, walking the walk, being true to what it is that love’s asking out of us, and in that fidelity, knowing that the very part in us that’s the weakest of all is the part that holds the treasure. And this is experiential salvation. That’s why he said in the earlier chapter, “This is salvation.” It’s really the love of salvation.

And so with those reflections in mind then, and with the meditation, I’d like to say something too. See, meditation practice is the practice where we’re experientially radicalizing our openness to this, otherwise, it’s just words. Meditation practice is we bring ourself to the presence of this, to be present in the presence of this as our practice. So in the light of that then, in the rendezvous, I invite you to sit straight, fold your 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. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, now and forever. Amen.

Mary, Mother of Contemplatives, pray for us. Archangel Gabriel, pray for us. Meister Eckhart, pray for us. Blessings till 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.