Dialogue 2: All for All

Turning to the Mystics with James Finley

Center for Action and Contemplation

Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.8 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 6 October 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this second dialogue session Jim and Kirsten focus on the letters of Brother Lawrence. Resources: Turning to the Mystics is a podcast by the Center for Action and Contemplation. To learn more about James Finley, visit his faculty profile ⁠⁠here⁠⁠. The transcript for this episode can be found here. The book we will be using this season can be ⁠found here⁠. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Connect with us: Have a question you'd like Jim or Kirsten to answer about this season? Email us: ⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠ Send us a voicemail: ⁠⁠cac.org/voicemail⁠⁠ We'll be accepting questions for our Listener Questions episode until November 7th, 2025. This podcast is made possible, thanks to the generosity of our donors. If you would love to support the ongoing work of the Center for Action and Contemplation and the continued work of our podcasts, you can donate at ⁠⁠https://cac.org/support-cac/podcasts/⁠⁠ Thank you!

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to a podcast by the Center for Action and Contemplation.
0:04.0	To learn more, visit cac.org.
0:08.2	Greetings. I'm Jim Finley.
0:11.2	And I'm Kirsten Oates.
0:13.1	Welcome to Turning to the Mystics.
0:27.6	Welcome, everyone, to Season 12 of Turning to the Mystics, where we're turning to the book, Practice of the Presence and the Wisdom of Brother Lawrence.
0:33.6	And I'm here with Jim to discuss his second session.
0:37.3	Welcome, Jim. Yes, yes. I so love this letter 12
0:42.1	that we've explored together. So beautiful. Yes, me too, Jim. I love Letter 12 and your session was
0:48.7	just beautiful. And I wanted to just give a little bit of context about the letters. So in Carmen's book, Practice of the Presence, the second section includes 16 letters by Brother
1:01.1	Lawrence.
1:02.3	And in the translator's introduction, Carmen writes, these 16 letters are what survive of likely
1:08.9	many more written by Brother Lawrence. And we know that Joseph
1:13.1	of Beaufort, Brother Lawrence's friend, collected these letters after he died to share with people.
1:19.9	And now we have them in this beautiful book. I also wanted to just give a little bit of context
1:25.3	for letter 12 that you read Jim, and I'm
1:28.9	turning to the translator's note again, and Carmen says, in the final months of his life,
1:33.9	when he was unable to walk and was aware he was dying, Brother Lawrence addressed letter 12
1:40.3	to Reverend Mother. And so I think you commented Jim Jim, that the context for this letter was the end of
1:47.8	Brother Lawrence's life and that we'd seen with many of the mystics we've studied,
1:53.1	that they can become more translucent towards the end of their life.
1:57.8	Yes, over the years as they come to the end of their life, we get the sense of where it has ripened in their life. Yes, as over the years as they come to the end of their life, we get a sense of where
	...

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