Gabriel Marcel: Session 1

Turning to the Mystics with James Finley

Center for Action and Contemplation

Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.8 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 24 March 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This is the first session that focuses on philosopher Gabriel Marcel. In the tenor of the ancient practice of Lectio Divina, James Finley reads passages from Kenneth T. Gallagher's work, The Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel, reflects on core themes from Marcel, and finishes with a meditative practice. 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 May 13th, 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.
0:09.8	Greetings. I'm Jim Finley.
0:13.2	Welcome to Turning to the Mystics.
0:31.6	Greetings, everyone, and welcome to our time together, turning for trustworthy guidance to the teachings of Gabriel Marcel. In this session, I'm going to be reviewing and refining some of the main points that Kirsten and I went over together in the introductory session and expanding on it.
0:45.4	The thought of Gabriel and Marcel, I think it's very helpful to understand what makes him so accessible.
0:51.7	What makes him so accessible is that he's inviting us to become more aware of the quality
0:57.8	of our awareness.
0:59.7	It's very important.
1:01.7	And this is very similar to psychotherapy in a way.
1:04.7	And when you're in psychotherapy, you present whatever depression, anxiety, whatever it is.
1:09.4	The therapist listens.
1:10.6	But what they try to do, they form an alliance with you. whatever depression, anxiety, whatever it is. The therapist listens.
1:15.8	But what they try to do, they form an alliance with you in which they point out there are certain aspects of your awareness, certain assumptions that you're making, that are
1:20.9	actually contributing to the symptoms you're experiencing.
1:24.4	And they also suggest a more spacious, gracious,
1:27.8	gracious reality-based way to understand this situation,
1:31.7	which enhances self-knowledge. And this is what Marcel is doing.
1:35.9	Marcel is always staying in the intimacy of our mind.
1:39.9	And our awareness says we listen to him. He's offering guidance insofar as we listen,
1:45.7	the observations he's making, they ring true.
1:49.8	They ring true about direct observations of this.
	...

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