Turning to the Mystics with James Finley
Nov 2, 2026 · 32 min · 12 segments
This is the third session which focuses on Emily Dickinson. In the tenor of the ancient practice of Lectio Divina, James Finley reads passages from Emily's poetry, reflects on core themes, and…
Jim FinleyHostKirsten OatesHost
Greetings, everyone, and welcome to our time together turning for trustworthy guidance to the life and the poetry of Emily Dickinson.
It's kind of sorting out what I wanted to do in each of these three sessions with her, this one being the last one.
I chose the first two, simply I saw them as representative of the depth and the beauty of her awareness of the divinity of life itself, which renders her as a mystic.
In this third session, the focus is going to be on death, on eternity, and on God.
You know, in Turning to the Mystics podcast, we're basically always speaking about the classical texts of the Christian mystics, St. John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, and so on.
Remember for Emily, when she was in this church school, it was more of a conservative evangelical.
And she left that.
It didn't sit
She always says, when the section rings the bell and the people gather and the organ starts, that's their way.
And Thomas Merton once said in the monastery, we should always be very careful that we don't try to follow somebody else's way to God.
John of the Cross, have no light to guide you except the one that burns in your heart.
And so it's almost like finding God then in life itself, outside the religious traditions of the world.
Greetings, everyone, and welcome to our time together turning for trustworthy guidance to the life and the poetry of Emily Dickinson.
It's kind of sorting out what I wanted to do in each of these three sessions with her, this one being the last one.
I chose the first two, simply I saw them as representative of the depth and the beauty of her awareness of the divinity of life itself, which renders her as a mystic.
In this third session, the focus is going to be on death, on eternity, and on God.
You know, in Turning to the Mystics podcast, we're basically always speaking about the classical texts of the Christian mystics, St. John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, and so on.
Remember for Emily, when she was in this church school, it was more of a conservative evangelical.
And she left that.
It didn't sit
She always says, when the section rings the bell and the people gather and the organ starts, that's their way.
And Thomas Merton once said in the monastery, we should always be very careful that we don't try to follow somebody else's way to God.
John of the Cross, have no light to guide you except the one that burns in your heart.
And so it's almost like finding God then in life itself, outside the religious traditions of the world.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
