THE HEALING PATH

James Finley is a clinical psychologist and spiritual director who hosts the podcast Turning to the Mystics. In this profound memoir and invitation, he recounts his remarkable journey of contemplation, healing, and integration. Every reader will find their own resonances with his experiential self-knowledge. He began writing the book as his beloved wife Maureen was dying as a process of bittersweet alchemy in which ‘the secret opening through which we pass into wholeness is hidden in the centre of those wounds we are most afraid to approach.’ (p. ix) These are our patterns of unfinished business that still play out in our lives until they are processed and healed. Very early in his life, Jim becomes aware of and has recourse to divine presence ‘that protects us from nothing. Even as we are inexplicably sustained in all things.’ In looking back on our lives, we come to the realisation that all of our experiences, challenges and sufferings have brought us to the place where we currently are. Moreover, real growth does not come through ease and comfort.

Jim begins with his own childhood initiation into trauma and transcendence, with an alcoholic and abusive father who visits his rage mainly on his mother, who asks him to wait at the top of the stairs in case he tries to kill her – this in itself creates a state of anxiety and hypervigilance. The father also directs his violence to his children, including sexually abusing his daughter. This whole situation drives him inwards to a secret place in God where he takes refuge. This also gives rise to an emotional coping pattern of passivity that reappears in future episodes, and which I recognise in myself. In 1956, Jim feels the calling to be a priest, and transfers to a new school in preparation for entering a monastery. When he tells his father about his intention, the father promises to kill his mother if he goes – he goes anyway.

The monastery is Gethsemani, where Jim meets and gets to know Thomas Merton – an absolutely formative encounter. He immerses himself in the silence and rigorous daily discipline, initially attending Merton’s Sunday afternoon talks. Another key episode is a lecture given by Professor Danial Walsh, which awakens his philosophical mind. He resolves to learn Latin, and begins to read widely, later also encountering many spiritual teachers from the East courtesy of Merton’s reach (p. 102). By transferring to a different stream destined for the priesthood, Jim comes to know Merton very well, and establishes a new rhythm of prayer and contemplation in the sheep barn. Merton tells him that it is in his solitude that he will learn ‘from God how to depend on God to guide you into our deeper communion with God.’ (p. 70)

The next chapter describes his encounter with a priest confessor, who is the loving and understanding father he never had. However, after a year, the priest invites him to a private room to ‘explore their special relationship further’, which meant stripping off and having sex. Needless to say, this further abuse – also of trust – throws him back into a state of trauma and dissociation, so he resolves to leave the monastery and go home. In spite of this event, he comes to realise that he should not have depended on either himself or the priest, but also that God had not lost sight of him. In the case of both his father and the priest, he left without confronting either of them or his own brokenness. He meets and marries a traumatised woman, which gives rise to a great deal of misunderstanding, strife, and conflict. After the publication of his book on Thomas Merton, Jim begins to receive invitations to give contemplative retreats and has the opportunity to be supported in a doctoral programme of clinical psychology. Dan Walsh told him that the unitive mystery could be communicated through him whereby ‘deep calls unto deep’, eliciting a profound response in his listeners.

Jim is brought to a place of vulnerability, unknowing and insight, to ‘the vertical, depth dimension of the hidden foundations of inner liberation.’ (p. 117) A critical episode occurs on a Christmas Eve when his daughter announces she is pregnant, which triggers traumatising responses arising from the brokenness of both Jim and his wife. Understanding that peace at any price is not worth it, he resolves to leave his marriage, and meets the love of his life, Maureen, who plays a crucial role and his decision to enter therapy (p. 118). An encounter with a woman with an autistic son leads him to the profound realisation that all our difficulties and challenges can be accepted as a gift, in his case the gift of his traumatised self. We have to learn to be compassionate towards ourselves.

The circular healing path is one of repentance, responsibility, and mercy as we come up against the limits of life and have the courage to make a fearless inventory of our lives. What Jim calls the litany of wounded and wounding patterns persists until addressed with a more merciful understanding of ourselves, even as we learn to love and respect our wounds. This brings us to interiority and awareness as we come to see that we are all hidden with Christ in God – we ourselves are expressions of the mystery we are called to live and understand.