What nobody tells you about the spiritual life
Thoughts on St. Teresa of Avila, prayer, and getting stuck in Intermediate Class
One thing I wish I knew before I began this spiritual journey of following Jesus is that it gets harder the farther you travel. Reading through the Gospels, this is easily perceived and yet, mostly ignored. Time after time, disciples fell away from Jesus’ teachings. Their desire to say goodbye to their former life or hang onto their earthly treasures was simply too much to ask. And only a few made it all the way to the foot of the cross.
St. Teresa of Avila wrote a fascinating book in the 15th century entitled “The Interior Castle” (I am reading the study edition). She explores the journey of following Jesus using an image of a castle that has seven dwelling places that move from the outside in. On the outside of the castle is darkness, where blind souls wander among poisonous and deadly creatures. At the very center is God surrounded by glorious light that permeates the entire castle. Though his light grows dimmer the further you get away from the center, it is still present in all the dwelling places. I have only finished reading about the third dwelling place but I can’t seem to shake this idea of difficulty.
For almost two years, I have gotten up early and workout Monday through Friday. I’m in my forties and losing muscle mass feels like every day. So I started strength training and attempting to get 10,000 steps in a day which isn’t hard when you own a German Shepherd. But over these past two years, I’ve noticed multiple plateaus along the way. From the constant frustration of not losing weight to painful injuries that have slowed me down. I have had to learn to be patient with my body while still asking it to work harder. Because here’s the thing that people don’t tell you about getting in shape: it gets harder! That’s why most exercise classes range from Beginner to Expert! Confession: I’ve been stuck in Intermediate for over a year because I am coming to accept what it takes to advance and frankly, I don’t know if I have the will nor the hip flexors to become an expert!
Yet it makes sense if we stop to think about the idea of difficulty when it comes to exercise or really, anything in life. If we want to advance, we need to work harder. If I want to continue to gain muscle, I need to lift heavier weights. If I want a cardiovascular workout I need not mosie through my afternoon walk but pick up the pace. I mean, swing those arms, girl! Another confession: I hate running with the fire of a thousand suns. I would rather look like a speed-walking fool than a cool runner any day. Anyways, I hope you’re getting my point. It doesn’t get easier, it gets harder and it gets hard on purpose. I am seeing this very thing in my spiritual life and reading about it from a 15th century mystic!
Circling back to St. Teres’a castle, let me break down what I’ve learned about the first three dwelling places:
The first dwelling place is the part of the castle when we first enter into a relationship with God. We walk straight into the castle and begin to feel the light of God, and yet those poisonous snakes that were on the outside follow right at our heels. Here we are beginning to learn about ourselves which St. Teresa says is vital alongside learning about God. The battles to love God and love our neighbor are fierce as we wrestle through our own selfish tendencies of self-protection, greed, and fear. We are more vulnerable to sins of the flesh that continue to call us back outside the castle and into the darkness of spiritual blindness.
The second dwelling place (and these are very, very brief descriptions that hardly do her writing justice) is where we enter into a spiritual battle consciously. I don’t love the concept of a spiritual battle and yet, keep in mind this is a feminine mystic who is using this language and writing to a sisterhood of saints. Here is where we undergo trials of many kinds and she specifically addresses “dryness in prayer”. Yet we persevere and gain resilience in this place which moves us to the next dwelling place.
The third dwelling place, and where I am currently in her writing, is a place of victory and peace. This dwelling place is where we have it together and have successfully formed our life around our values. Yet this place still requires diligence because this is where we can get stuck. Even St. Teresa confessions she was in this dwelling place for over a decade. The temptation to stay here is strong because you have found peace and triumph over many things. Yet, in this dwelling place, we are now proving our true love through action while taking on genuine humility. Here the temptation to become pious in our religious undertakings is only extinguished by dying to oneself through humility. Here is where it gets harder. This is the place we can either choose to lift the heavier weights of our spiritual walk and pray earnestly, “Your will be done” or sit back in our spiritual hammocks and sway till our dying breath. Yet, there are still FOUR MORE dwellings places to enter!
Another thing to keep in mind is that we are able to move in and out of these dwelling places. So here’s another hard confession: I like moving in and out of these three dwelling places. I find comfort in knowing my worldly possession are still available to me when I need them but my heart also longs for transcendence. We are all the rich young ruler that goes away sad, Teresa states. Even more so, she states that “We are fonder of consolations than we are of the cross.”1
But what is the “work” we must do to move closer? What actually gets harder the closer we move toward the Center? Teresa’s answer and the one thing I am experiencing today is prayer. It isn’t solely religious activities like reading your Bible or doing good deeds but prayer. The very act of being present to God becomes the heavy lifting our souls need in order to journey deeper and deeper into the center of God. How much more existential and vague can this be?! Yet, it’s true. The more I engage in spiritual practices like contemplation, Lectio Divina, and even practicing simple Breath Prayers, the less I want to do them because they require so much! They demand my full presence. They require I shed my busy ego who loves to check things off her list, puff up with pride, draw attention to herself, and simply do whatever she pleases.
Richard Rohr appropriately calls the ego, the false self. The false self is separate from God, independent to mark out any strategy it so desires for a happy life. The false self loves to plan, judge, correct, and protect its own interest above all else. It doesn’t love to meditate on Scripture but ruminate on its own thoughts. Rohr points out that the false self isn’t necessarily the bad self, it is just not the true self, the self that is rooted and longing for God. The true self doesn’t need the security of its worldly possessions nor its desire to be right, it doesn’t weave in and out of the first three dwelling places because it knows something more beautiful is ahead. (Here is Rohr’s teaching on this).
But it’s hard to leave behind the dwelling places of our spiritual adolescence because we, by nature, find it most difficult to trust. To trust a God who continually calls to us to leave our nets where they are and follow him. I have no doubt the disciples longed for a simpler life as they walked the shores of their old lives before they encountered Jesus. I have zero doubt the sores on their feet that moved them closer and closer to the cross begged them to sit and be content with how far they had come. I’m sure they wrestled with not knowing where God was leading them, questioning much of the journey. But still, they walked (and failed), walked (and failed) all the way to the upper room.
I don’t know about you but I have my doubts I would have made it. Even more so, I struggle to see myself at the foot of the cross in the company of such devoted sisters. But I do know this, I have a lifetime to make this journey, and even the inkling of discontentment I feel while laying back in my own spiritual hammock of consolation tells me, I long for the cross even though it scares the hell out of me. I also know it’s going to get much harder from this point but it will also be much more beautiful.
St. Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle Study Edition by Keiran Kavanaugh. Pg 61
This is a very interesting concept, I'll be adding that book to my list. I have to admit that my reading of historic (ancient?) spiritualists has been almost exclusively men (pretty sure Sor Juana de la Cruz is the only exception, and that was in Spanish class). I've heard of women like St. Teresa, but I certainly wasn't aware that they had written anything!