From today's installment of Teresa of Avila

I'm still working my way through Teresa of Avila's "The Interior Castle". I'm still understanding it in a somewhat limited fashion. But today, for maybe the first time, I can honestly say that I know for sure a chapter was helpful, that I "liked" it. (Liked being sort of the wrong word, but I can't seem to find a different word for it.) The quotes below speak to much of what I've felt this last year...

Some quotes from today's installment (Sixth Mansions, Chapter 1):

...An outcry is made by people with whom such a person is acquainted, and even by those with whom she is not acquainted, and who she never in her life supposed would think about her at all. "How holy she's getting!" they exclaim, or "She's only going to these extremes to deceive the world and to make other people look sinful, when really they are better Christians than she is without any of these goings-on!" (Notice, by the way, that she is not really indulging in any "goings-on" at all: she is only trying to live up to her profession.) Then people whom she had thought her friends abandon her and it is they who say the worst things of all and express the deepest regret that (as they put it) she is "going to perdition" and "obviously being deluded," that "this is the devil's work," that "she's going the way of So-and-so and So-and-so, who ruined their own lives and dragged good people down with them," and that "she takes in all her confessors." And they actually go to her confessors and tell them so, illustrating what they say by stories of some who ruined their lives in this way: and they scoff at the poor creature and talk about her like this times without number...The worst of it is, these things are not soon over - they last all one's life long. People warn each other to be careful not to have anything to do with persons like oneself. You will tell me that there are also those who speak well of one. But oh, daughters, how few there are who believe the good things they say by comparison with the many who dislike us!

Let us begin with the torture which it costs us to have to do with a confessor so scrupulous and inexperienced that he thinks nothing safe: he is afraid of everything, and doubtful about everything, as soon as he sees that he is dealing with anything out of the ordinary. This is particularly so if he sees any imperfection in the soul that is undergoing these experiences. He thinks that people to whom God grants these favours must be angels; and, as this is impossible while they are in the body, he attributes the whole thing to melancholy or to the devil. The world is so full of melancholy that this certainly does not surprise me; for there is so much abroad just now, and the devil makes so much use of it to work harm, that confessors have very good cause to be afraid of it and to watch for it very carefully. But, when the poor soul, harassed by the same fear goes to the confessor as to a judge, and he condemns her, she cannot fail to be upset and tortured by what he says - and only a person who has passed through such a trial will know how great it is... When the confessor reassures the soul, it becomes calm, though in due course it gets troubled again; but when all he can do is to make it still more fearful the thing grows almost intolerable, especially when on top of everything else come periods of aridity, during which the soul feels as if it has never known God and never will know Him, and as if to hear His Majesty spoken of is like hearing of a person from a great distance away.

Lent. Morning. Day 2.

I've sorted out, at least a little what my observance of Lent will look like for this year. What things will be added, and what will go. I know from experience that that will shift and change as the season moves and deepens.

I marked Ash Wednesday in my own quiet, private way late last evening. A simple but deep time of prayer. The mixing of incense and oil. Wrapped in a shawl that has come to symbolize those deeper moments of prayer. Lifting my own heart and lenten season and the hearts and seasons of those I love before the Savior who increasingly owns my heart.

Deep cold and snow have set in again this week, feeling somewhat oddly appropriate for this season in the church calendar. Yesterday was a particularly grey and gloomy day, oddly appropriate for a day celebrated with ashes. It was -36C with windchill factored in here this morning. And snowing.

But there is somehow hope in the midst of that. Both of the last two days, as I've brushed the snow off of George in the greyness of semi-dawn, in the bitter cold, I've noticed the song of some intrepid sparrows and chickadees singing in the trees that line my street. Calling out about warmer times coming. About spring and new life.

I told a friend last night that while I'd dreaded the deepening arrival of Lent this year, with it's coming, my heart was somehow ready. Ready for the season. Praying for change and restoration and freedom. That somehow, overnight, between Shrove Tuesday, and Ash Wednesday, Jesus moved in my heart, and replaced dread with a peaceful, purposeful acceptance. That though I'd worried that I hadn't yet heard from him how to observe the Lenten season this year, he spoke quietly to my heart and made it clear through the day yesterday.

I wonder sometimes if I don't waste a lot of time worrying about what is ahead when it seems so clear that right now Jesus usually waits until just the moment of necessity to speak his clarity and direction into a situation.

I suppose it ties back to the quote from Teresa of Avila that I shared last night, and the lyrics from dcTalk that I shared this morning.

"I'm learning to give up the rights to myself." Right now that means the right to know what is coming. The right to understand. The right to see much beyond the moment in which I am existing. It means learning to trust in a radical new way. A way that is painful and stretching.

As I said yesterday, I'm committed to waiting and fasting and praying and listening and letting my heart be changed.

Still Thinking About Teresa (Giving up the rights to myself)

I was still thinking about the quote I shared last night from Teresa of Avila as I was driving to work this morning, and a song lyric from when I was a teenager came to mind in relation to that. Nothing like some old school dcTalk, but I've always loved the following lines, and they are speaking the same thing to my heart that the quote from Teresa was.

I'm learning to give up the rights to myself.
The bits and the pieces I've gathered as wealth
Could never compare to the joy that you bring me.
The peace that you show me is the strength that I need.
(From "My Will" by dcTalk)

What a mistake...

I read this quote in "The Interior Castle" - the sixteenth century book I've been working my way through for a while now, and it struck me deeply. I'm continuing to ponder as the evening goes on...

"We are so very fond of ourselves and so very careful not to lose any of our rights! Oh, what a great mistake we make! May the Lord in his mercy give us light lest we fall into such darkness."
(Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle, Fifth Mansion, Chapter 4)

Surrendering. Everything. Even my rights. To Jesus.