Morning with Teresa

I begin this Monday morning with Teresa of Avila.  I am slowly, slowly reading through The Interior Castle which was translated by Mirabai Starr.  At the same time I listen weekly to a podcast by James Finley "Turning to the Mystics" and he is talking about The Interior Castle.  It is a real gift and a very rich experience.

What I find myself pondering this morning is how the path of self knowledge is always going to be coupled with the knowledge of the majesty, the mystery and the goodness of God.

It is a call to humility and to self examination.  James Finley this morning spoke about how we are not to concentrate on the faults of others - especially behind their backs.  What I know is that when I feel closest to God I live in an acceptance of myself which has awareness of my shadow and an acceptance of others.  When I feel closest to God I am seeking and seeing the goodness of life and not allowing evil to create a veil for me.

In the second castle there is a greater awareness of the call of God ceaselessly to approach.  Finley said:

"We get a sense of the deathless presence of Jesus in speaking peace to us." And God speaks to us throughout the day - through conversations with others, writings, readings, sermons. etc etc.  God speaks in the trials by giving us strength and in our sins by giving us grace.  We know that just the act of being alive shows us God's love.

At the same time, as we become more aware of God's desire to love us, we also acknowledge the ways we resist that invitation and "cause distress."  It is very much like a marriage where we can withhold intimacy, hang onto resentments and resist deeper vulnerability.  We cannot love and live on our own terms - except we always try to.  It is in the second castle that we learn to give up the ideology of perfection as we experience that we are loved and precious in the midst of so many shortcomings.

So, I share all of this in my blog as a record of the journey that continues for me allowing God to reform or transform my life.  It is ongoing - that is for sure.

Saturday I led a retreat in the beautiful serenity garden at Gender Road Christian Church for 18 women.  It felt like a very blessed time to me and the rain did not start until 15 minutes after our time together ended! It was wonderful for me to see women in pray, contemplation and conversation together.  It is very much like physical exercise - we know that time with God will bring us peace - but so often we do not take time for it. 

So, in the midst of this pandemic and this time of racial reckoning,  I trust that God is doing something with me and with us as we keep turning ourselves back to God.

I will conclude this post with a prayer by Joyce Rupp that I shared on Saturday.  It speaks to me.

Time in the Resurrection Garden:  Watered Gardens  by Joyce Rupp

God of little buds just now wearing green sleeves,

God of lilac limbs all full with signs of flowering,

God of fields plowed and black with turned-over earth,

God of screeching baby bird mouths widely awaiting food,

 

God of openness, of life and of resurrection,

Come into this Easter season and bless me.

Look around the tight, dead spaces of my heart

That still refuse to give you an entrance

 

Bring your gentle but firm love.

Begin to lift the layers of resistance

That hang on tightly deep inside of me.

 

Open, one by one, those places in my life

Where I refuse to be overcome by surprise.

 

Open, one by one, those parts of my heart

Where I fight the entrance of real growth

Open, one by one, those aspects of my spirit

where my security struggles with the truth

 

Keep me open to the different and the strange,

Help me to accept the unusual and also the ordinary

Never allow me to tread on others’ dreams

By shutting them out, closing them up,

By turning them off or pushing them away.

 

God of the resurrection,  God of the living,

Untomb and uncover all that needs to live in me

Take me to people, events, and situations

And stretch me into much greater openness

 

Open me,  open me,  open me.

For it is only then that I will grow and change

For it is  only then that I will be transformed

For it is only then that I will know how it is to be in the moment of rising from the dead.