Spirituality for the Long Haul

Blessed be the trials that even here in this life are so superabundantly repaid. (L 11.5)

Throughout two thousand pages of her writings, Teresa gives us concrete and practical advice for spiritual growth. Using more contemporary language, we can translate the various stages she describes along the spiritual path as Wonder, Bravado, Disillusionment, Shattering, and Glory. Along this way, we encounter obstacles and roadblocks; we make mistakes and fall repeatedly into ruts. But if we are determined to persevere "come what may, happen what may, whatever work is involved, whatever criticism arises... or if the whole world collapses," we enter into that highest stage of growth and glory, intimacy with the Divine.

The Web of Wonder

We wake up in a web of wonder with a deep sense of mystery. Looking to the wisdom of the Jewish tradition, we see ourselves like Adam and Eve waking up in the Garden of Eden, brand new, innocent, and green.

Saint Teresa was full of wonder over all of creation: coconuts and cold melon, fresh eggs and quinces, colored fountains and orange-flower water, perfume and poetry, music and dancing, books and reading, fields and flowers, gardens and good soil, earth, air, fire, and especially water. She even described the stages of growth in prayer in terms of watering a garden. She loved nature and recommended that we turn to it when we have trouble praying: "Go someplace where you can see the sky and walk up and down a little."

She was so fond of sardines that she said she could be bribed with one. The story is told of Teresa's sisters discovering her in the kitchen, enthusiastically devouring a partridge. Responding to their shocked protestations, Teresa exclaimed: "When I fast, I fast; and when I eat partridge, I eat partridge!"

Teresa was full of wonder over the beauty of human friendship, and even more over human friendship with the Divine through the wonder of prayer. For Teresa, prayer was not the rote and mechanical recitation of ready-made prayers but an "intimate sharing between friends." As she wrote in her Life: "God and the soul understand each other. . . . It's like the experience of two persons here on earth who love each other deeply and understand each other well."

This intimacy with the Lord of Creation takes place deep within the Interior Castle. "Within us lies something incomparably more precious than what we see outside ourselves," Teresa marveled. "Let's not imagine we are hollow inside."

The Royal Road

Once we awaken to the wonder of the inner life, we set out on the spiritual path Teresa calls the "royal road." We must make a noble effort to begin well and then persevere "like soldiers," full of "determination to die rather than fail to reach the end of the journey." We need to cultivate lofty thoughts and are greatly helped by spiritual guidance, good reading, and the regular practice of prayer. For Teresa, prayer is a rugged and robust exercise. "May God deliver us from foolish devotions," she cries. She recommends a simple and highly personal method: Look at Christ who is looking at you.

Hard Wok and Virtue

The royal road requires hard work and virtue: concern for others expressed in deed and not mere talk, ego annihilation through a hardy obedience and detachment from self-satisfaction, trust and humility "in the presence of infinite Wisdom." We must have a good sense of humor and laugh at ourselves. We must also have a healthy dose of common sense.

Teresa is practical, sensible, and down to earth. "God deliver me from people so spiritual they want to turn everything into perfect contemplation," she exclaims. She focuses on both the spiritual and temporal aspects of life, on "good order," "harmonious organization," "rule and measure." Virtue is more important to her than austerity. She emphasizes the need for good food, ample sleep (no less than six hours), and the value of recreation as well as discretion.

Bravado and Beyond

The bravado phase along the spiritual path is one of naive enthusiasm. We experience our own strength, energy, and vitality—which leads to excessive self-reliance and overconfidence. We think we can do anything. This stage is inevitable and often necessary to get us going along the royal road.

But there are many dangers here: false security, presumption, a carelessness and complacency that lead us to neglect small matters that all too soon become larger ones. Still enslaved by "a thousand vanities," we suffer from fragmentation, a "tempestuous" interior battle: "What hope can we have of finding rest outside of ourselves if we cannot be at rest within?"

Our talk here is still cheap. We don't need more polite words but heroic deeds. We need to move beyond mere bravado. But we are so bogged down in the mud at this stage, we suffer relapses, fall flat on our face, and return to past faults we thought we had overcome.

Because Teresa experienced so many downfalls in her own life, she consoles and encourages us: "Don't become discouraged and stop striving to advance. For even from this fall God will draw out good, as does the seller of an antidote who drinks some poison to test whether his antidote is effective."

In her astute wisdom, Teresa teaches us how to move beyond bravado through healthy self-knowledge and self-doubt, vigilance, perseverance, and courage. We must be like "strong men," "manly" and "determined to fight"—in other words, spiritual warriors, engaged in spiritual warfare. Teresa worries about those who seem to be too quiet and always at peace because "to be without war is impossible." We must fix our eyes on Christ, for all our trouble comes from not keeping our focus on Him.

Mistakes, Ruts, and Roadblocks

As we struggle to keep moving and growing, we encounter innumerable roadblocks and make more mistakes. We are still selfish and self-indulgent, fussing about our health, our need for rest, for tranquility and order. "The body grows fat and the soul weakens," laments Teresa.

We are distracted by our desire for money, prestige, and human approval when there is no danger so obvious "as this concern about honor and whether we have been offended." We disperse our energy through inane conversation (a "noxious form of recreation"), overinvolvement in superficial worldly affairs, and compulsive, unnecessary business and overwork. Even our own families can obstruct us along the path. Predating John Bradshaw and other "family systems" psychologists, Teresa warns against "the harm that is caused from dealing with relatives."

We finally make the biggest mistake of all. After sporadically neglecting our prayer, we abandon it altogether. Teresa is emphatic about our blindness here: we court danger and go from bad to worse. Then this "folly" puts us "right in hell"—not after we die, but here on earth.

Disillusionment

Eventually, every vestige of bravado fades away. The honeymoon is over. Disillusionment sets in on every level of life: personal, social, spiritual; marriage, family, business, profession. Teresa is really articulate about her experience at this stage: "There come days in which one word alone distresses me, and I would want to leave the world because it seems everything is a bother to me."

As she wakes up beyond bravado in the wonder of her own weakness, she calls herself "gloomy" and "ill-tempered" and admits that she often gets so angry she wants to "eat everyone up, without being able to help it." As her disillusionment grows, she describes herself as a helpless little bird with broken wings or a stupid little donkey grazing.

When we reach this stage, we become discouraged, because we no longer understand ourselves and our real motivation. We are weak and cowardly on the moral level and see that "our natural bent is toward the worst rather than the best." We find ourselves so physically limited and unfree that we are even affected by "changes in the weather and the rotating of the bodily humors." We are resistant to and even repulsed by what should attract us. Teresa came to hate the hour of prayer so much that all she could do was listen for the clock to strike the end of the hour.

All around us and in ourselves we see mendacity: deception, duplicity, and lies. As Teresa notes, the world is a mockery, a joke, "as good as a play." We are stunned by our experience of impermanence, instability, and insecurity. We try to protect ourselves because we are afraid of the truth that haunts our sleeping and sometimes even our waking hours, the truth that the Buddhist and Hindu traditions call samsara: Everything changes, passes, and dies—and so will we. As Teresa wrote in her famous bookmark prayer: "Todo se pasa"—all things are passing.

Returning to the imagery used in the Jewish tradition, we are no longer like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, we are exiled from Eden. We feel this keenly in our prayer, which seems vapid, distasteful, and dry. We are distracted and can't concentrate. The mind wanders and clatters on like a grinding mill, a frantic madman, or "little moths at night, bothersome and annoying."

We need to move into the realm of silent prayer because God is "near." Teresa tells us, "It isn't necessary to shout in order to speak to Him." He understands us "as if through sign language." We must learn to pray "not with the noise of words but with longing."

This is a crucial transition in our lives. Most of us make a fatal mistake here. We try to run and hide, close our eyes, mask the pain. We commute back to bravado. We go backward instead of forward. Why? Because we have a vague sense of what lies ahead, and it paralyzes us.

Shattering

In this stage, our hearts finally break. We enter a terrible crucible where everything we hold dear is shattered: projects and plans, hopes and dreams, little loves and big loves. We have gone beyond mere disillusionment. At this stage, all our illusions are shattered.

This comes about in many ways: the loss of a loved one through death, disease, absence, or separation, even the dying of love; the loss of a beloved animal, object, or place; the loss of a cherished job or promotion. We can be shattered by the experience of our own illness, aging, and death; or the even more painful experience of our own psychological woundedness or our moral or mental weakness.

Our interior suffering is so dreadful it "breaks and grinds the soul into pieces." We are assailed by "a thousand doubts and suspicions" and don't know what to do with ourselves. Our fear is so intense, we feel as though we are drowning or going insane. We suffer misunderstanding, criticism, opposition, and the betrayal of friends who take "painful bites" at us. We are so tormented that we can't pray and don't understand what we read. We can't stand to be with others, but we hate to be alone. Then we end up hating ourselves.

Our anxiety over others is an acute affliction. Teresa worried when her friends ate bad fish, preached too many sermons, neglected to take their medicine, fell off their mules, or drank sarsaparilla water. She agonized over the persecution of her renewal and the imprisonment of John of the Cross, calling it a "piteous story." It hurt her more to see her loved ones suffer than to suffer herself.

But suffer she did. She was shattered by illness, loneliness, overwork and worry, exhaustion, and "the grip of depression." "So many troubles are descending on me all at once," she wrote. "You would be shocked if you knew about all the trouble I am having here, and all the business I have to do—it is killing me."

The Christian tradition is strong in its wisdom about this stage of human life. We call this "crucifixion." We understand that our Garden of Paradise is a crucified paradise. Our Garden is not only Eden, but Gethsemane and Golgotha: the place of the skull and the cross.

For the Christian, the cross is not a negative symbol of death, despite the very real horror of crucifixion. It is a symbol of life and resurrection. Teresa wrote three poems describing the cross in ecstatic, positive, life-giving terms, calling it the "Tree of Life." If we are faithful to the cross and the painful process of shattering it brings, we move into the fifth and final phase.

Glory

The scriptural term for this phase is glory. Once again we find ourselves like Adam and Eve, only better: reawakened and brand new, with an innocence both childlike and seasoned, filled with wonder on the other side of pain.

We do not have to wait till we die to enjoy this glory. We begin to know it "even from here below." We reach a point of such victory, we sprout wings and fly! We are ready to risk all for God because we know that in losing all we gain all.

In a spirit of freedom, peace, surrender, and holy indifference, we "accept the bitter as happily as we do the delightful." We "forget about pleasing ourselves in order to please the one we love." We say with Teresa, "I no longer need rest but the cross." In our "exalted" state, we are more humble than ever, for we know by experience that without humility, "everything goes wrong."

Our prayer now is no longer work but glory: "One moment is enough to repay all the trials that can be suffered in this life!" We also understand clearly that our contemplation is not for our own enjoyment but to give us the "strength to serve." Teresa describes the paradox: "Love turns work into rest."

Divivne Intimacy

We are "chastised with glory" and come out of the crucible of suffering "like gold, more refined and purified." Shattering erases our boundaries, removes our limitations, and makes us ready for the greatest glory of all. "May You be blessed forever and ever, my God," prayed Teresa, "for within a moment You undo a soul and remake it." Teresa is clear: she would not exchange all her suffering for all the world's treasures. "Oh, oh, how well He pays! And He pays without measure!"

How does He "pay"? With divine intimacy, bridal mysticism, spiritual marriage: "God espouses souls spiritually," and "two fires become one." This blessing is the "greatest that can be tasted in this life." At this stage prayer is loving, for "progress does not lie in thinking much but in loving much."

For those with a temperament like Teresa's, divine intimacy is often accompanied by ecstasy, holy intoxication, and wounds of love. Teresa calls it a "heavenly madness," "glorious foolishness," and a "delightful disquiet." She admits that this "seems like gibberish" and "doesn't make sense," so she is forced to "speak in absurdities." Her joy is so unbearable, she "speaks folly in a thousand holy ways." Using the passionate and erotic language of the bride in the Song of Songs, she cries out: "Kiss me with the kiss of your mouth," "My God and my Glory, Your breasts are better than wine." Then she concludes, "May we all be mad for love of Him who for love of us was called mad."

This madness is reflected most strongly in our love for the cross, which we experience even at this highest level of spiritual development. "Whether in the beginning, the middle, or the end," proclaims Teresa, "all bear their crosses, even though these crosses be different." In no uncertain terms she describes the great joy we may find in suffering at this stage: "What a tremendous good it is to suffer trials and persecutions for Him. For the increase of the love of God I saw in my soul and many other things reached such a point that I was amazed."

Teresa freely chose suffering as a way of being more intimately united with her beloved Spouse—"if there were no other gain." But remarkably enough, "there are always so many other benefits"—rest, protection, strength, consolation, and life itself. This is Teresa's strongest conviction, greatest madness, and deepest intimacy. She urges the rest of us to walk along this same path.

There is a chronic tendency in all of us to seek out easy spiritualities that promise immediate and self-gratifying results after very little effort. These short-term "feel-good" pseudospiritualities fall apart at the first challenging moments of disillusionment and cannot withstand the process of shattering that eventually ravages us all. Teresa's spirituality, on the other hand, steeped in the Christian Mystery of Crucifixion-Resurrection (the "Paschal" or "Passover" Mystery), offers us a spirituality for the long haul.

Teresa continues to inspire us even four hundred years after her death. Her teaching has the power to see us through a lifetime and will endure hundreds of years after us, because the wisdom is perennial.

Where do you find yourself today? Whether you are delighted or disillusioned, filled with wonder or wounded, shining or shattered, Teresa has a word of wisdom just for you.