Spiritual Progress through the Interior Castle

Implications of Christ’s Ascension—Part III

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Today as I continue exploring the implications for Jesus’ Ascension into heaven (as the Apostles’ Creed puts it), the spatial considerations are interesting and worthy of note. It turns out, referring to heaven as “up there” and distant from us is a bit misleading. Luke’s gospel (24:50) records, “Jesus left them and was taken up into heaven.” In Acts, he writes, “He was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. [The disciples] were looking intently up into the sky as he was going . . .” The Greek translated “taken up” means to […]

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My Mother, Myself, in an Anxious Climate

4 Comments / Death & Dying, Lung Cancer, PCUSA, Personal, Spiritual Progress through the Interior Castle / By /

My mother writes in her autobiography that during her college years she began to experience anxiety, fear, and what is known as scrupulosity, a sort of spiritual Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Coming out of a home where the expression of love for her was thin and unconvincing, she was afraid that even God could not love her without serious performance of perfection. At the same time, she was suffering from clinical anxiety and developing phobias. (One notable fear was of going to the dentist, after a disastrous 2.5 hour tooth extraction when she was 20. To her credit, she made sure we

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Feelings and the Christian Experience

3 Comments / Lent, Lung Cancer, Personal, Spiritual Disciplines, Spiritual Progress through the Interior Castle / By /

The Church has just been through the lows and highs and the Christian calendar, walking with Jesus through his passion and death, experiencing the emptiness of Holy Saturday, and the exultation of Easter. People’s reaction to this emotional ride vary from indifference to obsession, but the intensity of the calendar’s events is intended to draw us in to Christ’s experience in order to appreciate all the more what he did for us. My post on Good Friday was an expression of that gratitude. But then there are people who felt almost nothing, though they would have liked to, and it is

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The Seventh Mansion: Union with the Trinity

5 Comments / It All Started in the Garden, Lent, Lung Cancer, Personal, Romans 8, Spiritual Progress through the Interior Castle, Uncategorized / By /

When I first read Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle as a seminary student, I got about half-way through it. She was writing about experiences I had never had and using terms I could not comprehend. Her ardor was unimaginable to me, so I put it aside and wrote an honest book report (Help! I have no idea what this woman is talking about!). I have not picked it up since, but am very grateful for Thomas Ashbrook’s unpacking in Mansions of the Heart, upon which this blog series has been based. His accessible tour of the castle and its mansions

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The Sixth Mansion (Part 2): The Dark Night

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It is said that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but this conventional wisdom is put to the test during a period Christians have a hard time talking about. For an intimate look at the Dark Night, which itself is not a mansion in Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle but a dynamic, we turn to her sixteenth-century contemporary John of the Cross. He describes a condition of the spiritual life that flummoxes and disturbs the Jesus-follower, especially if one does not see it coming or understand its purpose. But even if one does, the experience is heart-wrenching enough—and sometimes long

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The Sixth Mansion (Part 1): Passionate Love for God

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My husband and I were married two weeks after college graduation and almost four years after meeting. Our courtship had weathered difficulties and challenges, revealing our true characters to each other. Over the years, our love grew through square-dance flirting to solid commitment to passion (yes, in that order, although my husband might have a different view . . .). The process of falling in love involved a deeper knowledge of my beloved, an appreciation of his fine qualities, a willingness to submit my life to his care, and a mysterious chemistry that simply bound us together in intimate communion.

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The Fifth Mansion: Longing for Oneness with God

4 Comments / Lent, Parnell v. San Francisco, Personal, Romans 8, Spiritual Disciplines, Spiritual Progress through the Interior Castle, Theological Reflection / By /

Have you ever wondered what Jesus was really praying for in the High Priestly Prayer when he asked his heavenly Father to make us one with Jesus as Jesus is one with the Father? (John 17:22-23). The idea of oneness conjures up different images. I have come into contact with a distinctly Eastern religious view of “oneness with the Universe.” As I understand the concept, the goal of life and the event at death is a complete absorption of one’s personhood and personality into The One Cosmic Being. Only that Universe remains in existence, all other beings having become a

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The Fourth Mansion: Discovering the Love of Jesus

1 Comment / Lent, Lung Cancer, Personal, Spiritual Disciplines, Spiritual Progress through the Interior Castle / By /

One of the spiritual accomplishments of this year’s bout with lung cancer has been an exit from the rat race. Actually, that transition has been long in coming, since I left the full-time pastorate at the very end of 2006. Various projects kept me busy and over-stimulated for another five years, but I have been working at home alone in a virtually self-directed manner since then. Last Fall this illness hit and its treatment modulated my pace down to a slow-motion ride through Disneyland’s Space Mountain. This prolonged experience seems to coincide with further spiritual development identified by Teresa of

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The Third Mansion: Following Jesus

1 Comment / Leadership and Spirituality, Lent, Personal, Spiritual Disciplines, Spiritual Progress through the Interior Castle, The Pastoral Call / By /

We continue our study of the stages of spiritual growth, as first pondered by sixteenth century Christian mystic Teresa of Avila (The Interior Castle) and more recently unpacked by Thomas Ashbrook (Mansions of the Heart). So far, we have appreciated the fresh new life that comes with conversion and the inner struggle this life introduces as we feel the tension of forsaking the old life. In the Christian life, moving successfully through the tug-of-war stage of the Second Mansion means the question of whether I will fully commit myself to this life with this Savior is settled. Or mostly. The

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The Second Mansion: Torn between Two Loyalties

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Our exploration of the seven stages of spiritual growth, according to Teresa of Avila and unpacked by Thomas Ashbrook in Mansions of the Heart, continues. Especially during Lent, it is appropriate to take stock of how we are doing spiritually, to see if we are any closer to the love of God. It’s always been a rather vexing enterprise to find ways to measure spiritual development, because assessments are so often performance-based. But Teresa ushers us through the seven “mansions” of her “interior castle” to illustrate the movement from the active (performance-based) to the infused (relationship-based) phases of life with

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