Teresa of Ávila is the kind of mystic that can make you both misty and mad. One page she pens words to her beloved Carmelite "daughters" about their value and worth, leaving me in a meditative puddle:
this true Lover never leaves [the willful soul], but goes with it everywhere and gives it life and being."
The next page, the first woman honored as Doctor of the Church, elicits self-deprecating language as reminder that even the most sacred of saints were products of their times laden with patriarchal language and debilitating religiosity.
I may have thrown the book across the room a time or two.
But I am so glad I continually pick the book up off the floor and read more of Teresa's pilgrimage through mystical mansions. As someone who values both the practice of coaching and the wild world of parenting, I cannot think of a more beautiful litany than what she offered those under her tender care:
"It is a great advantage for us to be able to consult someone who knows us, so that we may learn to know ourselves. And it is a great encouragement to see that things which we thought impossible are possible to others, and how easily these others do them. It makes us feel that we may emulate their flights and venture to fly ourselves, as the young birds do when their parents teach them; they are not yet ready for great flights but they gradually learn to imitate their parents. This is a great advantage, as I know" (Interior Castle, 49).
In our own world, ripe with absurdity related to our worth and potential, Teresa reminds us of the timeless call to have space held for us to see what we may not be able to see for ourselves. This can be the most sacred of work- as the Spirit awakens us, through the compassionate curiosity of another, to our capacity for beauty and possibility in the most turbulent times. We are nudged and empowered to take flight when everything around us demands we ground ourselves in cynicism, despair, and trauma-induced idleness.
This is the empathetic work of coach and parent. It is the gift and call of each of us as young and old(er) birds, to consult and be consoled so to learn ourselves best and love others just as well.
This is a great advantage Teresa Ávila invites us all to know.
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Here is the quote adapted into a litany for whatever purposes meaningful to you;
maybe a personal meditation or call and response.
One: It is a great advantage for us to be able to consult someone who knows us,
Many: so that we may learn to know ourselves.
One: It is a great encouragement to see that things which we thought impossible are possible to others, how easily these others do them...so it seems.
Many: It makes us feel that we may emulate their flights and venture to fly ourselves, as the young birds do when their parents teach them;
One: They are not yet ready, we are not ready, for great flights
Many: yet, as they gradually learn to imitate their parents, so we learn to fly by watching others soar.
One: This is a great advantage, as I know.
Many: This is a great advantage, yes, we know.