Teresa of Avila: Sandcastles and Hedgehogs

Back at the turn of the century, 24 years ago now, I led a Quiet Day at our church on Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle.  In this book, Teresa envisions the soul as a castle and sees our spiritual journey as a process of going deeper into ourselves, into the center where God resides. Attempting to illustrate this, I poured different colors of sand in seven circles on a big plate, representing the seven “mansions” Teresa describes as steps along the way. At the start of the day, I gave each participant a stone to keep with them, and at the end of the day, after spending time with several meditations and a variety of short readings, I asked them to place their stone in whichever “mansion” most resembled their current relationship with God. 

None of us thought we were still outside the castle, wrestling with snakes and demons. Most felt we had probably moved beyond the first mansion and had at least begun recognizing the goodness of the created world and our own need for repentance. Some surmised that the second mansion felt familiar, a place where the soul might be somewhat detached from sin, but still was concerned about what others thought and had plenty of earthly attachments. A number of stones were placed there.

Teresa says that people often spend a lot of time in the third mansion, a place of spiritual dryness despite perseverance in prayer and acts of charity (she herself spent twelve years there). Sure enough, more stones ended up in the third circle of sand. The fourth mansion provides a major transition where one finds a sense of peace and contentment in quiet contemplative prayer. That’s as far as any of us got. I remember placing my stone in the third circle of sand, with one edge touching the fourth. A lot of us admitted that even if we had briefly made it this far, we tended to slip back to the third or even the second mansion. The last three mansions involve forgetfulness of self, ecstatic prayer, and finally a place where God and the soul are united. None of us made it there.

Back in 2000, I had just graduated from seminary and was preparing for ordination as a deacon. Now, 24 years later, I’m less than a year into retirement from my ministries – and I’m aware that I haven’t actually gone much deeper into Teresa’s interior castle in all that time. I’m also aware that Teresa would say that’s okay; “there will always be failure as long as we live in this mortal body,” she writes reassuringly.  

In the intervening years, I’ve encountered a wider variety of Teresa’s writings and come to see her not just as a visionary mystic but as someone who loved laughter, treasured friends, and welcomed adventure. Her prayer life provided balance to her active life in the church and the world. For her, the spiritual life embraces all of life. Teresa doesn’t want us to get hung up on where we are but to be there, wherever “there” is. “The important thing is not to think much but to love much, and so do that which best stirs your love.” Start where we are, in other words, and go love and serve God and our neighbors as we are called.

Pondering all this, I’m aware that even though I may never make it further into the castle, I still recognize in myself a deep longing for Teresa’s quietude. I want to stay longer in that fourth mansion, to able to withdraw from the world into what she describes as time alone with God, “like a hedgehog curling up, or a turtle drawing into its shell.” 

Despite over thirty years of morning meditation with my husband, I’ve not yet achieved full hedgehog-hood, but there are those rare moments when I might nudge my stone a little further into the fourth circle and touch the quiet place where I can “put all learning aside and simply rest in the stillness.” Teresa’s words and witness give me hope for more.

From the vantage point of old age, I don’t think I would repeat that Quiet Day exercise on the Interior Castle again, asking people to measure their spiritual journeys with stones and sand. Instead, I’d offer more silence, provide for creative responses, and share the famous prayer attributed to Teresa that encapsulates her teachings, not just about prayer but about the fruits of prayer.

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

In other words, we’re it. From whatever mansion we inhabit, our prayers are meant to strengthen us for loving service in the world. I wish now that at the end of that long ago Quiet Day, I’d mixed all the sand together and taken it outside for the wind to carry away—in recognition that wherever we are on the journey is fine. God is there with us. Always.