Thank you, Dana. I had never read that! I wonder how one might "procure the two-fold / spirit of Elisha?" Maybe the disciplines and vows of the Carmelites?
Hi: In the Old Testament, Elisha asks God to give him double Elijah's spirit (2 Kings 2:8-10), his prophetic and mystical power, and this is what Teresa is alluding to. She wants her nuns to attain to this maximized spiritual strength and vigor, which is to goal of all their practices and disciplines. In other words, it's more than just being more disciplined and obedient—it's the spirituality and experience of the divine that comes from those practice. [More...]
The radical thing about Teresa's vision for the Carmelites is that she wanted women to have deep and affective experience of God, not merely be servants of God. BTW (shameless self promotion here) the translation and a footnote about the poem is is my new book, Sweet Hunter: The Complete Poems of St. Teresa of Ávila.
Fabulous 🙌🏻 Moving. Feeling every word.
Thanks for reading, Shelly! This one is drenched in true longing, I'm thankful you felt it.
Blessing your words and your hands as you write.
Tell me—
Why does this tear at my heart?
It's raw. I wrote it as a lament for a dear woman who had just died. Maybe you sense that desperation in it.
Oh, yeah. Especially the prayers. I am, after all, just an ordinary person.
Exactly
I hear you.
Yes, tell us how to hear that whisper for ourselves, old Elijah. So good!
Love this—St. Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582) put Elijah and Elisha in a poem—check our these stanzas from "Homeward":
Like Father Elijah
we’ll overcome,
with his vigor and zeal,
nuns of Carmel.
Let’s procure the two-fold
spirit of Elisha,
our desires renounced,
nuns of Carmel.
Thank you, Dana. I had never read that! I wonder how one might "procure the two-fold / spirit of Elisha?" Maybe the disciplines and vows of the Carmelites?
Hi: In the Old Testament, Elisha asks God to give him double Elijah's spirit (2 Kings 2:8-10), his prophetic and mystical power, and this is what Teresa is alluding to. She wants her nuns to attain to this maximized spiritual strength and vigor, which is to goal of all their practices and disciplines. In other words, it's more than just being more disciplined and obedient—it's the spirituality and experience of the divine that comes from those practice. [More...]
The radical thing about Teresa's vision for the Carmelites is that she wanted women to have deep and affective experience of God, not merely be servants of God. BTW (shameless self promotion here) the translation and a footnote about the poem is is my new book, Sweet Hunter: The Complete Poems of St. Teresa of Ávila.