today's lesson from teresa

Today started with a nasty nasty headache. I used to get them often. Now I get them rarely, but they are no fun. Remembering that my Saint for 2006 (Teresa of Avila) is the patron saint of headache sufferers, I did a quick google search for "teresa of avila headaches" and came across a great article by Pat Morrison in NCR about her, "Multi Taskers Have Heavenly Mentor":

"Teresa of Avila was intelligent, witty, stubborn, a bit of a flirt, and too enmeshed at times with family and friends. But she was also a consummate expert in human psychology. "Today I don't pray because I have a headache," she wrote, tongue planted firmly in cheek. "Tomorrow I don't pray because I might get a headache. And the day after, I can't pray because I had a headache."

When a prioress worried about a nun whose fainting spells were supposedly due to ecstasy, the practical foundress told her to make sure the woman was eating enough and to keep her busy. For those who would have preferred a prayerful stroll in the garden to kitchen duty, Teresa wrote tersely (from firsthand experience as well) that "God walks among the pots and pans."

During the period of her life when she was in the deepest stages of union with God, Teresa was simultaneously juggling down-to-earth duties that would challenge the most inveterate multi-tasker.

Her whirlwind of activity, recorded in her Foundations, sounds like notes from a contemporary executive's PDA: While re-editing her manuscript on prayer (to placate her censor-editor), she was corresponding with superiors of her convents about issues ranging from personnel problems to property lines. One bishop was reneging on his promises to her about a convent; Teresa had called in the lawyer on the matter. And in the meantime, she noted, college students who had taken over the building had trashed the place.

If this doesn't mesh with your idea of what a mystic's life is about, that is precisely Teresa's lesson. She wanted to sweep away the cobwebbed notions that holiness only happens when life is tranquil and untroubled. Our job, to paraphrase her, is simply to keep earnestly seeking God through the messiness of life. God's job is to keep finding us and loving us. And, she reminds us, even when we don't keep our end of the bargain, God does God's job quite well, 24/7. "