Part One
(In the second dwelling places it becomes clear that Teresa is not primarily interested in offering a method of prayer. Her goal is to describe the individual’s growing awareness of the experience of God. She is describing the journey to the center where God awaits. Prayer is the way forward that demands letting go of our selfishness.)
The second dwelling places brings a new awakening. Many struggles accompany this enlightenment. The individual begins to answer the question, “Is that all there is?” The results are both frightening and enticing. As the new awareness of God’s call begins to penetrate the consciousness, numerous problems surface. In the end, there is a need for change, a call to a real makeover of our awareness. The story of the second dwelling places highlights the conflict between the old and the new, grace and sin, pleasure and sacrifice.
A maturing insight helps the individual understand the true nature of prayer. Prayer seeks not to change God but to change ourselves. The depth of this insight evolves slowly. Previously, our prayer was seeking to guarantee our plan for happiness. In the second dwelling places we slowly, ever so slowly, begin to see that true prayer works toward changing not pursuing our plan for happiness. In this refocusing from ourselves to God as the center, there is a price to pay. Teresa puts it this way: “It is much more difficult to hear his voice than to not here his voice.” (IC.2.2)
This new understanding of prayer exposes the need for personal transformation. In the second dwelling places this is experienced in a moral conversion. We now begin to withdraw from our unquestioning life of indulgence, possessions and self-centeredness. The deeply rooted patterns of neglect of God and neighbor are being challenged. A consumer lifestyle encounters a critical attitude as never before. Patterns of thought about race, sexual orientation and the environment surface in unsettling ways. On the other hand, there is a pull to the Word of God and paricularlly toward Jesus.
All of this, and much more, is unfolding as one begins to pray in a way that truly is seeking an understanding of God’s word and knowledge of God’s will. This is the stuff of the second dwelling places.
The real question is: How does this happen? What triggers a person to make this step toward a truly different mentality and a truly differ way of praying?
For most people, a faithful and consistent practice of “saying my prayers” or “attending the novena” or “praying the rosary” or other forms of devotion, particularly regular attendance at Mass during the week have led to a spiritual growth. In different ways, a sense of faithfulness leads to a deeper hunger. Teresa puts a name on this hunger in the second dwelling palaces. It is a hunger for God.
God speaks in the second welling places in many ways. First of all, the powerful witness of good persons touches the heart. Then there are praiseworthy religious experiences particularly good liturgy and relevant homilies. Movies, books and other social media experiences inspire the heart from time to time. Life always has enough trials and difficulties that open one to a need for God. Finally, prayer constantly has the possibility of uncovering the divine.
In the area of prayer, the word of God, especially in the scriptures, becomes a source of light and comfort. It also surfaces the need to change. As prayer progresses, a relationship with Jesus steadily becomes more imperative for the searching individual.
The person has begun to pray with some consistency. This awakens a desire for a more truthful, authentic and responsible experience of life. However, this progress creates some difficult choices. As God’s goodness, mercy and love become clearer, so too, the call to let go of old ways. Worldly attachments and pleasures with their spirit of vanity and superficiality are not compatible to spiritual progress.
“Since they are getting closer to where His Majesty dwells, He is a very good neighbor. His mercy and goodness are so bountiful; whereas we are occupied in our pastimes, business affairs, pleasures, and worldly buying and selling and still falling into sin and rising again.” (IC 2.2) Teresa points out that the failure to avoid occasions of sin produces the uncertainty and ambiguity that play a dominant role in the second dwelling places.
Unlike the first dwelling places where the individual is almost deaf and mute in spiritual things, the person traveling in the second dwelling places can hear God’s voice even in the midst of the seemingly endless noise in a culture of indulgence that abhors silence. The manifestation of God’s mercy penetrates the cluttered mind and heart. However, the message most often demands sacrifice. There is always a price to pay when God draws closer in one’s awareness. This is the battleground of the second dwelling places.
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