There was once a very religious young woman. For as long as she could remember, she had had an almost desperate desire to please God, but it was a double-edged sword. It drew her to constant spiritual seeking, but it was like living in an emotional torture chamber. She was constantly being yanked between a passion for God, feelings of guilt and spiritual failure, and totally incongruent fits of wandering away from God.
One sentence changed her life. She was explaining her spiritual struggles to a monk who had just spent five years in solitude, and he answered her, “It is, Madame, because you seek outside what you have within. Accustom yourself to seek God in your heart, and you will find him there.”
That sentence was the beginning of a journey for Jeanne Guyon, 17th-century French mystic. And it changed my life too. I started reading her biography about nine years ago. I gobbled it up during our trips to the pool during theBahrain summer. I sat out with the other black-swathed ladies, sweating buckets under my abaaya, but honestly grateful for an hour all to myself while Steve played with 1-year-old Bethany in the water.
When I got to the section of the book where Madame Guyon has this epiphany, I was puzzled. I didn’t get what was so life-changing about that statement. But I really wanted to know, so I kept coming back to it, reading it over and over, thinking about it, chewing on it, until it finally whacked me over the head.
I tended to pray as if I was reaching, reaching toward God, and never quite catching him. Or sometimes I felt like God was there, and I was experiencing him, but I didn’t know how to hold onto it, or to get to that place every time I prayed. It was a very anxious way to relate to God, and I’m sorry to say that I totally relate to Mme. Guyon’s early neurotic experience of Christianity. To finally see that I was grasping at something that was already inside of me brought me a peace that I had not imagined possible.
It reminded me of my early married days. I would start feeling insecure, and would ask Steve far too often, “Do you love me?” The funny thing (aside from the fact that I already knew full well that he loved me) was that when he would assure me of his love, I never felt better. It finally hit me that reassurance from outside was never going to help me feel less insecure. I had to settle into believing on the inside that I was loved, and then I didn’t need to ask for reassurance. I could rest and enjoy our relationship.
This theme keeps coming back to me like the terminator. As I’m taking my writing more and more seriously, the desire for reassurance keeps poking its head up, and I have to remember to ground myself on the inside rather than hoping for approval. I’m finding the need in other areas as well to not seek outside what I have within.
Where have you seen this advice come to play in your life? Where do you struggle to rest in it?
Photo by cbanck via Flickr
My late therapist recommended a book by Guyon to me — Experiencing the heart of Jesus, or something like that? I don’t think I got very far with it, or with other mystics like Fenelon — something about it, or maybe about just Fenelon, seemed too self-blaming: You cause your own suffering because you care too much.
Maybe I ought to try reading again.
Probably Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ. I liked it, but I much preferred reading her autobiography (I read the autobiography first). I got so much out of reading about her life that might not have been the same in a didactic work.
Yes, that’s it. I’ll look around and see if I can find her autobiography. Did you ever read Fenelon — The Seeking Heart, I think?
And I like Russ’s post and quotation, too. And it brings to mind a fresh perspective on perfect love casting out fear.
I have Fenelon’s Spiritual Letters. I haven’t read the whole thing, but I really liked what I did read.
Yes, this is where I have finally settled. A mutual abiding with Christ — he makes his home in me, and I in him. A mutual desire for each other. It has radically changed the way I live and love. I used to want Christ to love through me — as if I had to empty myself of my self and my love because it wasn’t good enough or pure enough or… But now I am more in touch with our integration: When I love, Christ loves. And when Christ loves, I love. I can trust how I love because the way I love IS the way Christ loves. I don’t claim to love perfectly. But I’m not afraid of myself anymore. Well, usually…
Love is always thirsty
and looking for a thirsty lover.
Love and lover follow each other
like day and night.
Rumi
I love how you said that Russ–being afraid of ourselves or thinking that God doesn’t even want us to have a self or be a real, human person–I no longer think that’s what it means to have a relationship with God. Love the Rumi quote too!
To be entirely honest, I’m not sure I have personally experienced the validity or resonance of that statement that changed her (and your) life, although I understand it in theory. I guess I’ll have to marinate on it for a while. I like this post, though, and I agree that reassurance and approval are very deeply ingrained but very man-made concepts.
I say we kick them in the butt and tell them to leave us alone.