“You’ll understand the dazzling world of grownups one day, too.” Let’s hope so.

In reading St Teresa’s  book The Interior Castle, I came to the chapter introducing the Fifth Mansions. After reading a bit of that, I decided to stop. This is beyond me. I feel like a peeping tom looking in at other people’s love life, in this case their love life with God. For now, I think it will do me little good, because I don’t have the experience to relate to it. This is the life of true saints, and I am not one of those.  I am more like a tourist, hoping to become an immigrant, into the spiritual realms. I am not worthy to look at such a thing as the soul’s union with God, much less write about it.

I am quite familiar with the phrase “pearls before swine”. It is a wonderful ‘get out of debate free’ card for us Christians, letting us get the last word and insult others in a most pious manner.  But now I have become the swine.  Or the dog, in the same verse by Jesus, the dog to which one should not give the holy. This is a level of holiness to which I am like a dog. So I slink away – at least for the time being.

Oh, and on my mobile phone Kindle, that’s two dots out of six. (Meaning I got through a third of the book.) That’s pretty humiliating. But probably also pretty accurate, or even generous.

I should stick to things that are relevant for where I am, I think.  Then perhaps later, if there is a later, I may begin to understand the dazzling world of true saints.