When you explore the history of Christian spirituality, you run across a big surprise. For 1,200 years, the biggie Christian teachers told us that we've been created to profoundly want one and only one thing--union with God along the lines of what Teresa of Avila calls "mystical marriage." Maybe you weren't taught that! If not, you might want to blame John Calvin, who wrote at the same time as Teresa and shouted her down, saying that we instead were profoundly separated from God. Dave Schmelzer will discuss how that union has been described and will suggest ways in which we already at a deep level know that that's the good life we've been circling. He'll tell a bit about Teresa as well and about how she made her way to this major insight... which, in the end, she realized was what the great Chrisitians had always been teaching.
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Some books Dave touches on about Teresa of Avila:
Julienne McLean's Towards Mystical Union: A Modern Commentary on The Interior Castle
So, that said, McLean's book is out of print. Amazon will sell it to you for a robust $77. So maybe a summary of her look at Teresa will be enough for you. You can find that in the chapter on Teresa in Kim Nataraja's Journey to the Heart: Christian Contemplation Through the Centuries. Also technically out of print, but you can get that book (a good one) for a mere $37 on Amazon.
The Lutheran pastor Dave mentions who wrote on Teresa is R. Thomas Ashbrook. His book is Mansions of the Heart: Exploring the Seven Stages of Spiritual Growth
