The woman, the water, the way...

A great meditation on the ebb and flow of spiritual life based on the experience of Teresa of Avila and the four stages of prayer.

Let nothing disturb thee;
Let nothing dismay thee:
All thing pass;
God never changes.
Patience attains
All that it strives for.
He who has God
Finds he lacks nothing:
God alone suffices

As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
 
My tears have been my food day and night,
While they continually say to me, “Where is your God?”
       
When I remember these things, I pour out my soul within me. 
For I used to go with the multitude;
I went with them to the house of God, 
with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept a pilgrim feast.
       
Why are you cast down, O my soul?
And why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance.

O my God, my soul is cast down within me;
Therefore I will remember You from the land of the Jordan,
and from the heights of Hermon, from the Hill Mizar.
 
Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls;
All Your waves and billows have gone over me.
 
The LORD will command His lovingkindness in the daytime,
And in the night His song shall be with me - A prayer to the God of my life.
       
I will say to God my Rock, “Why have You forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”
 
As with a breaking of my bones, my enemies reproach me,
while they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”

Why are you cast down, O my soul?
And why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; For I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God.

Psalm 42