PRAYER OR PILLAR OF SALT?

"A short time ago I was told by a very learned man that souls without prayer are like people whose arms and legs are paralyzed: they posess feet and hands but they cannot control them. In the same way, their souls are so infirm and so accustomed to busying themselves with outside affairs that nothing can be done for them, and it seems as though they are incapable of entering withing themselves at all. So accustomed have they grown to living all the time with the repitles and other creatures in the outer court of the castle that they have almost become like them; and although by nature they are so richly endowed as to have the power to hold converse with none other than God himself, there is nothing that can be done for them. Unless they strive to realize their miserable conditon and to remedy it, they will be turned into pillars of salt for not looking within themselves just as Lot's wife was because she looked back."

~~Teresa of Avila "Interior Castle"

I love this book and this is one of my most favorite excerpts from it! I first purchased it back in the 70's, but didn't read the whole book until just a few years ago!   Teresa compares the contemplative life to a castle with seven chambers. Tracing the passage of the soul from each successive chamber, she draws a powerful picture of the path toward spiritual perfection. The language from the 1500s is a bit different, but beautiful!  It is a "read" that one could marinate on over and over again!