Ruth Burrows kicks my butt (in the best way possible)

3 Reasons I'm obsessed with this Carmelite.

YOU GUYS.

I have been obsessing over Ruth Burrows, the little-known Carmelite whose writings have been hailed as the greatest mystical writing of our age. Some even count her among the female greats, in the same category as Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Avila, and Therese of Lisieux!!

Her spirituality is going to be a core part of Ronald Rolheiser’s upcoming class on Longing: the Ache that Makes Space. So I’ve been dancing with Ruth even more lately, and had to find a way to share her with you.

So here are 3 very quick reasons why I love her, and want everyone to know about her.

1. She’s bracingly real and RAW—and I love that

Ruth doesn’t mince words. Which I find thrilling. 😅 So many of our beloved spiritual writers come from other ages in history, when theological or flowery writing was the norm. Ruth is not only unbound by these norms, but is almost snarky in some of her passing comments! 

A little taste:

• “Suffering is not an infallible indication of growth, it can just as easily indicate neuroses. We must be careful not to cast a mystical garb over indigestion.”

• “The [sign] of God's intervention is our peaceful acceptance of our imperfection.”

• “When we are out to impress—ourselves first of all, but also God—with whatever holy sentiments, great desires or profound spirituality we think we have, God can’t get at us!”

• “The ideas we had formed of God, our working plan of him, so to speak, [must be] destroyed. It is only when “our” God disappears that we can meet the true God, who is mystery, and who leaves us baffled, wretched, bitterly aware of our lack of goodness. We thought we were doing well, we thought we were virtuous, we thought we were spiritual and look at us now, after all these years ... Our minds wander at prayer, we have no light, no comforting, reassuring feelings which tell us that everything is well with us and that God is pleased. On the contrary we feel the opposite. Instead of going forward—our own idea of going forward—we seem to be going backwards. We are humbled to the dust and in danger of packing up unless we know what trust in God means. And, of course, this painful condition is the effect of God's drawing near.”

2. Ruth is transparent about her struggles. 

We all encounter the dark, but the way Ruth was consumed by it seems almost superhuman… especially when you see, by contrast, the brilliance of her spirit (up next). I find her transparency about her struggles to be refreshing: no spiritual bypassing here! Just check out these lines from her writings—

• She struggled with deep depression:“It is impossible to understand my life unless it is seen all the time against the background of black depression. I was left shrieking with loneliness and pain.”

• God seemed absent her whole life:“My own lot seemed utterly bitter. Nothing, nothing, nothing, bleak, cheerless, lonely. And yet I found myself turning in the darkness to him.”

• When she entered the convent, she felt like a sham:“I lacked a natural religious sense and feared I was an agnostic if not an atheist at heart.“

• She was utterly aware of her failings“I seemed to have just the same bad propensities as when I entered. I was ambitious. I wanted to be Number One always. My thoughts were often critical and unkind. Such things were incompatible with progress in the spiritual life, I thought. As far as I was aware, there was not a spark of love for God in my heart. I was weary and sick of spiritual things.”

  
  

3. Ruth embraces her emptiness as a gift.

While we all experience chapters of life where we feel empty, meaningless, or like a fraud, what sets Ruth apart is her refusal to evade this painful inner reality. 

On the contrary: following in the tradition of Therese of Lisieux, Teresa of Avila, and John of the Cross, Ruth realized that her emptiness was a gift.

That precisely there, in our weakness and our poverty, lie our greatest riches.

For it is not in our spiritual insights, our daily meditations, or even our mystical encounters that divine union is found.

It is in being like Jesus: powerless, emptied out, allowing the Father to love him in the most mysterious of ways.

Ruth writes: 

God is always working to bring us to an awareness and acceptance of our poverty, which is the essential condition of our being able to receive him. And the petty frustrations, the restrictions, humiliations, the occasions when we are made to feel poignantly and distressingly hedged around, not in control of the world, not even in control of that tiny corner of it we are supposed to call our own, are his chosen channel into the soul.

Read: feeling like a hot mess is often how God works in us! 

The out-of-control nature of our lives is what brings us to recognize our powerlessness (12 steps, anyone?). It is this powerlessness and emptiness that gives God space to pour themself into our hearts. 

Our single, only task in life, is to allow God to do so.

There is a ruling insight that covers and controls my life… It runs through everything I have written: God offers himself in total love to each one of us. Our part is to open our hearts to receive the gift.

This is the heart of Christianity. That we allow ourselves to be loved.

This is why the mystics are always begging us to let go of our egos, our expectations, our hopes for a “beautifully spiritual” life. We need to make space—pronto! 

Ruth writes:

Sooner or later we must take the narrow path and leave behind all our spiritual riches. We have to go to God with empty hands. We have to let him be wholly and totally God. How hard this is. We want to feel good, want to feel we have something to offer him of our own. We want to be spiritually beautiful, to have an interesting, beautiful spiritual life. In his mercy he deprived me of all this from the beginning.

We must let go of everything so that we have space to receive God’s Self, who is always poised, mid-air, waiting to pour out his torrents of love.

For contrary to much spiritual writing, the mystical life is not about ascending to glorious heights, but descending into our imperfections and poverty with an audacious, empty-handed trust.

That is how we make space for divine union.

(Can you understand why I love her so much?? THIS IS THE HEART OF EVERYTHING!)

You really need to encounter her for yourself.

My favorite book of hers so far is Guidelines to Mystical Prayer, which I HIGHLY recommend.

I also very warmly invite you to join us for Ron Rolheiser’s class next Saturday, Sept. 12. Ron met Ruth (I think a few times, if I’m not mistaken?) and loves her possibly even more than I do (you can be the judge! 😅). He has the thrilling task of weaving together Ruth’s spunky threads with her Carmelite predecessor, Therese of Lisieux, who is wildly different in tone. While Therese is much more flowery in her writing (I blame late 19th century France), she and Ruth amazingly come to the same conclusion. 

Because in the end, as any Carmelite will tell you, the whole point of life, existence, creation—is to let ourselves be loved.

Join us, or learn more below!

Much love,

Kelly

PS - A big, gracious thanks to all of you who have written in with your prayers and well wishes for my health. It feels like a big hug across space and time, and I am deeply grateful for it! Every day is different (it took me days to write this post), so I’m doing my best to listen to my body and accept what I am given.

Continued prayers welcome! And sending a reciprocity of grace your way. ♥️

REGISTER HERE

Join the world-renowned author, speaker, and retreat leader Ronald Rolheiser as he guides us through Ruth Burrows and Therese’s mysticism, and what it looks like for us to make room for the divine.