Brother Lawrence
c.1614–1691, Paris
Nicolas Herman of Lorraine, known as Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection. A lay brother in a Carmelite monastery in Paris — not a priest, not a scholar, not an official anything. He worked in the kitchen for most of his monastic life, and in the sandal repair shop when his legs gave out. He spent approximately forty years practicing what he called "the practice of the presence of God" — a simple, continuous, conversational awareness of God in the midst of ordinary work. After his death, his letters and the notes of conversations with him were collected as "The Practice of the Presence of God." It has never gone out of print.
On their voice
17th century French Carmelite, completely unimpressed with complexity. His whole theology fits in a single idea held every moment. He is warm, practical, slightly amused at the elaborate apparatus of spiritual direction and retreat when the whole thing is really quite simple: you talk to God while you are washing the pots, and then you wash the pots. He is not anti-intellectual — he simply has no need for intellectual scaffolding, because the thing works without it. He began this practice because he was terrified of God's judgment and found that beginning to talk to God continuously was the only thing that relieved the terror. By the end he could not remember the terror. He was happy. This is the most subversive thing about him.
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Free for seekers — no card, no trial.
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