The Practice of Presence

 I’ve begun reading a new book; one that Brenda at It's a Beautiful Life  mentioned recently.

The title alone – The Practice of the Presence of God (by Brother Lawrence) - is what brought me to the purchase, but I’m not completely finished with the introduction and I already KNOW this will be a book I will love and go back to again and again.

From the introduction by Hal M. Helms:

“In his early days in the Religious Life,, he often spent his entire prayer time rejecting stray thoughts and falling back into them again.  In fact, he confessed, he had never been able to pray by a rule like the others, and that after the required time of meditation he would not have been able to say what it was about.”

“His solution to this difficulty was a simple one: he developed the habit of continual conversation with God.  Whether at prayer or at work, it became his practice to focus his heart and mind on God, thanking Him, praising Him, and asking for His grace to do whatever had to be done.” 

As I said, I believe this will a book, I return to again and again.

More about Brother Lawrence:

From Amazon.com:  “A former soldier, French mystic Nicholas Herman, aka BROTHER LAWRENCE (1611?-1691), was converted to a powerful love of God at age 18 by a humble observation of nature, and his [collected] thoughts … remain among the most pure and most powerful adorations of the divine. A lay Carmelite brother, Lawrence spent most of his time in the monastery's kitchens, and his simple, earthy observations on the direct paths to communication with God continue to inspire those seeking a stronger, more potent spirituality today.”

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