Coming Soon: Turning to Brother Lawrence

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

You're listening to a podcast by the Center for Action and Contemplation. To learn more, visit cac.org.

Kirsten Oates (0:14)

Coming soon on Turning to the Mystics.

James Finley (0:20)

In this next season, we'll be turning to the teachings of Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection. And Brother Lawrence lived as a lay brother in the Discalced Carmelite Order in the 17th century in France. And his book, The Practice of the Presence, is one of the great classical works in the Christian-Mystical lineage.

So for years in the monastery, he was the cook. And so he saw the presence of God in the pots and pans of the kitchen. So it wasn't as if there's prayer and then you go do the work in the kitchen. There is the prayer, then there's the prayerful nature of work in the kitchen, including if you don't like it, including the divinity of not liking it. Because we're human beings, we're human beings. And the desire shines in our humanity. So I find these teachings so beautifully accessible. So I would like to just touch here on what's so touching to me about his teaching. What I think is the essence. Because he invites us to be aware of moments in our life where we've been graced with the sense of God's presence in our life. And solitude or silence or intimacy or service to the community or creativity or whatever. And then when that moment of oneness dissipated, it left within us the desire to abide in the presence of God and to deepen that. The insight of Brother Lawrence is that desire to abide more deeply in the presence of God. That desire is the presence of God. So the very thing that moves us even to listen to these sessions, the very fact we are drawn to it, is itself the presence of God nourishing us. That's his insight. And we can then learn to cultivate that desire. And deeper down, it isn't that we learn to cultivate the desire, but we let fidelity to desire cultivate us. So it kind of infuses the day by day awareness of the divinity of the holiness of life itself. So I very much look forward to these sessions. I find these teachings very lovely, and I hope you find them helpful.

Kirsten Oates (2:44)

Please join us September 8th, when we kick off the new season.

James Finley (2:49)

Blessings until then.

SPEAKER_1 (3:04)

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