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Art's Reviews > The Practice of the Presence of God
The Practice of the Presence of God
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Brother Lawrence is a 17th century Carmelite monk who engaged in a near continual conversation with God. Even while he was doing seemingly menial tasks of while he was sick, he had a constant consciousness of the presence of God.
This book is a collection of conversations with him and letters from him that describe and prescribe his daily inner and external dialogue with God.
I learned from brother Lawrence a couple of ways to sustain the dialogue. One thing I learned was that he described his conversations with God as extremely pleasurable. He kept at the conversation because he enjoyed being with God. There's joy in being with God.
Another way he kept the conversation going was that he wasn't too self deprecating when he noticed that he hadn't been conversing with God. He apologized, and he got right back to it.
One conversation I had to have with brother Lawrence (with his writings I mean, sometimes I talk out loud right back to the literature I'm reading as if I'm talking to the author; in my imagination I process what is being said better by doing this), was about how he saw illnesses and sufferings. To brother Lawrence these were also little gifts from God sent to bring awareness to the sufferer's need for God and to bring awareness to God's sustenance during suffering. So brother Lawrence welcomed suffering (without seeking it out) as gifts from God. That's a stretch for me to understand them that way. I expect suffering in this ever changing, sometimes evil world, and I prefer to see sufferings instead as being there, but they are not hindrances to God's stronger love, which has defeated all suffering, and that God's presence is there for consolation during suffering.
So I agree with him that being with God can make paradise available even for the sufferer, not because the suffering is a gift, but because God's presence is the ever promised gift even despite suffering.
As he says:
"Pain and suffering would be a paradise to me if I could suffer with my God. The greatest pleasures would be hell if I relished them without Him."
This book is a collection of conversations with him and letters from him that describe and prescribe his daily inner and external dialogue with God.
I learned from brother Lawrence a couple of ways to sustain the dialogue. One thing I learned was that he described his conversations with God as extremely pleasurable. He kept at the conversation because he enjoyed being with God. There's joy in being with God.
Another way he kept the conversation going was that he wasn't too self deprecating when he noticed that he hadn't been conversing with God. He apologized, and he got right back to it.
One conversation I had to have with brother Lawrence (with his writings I mean, sometimes I talk out loud right back to the literature I'm reading as if I'm talking to the author; in my imagination I process what is being said better by doing this), was about how he saw illnesses and sufferings. To brother Lawrence these were also little gifts from God sent to bring awareness to the sufferer's need for God and to bring awareness to God's sustenance during suffering. So brother Lawrence welcomed suffering (without seeking it out) as gifts from God. That's a stretch for me to understand them that way. I expect suffering in this ever changing, sometimes evil world, and I prefer to see sufferings instead as being there, but they are not hindrances to God's stronger love, which has defeated all suffering, and that God's presence is there for consolation during suffering.
So I agree with him that being with God can make paradise available even for the sufferer, not because the suffering is a gift, but because God's presence is the ever promised gift even despite suffering.
As he says:
"Pain and suffering would be a paradise to me if I could suffer with my God. The greatest pleasures would be hell if I relished them without Him."
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Reading Progress
Started Reading
April 19, 2009
– Shelved
April 19, 2009
– Shelved as:
christian-spirituality
April 19, 2009
–
Finished Reading
