Spiritual Solutions

One of the very most difficult times of my life was when I was first in the Ministerial Training program at Unity Village. My first wife, the mother of my four children, and I had made the decision to divorce. After agonizing over whether to split up the children and deciding we couldn’t do that, my wife and the children returned to England.

It was November, a cold but sunny winter day. Heartbroken, I went up into the apple orchard at Unity Village to get away for a while and to cry and scream at God. Why was this happening in this place where I thought everything would come together? Everything seemed to be coming apart. I collapsed under an apple tree and looked up at a bare winter branch outlined against the blue sky.

Looking at the branch and at the scars on the branch where fruit and leaves had fallen, I remembered a story I had read about Brother Lawrence, a Carmelite monk whose conversion took place when the sight of a bare and leafless tree in mid-winter caused him to reflect upon the change the coming spring would bring.

In that moment, I knew that spring would come again for me and my life would blossom again and bear fruit. I have never forgotten that moment. To make firm the sight of that bare but promising branch in my mind, I was led to get some art materials and paint the image I carried. It wasn’t a very good painting, but it served to remind me throughout my time in ministerial school and many times since of the promise of God’s presence in my life.

Remembering that experience, I thought it might be helpful for you - my subscribers to Spiritual Solutions - to become familiar with the little book of the spiritual path described by Brother Lawrence. It is likely that you have already read the book, but bringing it to mind again may perhaps provide a powerful blessing and open the door to a greater realization of God’s presence in your life.

In any case, in the next several weeks, I will bring excerpts of the book to you through my blog and Spiritual Solutions so that you can take your time and take its wisdom piecemeal into your mind and heart as you apply what Brother Lawrence called “The Practice of the Presence of God - the best rule of a holy life” in your own everyday experience.

Let me begin this journey by sharing with you the Introduction to the book, written in 1897 by a wonderful spiritual writer in her own right, Hannah Whitall Smith:

The value of this little book is its extreme simplicity. The trouble with most of the religion of the day is its extreme complexity. “Brother Lawrence” was not troubled with any theological difficulties or doctrinal dilemmas. For him these did not exist. His one single aim was to bring about a conscious personal union between himself and God, and he took the shortest cut he could find to accomplish it. The result can best be described in his own words: “If I dare use the expression, I should choose to call this state the bosom of God, for the inexpressible sweetness which I taste and experience there.”

What Brother Lawrence did all can do. No theological training nor any especial theological views are needed for the blessed “practice” he recommends. No gorgeous churches, nor stately cathedral, nor elaborate ritual, could either make or mar it. A kitchen and an altar were as one to him; and to pick up a straw from the ground was as grand a service as to preach to multitudes. “The time of business,” said he, “does not with me differ from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clutter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquillity as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament.”

This litle book, therefore, seems to me one of the most helpful I know. It fits into the lives of all human beings, let them be rich or poor, learned or unlearned, wise or simple. The woman at her was-tub, or the stone-breaker on the road, can carry on the “practice” here taught with as much ease and as much assurance of success as the priest at his altar or the missionary to his field of work.

All must feel that anything that brings the religion of Christ within reach of overworked and poverty-stricken humanity, in the midst of its ignorance and its helplessness, is a priceless boon, and this is what Brother Lawrence does. His “practice” requires neither time, nor talents, nor training. At any moment, in the midst of any occupation, under any circumstances, the soul that wants to know God can “practice the presence” and can come to the knowledge. The Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge, let the “seemings” be what they may; and we need but to recognize this as a continual, ever-present fact, and the inexpressible sweetness to which Brother Lawrence attained will become ours.

(Hannah Whitall Smith, London, 1897)

God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham
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Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-six years, invites you to enjoy more articles and/or subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, Spiritual Solutions or go directly to the Spiritual Solutions Blog

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