Brother Lawrence’s Practice of the Presence is the calmest book I know. Because it embodies the wisdom of the calmest person I never met. Except through translation. Which is as good as meeting a person in real life. Almost.
That’s why I put his writings first. His spiritual maxims and his sixteen letters. That’s not always been the case. One reader mentioned that to me already, saying thank you for putting the friar first. Sometimes the additions by his good friend Joseph the priest are put first. My editor left it up to me. I had to reflect and decide. Finally I realized, I started with his voice, his writings, when translating. To get to know him. See who he is, so I’ll start the translation with him too. Center him and his voice.
Brother Lawrence’s voice is not one that would ordinarily be centered, not 330 years ago and not today. His is the voice of the poor and the marginalized.
I began reading Practice of the Presence in May 2020 in the original French, from the National Library of France. Thank you, Bibliothèque nationale de France! What I found was a down-to-earth mystic whose wise and loving spirit, juicy calmness, and beyond-binary mindset was somewhat out of step with the translations beside me that were leaning more into thisness-or-thatness.
I also found a confusing mess at times. Manuscript-wise, the original Practice of the Presence is a complicated artifact. I won’t go into details. The bulk of it is solid gold. But some spots cause head-scratching, especially where editor Joseph of Beaufort was working with the text. These don’t change the meaning of the original work, but do make its translation more challenging for a conscientious soul.
Add to that this. Brother Lawrence has been so loved over the centuries that the hundreds irresistibly drawn to translate him have proliferated a veritable Titanic of versions. Published traditionally, via Create Space, and often piecemealed into devotionals by those who love the friar’s calmness, a number of translations over the years also used an 1897 Victorian-era public domain translation. Through much handing-down over the centuries, the beloved friar’s work has been changed, rather like happens in the Telephone Game, where a whisper of “I love you. Do you like purple?” ends up after it goes around the circle of people as possibly, “Pick this or that. I hate eggplant.”
It’s impossibly hard to describe the high traffic this tiny book has known. Because of love. It’s like The Velveteen Rabbit.
It all got me to thinking, though.
So after last week’s activities—an IG Live (!) Launch with my friend Cathy Payne Anderson (posted on my YouTube Channel), Rhiannon Grant’s TikTok review, the mention of Brother Lawrence and his new translation in a sermon given at a Duke Divinity Faculty retreat, a Religion News Service interview “Carmen Acevedo Butcher gives medieval mysticism a Gen Z reboot” on August 25, 2022 with Renée Roden, and a Twitter sighting of the translation at the friar’s Église St-Joseph des Carmes on rue de Vaugirard (thanks to Dr. James K.A. Smith and family who brought Brother Lawrence home), and other exhilarating experiences that gifted me happy tears more than once—I sat down on the bed last night, good-exhausted, and counted pages in my translation.
Why was I counting pages? To return to that baseline of calmness that got me into this at the start. You know, numbers can be very soothing. Counting, and writing the page numbers down on three 5″ x 8″ index cards, I discovered percentages to help me better understand this translation. To be more accurate, I’d need to go into the manuscript and count words but don’t have the interest in that at the moment.
In my translation of Practice of the Presence—the first to offer the complete teachings of Brother Lawrence to a wide-ranging audience—here is who wrote what and how much space it takes up:
Solely written by Brother Lawrence: 46 pages
Solely written by Joseph of Beaufort: 41 pages
Sort of written by both Brother Lawrence & Joseph: 18 pages
That’s 44% written by Brother Lawrence (spiritual maxims and letters), 39% written by Joseph (note to the reader, profile, last words), and 17% we could say was sort of posthumously written by them “together” since this includes the conversations that Joseph took such careful notes on during visits with the friar, plus the heart of Brother Lawrence, a summary of Brother Lawrence’s teachings taken from his writings.
However, in the past, the priest Joseph’s more institution-oriented, dogma-conscious 39% has often dominated the book rather than centering Brother Lawrence and his 44%. Why is that? Likely inertia, as that was how it first came out (though that was about practicality, as we’ll see). Also, not having access to the original books would have been a hurdle.
Here’s how Brother Lawrence was first published by Joseph: In 1692’s 1st edition part 1, we find first Joseph’s note to the reader, Joseph’s eulogy (in my translation as last words), the friar’s spiritual maxims, and the friar’s letters. Then in 1694’s 1st edition part 2, we find Joseph’s the ways (in my translation as profile), conversations, and the heart of Brother Lawrence (originally called “the practice of the presence”).
Joseph’s friend Brother Lawrence died at seventy-seven in 1691, so it makes sense that a year later, so soon after the friar’s death, that in 1692 Joseph first put his Note to the Reader, then his Eulogy/Last Words as an introduction, to honor his friend and explain the Spiritual Maxims and Letters included next. When a couple of years later in 1694 Joseph published The Ways/Profile, then their Conversations, and then the Heart of Brother Lawrence, again it makes sense to introduce everyone to Brother Lawrence through a Profile of his life first.
In the past, it seemed to me, that opening eulogy had been weighing down the calm, joyful life of the evergreen spirit of the friar’s wisdom. I also wanted to center that unshakable joy he created by practicing the presence, come what may, as he said.
To try to get at the friar’s life more, those publishing Brother Lawrence’s teachings have in the past pulled out Joseph’s works and kept and published only the friar’s spiritual maxims and letters, or their shared conversations, or some combination of these (sometimes without all sixteen letters), calling that Practice of the Presence, with no note to say what was omitted. But truly Practice of the Presence wouldn’t have existed without Joseph. Plus his biographies of the friar and other additions contribute significantly to our understanding of Brother Lawrence, and are a frame I’m thankful to have. They are lovingly made.
My translation is so drawn to the friar—who came from a very marginalized background in 17th-century France—that it is also drawn to center him and his voice. Doing that also decenters his death to make room for centering his life.
While Joseph as a bonafide clergyman had to consider crossing t’s and dotting i’s, and could not take a step without remembering the volatile Quietist controversy, the friar is simply with the Presence—as he says, Come what may. Come what may for him included soldiering, being a prisoner of war, disability, daily pain for five decades, failure as a footman, severe anxiety, joining the monastery as a lay brother, living through climate crises and plague, and doing kitchen work he detested.
But ever hopeful, ever evolving-in-love Brother Lawrence says in one letter: “We don’t need to shout out to do this [practice of the presence]. God is closer to us than we may think.”
And if “God” as a word doesn’t work for you here, you’re invited to pick a word that does, or do whatever else works for you. “Love is closer to us than we may think.” “Self-compassion is closer to us than we may think.” “Loving others is closer than we may think.” “Divinity is closer to us than we may think.” “Seeing the truth of reality is closer to us than we may think.” “The True Self is closer to us than we may think.” And on.
May we know the friar’s “you don’t need to shout” in our dna. May we all know this deep Love, together.