Tag: Practice of the Presence

MIX

Posted on | by Carmen Butcher

Thank you to Sean for adding a “Contact” block here to my website and under “About,” so if anyone wants to ask me onto a podcast, to lead a retreat, or give a workshop, you can easily get in touch.

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When I was growing up, good women were seen-not-heard, so lately life’s been an adjustment. To be asked onto podcasts as Practice of the Presence was birthed, not only to be asked about Brother Lawrence but also about my own journey, has been both YAY! and WTF. In for a dollar, in for a gold brick. . . .

You’re invited to listen in. Josh Patterson and Greg Farrand–Josh and Greg–on (Re)Thinking Faith got me to talking about everything. Listen here to the (Re)Thinking Faith conversation we enjoyed. It’s magical what active listening will do. Thank you both! But imagine being asked what you think about taboo topics growing up when a part of you, despite all your True Self work and Shadow work, is still a wounded 5-year-old. Much loved, but still 5 and still recovering.

To talk freely as I did with Josh and Greg tells you A LOT about Josh and Greg. And their wise kindness. Because I suffer from, live with, and try to practice-the-presence my way through (also breathwork-my-way, see-a-therapist, chant, listen-&-be-kind-to-others, and go-for-walks) through severe anxiety.

This severe anxiety is like an inner blindness so real it’s hard to describe to others. I don’t remember saying this and only know because Josh and Greg later posted this cool computer-coding meme with a quote by me: “Christianity has a lot of beautiful treasures that have been buried under binaries….and binaries rarely work.” It’s here on IG @practiceofthepresencebook.

Kind listening draws out of you what you didn’t know lay in you. That is such a powerful experience to have about the ocean of interdependence we all swim in, live, move, and have our being in, and that includes with all creatures, even and especially the roly-poly walking on the sidewalk that I try not to step on.

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Kind listening also happened on Encountering Silence with Cassidy Hall, Kevin Johnson, and Carl McColman. Afterwards, when they posted two beautiful memes with my quotes on them, I learned I said: “I’ve always had a special relationship with trees. They feel like the keepers of silence.” And “I was able somehow with the silence to hear the self compassion.” Those are here and here. In my experience lately, I’ve decided when others actively listen to you and you dare risk being open yourself, prayerfully and mindfully, it’s not unlike walking out into the listening forest, silence embracing you with its ancient loving openness and anything truly can happen then. Listen here to the Encountering Silence conversation.

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It’s easier to say to students: “Get out of your comfort zone. You only live once. Be open to discovery in my class. Invest in yourself. Honor your voice.” Than it is to do it yourself. This summer I helped do interviewing for the Mystics Summit for The Shift Network. With dyslexia and anxiety, I made notes upon notes and did a mountain of research to ensure I pronounced names and words right and could listen well.

I also reached out to a stranger-now-a-good-friend, Emily, who said yes to helping me get the word out about the friar and his wise teachings in Practice of the Presence. For three months Emily (also a busy, successful playwright) taught me SO much about getting out of my comfort zone, answering my questions with the following: “Yeh–you can’t do that on your desktop–IG’s a mobile app–gotta do it on your phone.” And “Yeh–you can do whatever you want with that.” And “Just be authentic.” (The last two were advice for how to handle an IG Live Launch for the book.)

Because of Emily, I had the courage to learn how to use Canva and Headliner on my own. Truth is, having things go wrong is part of the process, and just pressing this and that and trying again gently, as another friend recommends, is really helpful.

With Canva and this newfound courage, I began this month to make and post on social media my own mixes of my translation with art, including choosing colors, backgrounds, fonts, and more. I have a plan. I started at the beginning of Practice of the Presence, picking quotes that stand out to me as helpful or beautiful, and it’s been very creatively fulfilling. In fact, it’s a lot like lectio divina. Focusing on individual words and also how they work together. Meditating on them as I create them. It’s satisfying to my soul.

With such friendships, old and new, old (middle-aged) and young, I also found the courage to start adding videos to my YouTube Channel (at 100 followers I can customize the URL for it). Until then here is my YouTube Channel’s bitly link (it’s bit.ly/CarmensYouTube).

I am thankful over and again because all summer I have experienced how active listening is what we most need, and I rededicate myself daily to trying to be an active listener.

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So many people have written or messaged me to say how much my translation of Brother Lawrence means to them, and for that, I can say, My prayers were that the humble friar’s wisdom might be kindness and calmness in the world as well as gently disruptive, helping us all become more embodied compassion.

One kind friend posted a quote on Facebook that perhaps I said in the (Re)Thinking Faith podcast (I’m not sure where he found it or heard it): “I just want to be as good of a human as my cat, Tao, is a cat.” And this is true. He said, “That was such a gift to me this morning.” And my heart is full with such kind community.

I’m also exhausted from the launch activities. But being kind to myself and recovering. You never knew or rather I never knew that publishing a book these days has as much to do about getting-the-word-out in our Horton-hears-a-Who-world as it does about countless hours invested in researching, writing, and revising it. To the amazing friends, launch team members, who helped me do this, thank you again.

For an introvert with an extrovert interface, that kind of getting-the-word-out does not come naturally. Even with such a good thing as the friar and his work. You know, introverts prefer communing with ancient spiritual classics and this morning’s snowy white egrets in the marsh.

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Yes, this blog is a mix. Life is also a mix. Grateful for the mix and the intermixing of it all.

I’m so grateful for my family and my friends and for the kindness in the world.

PRESENCE

Posted on | by Carmen Butcher

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.

Mystics Summit

Posted on | by Carmen Butcher

These stories are a taste of the Mystics Summit sponsored by The Shift Network. Aug 15-19, you’re invited to join for free: https://shiftnetwork.infusionsoft.com/go/mts22a24522/a24522

This summer Father Just-call-me-Greg Boyle and I had a conversation—he’s the white-bearded, plain-spoken, best-selling author, and down-to-earth Jesuit priest who founded and runs Homeboy Industries in LA, the largest gang-intervention, rehabilitation, and re-entry program in the world. To say this conversation was life-changing for me would be an understatement.

Near the end, I asked him did he have a story perhaps that sums up his work. He paused. Then Greg told a story “happened 3 days ago” about tragic death, loss, community, love, and a woman pulling a warm burrito out of her bra. It has to be heard to be appreciated so that’s all I’ll say about it.

Over two weeks I had a 35-to-45-minute conversation with each of these seventeen, in this order: Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Andrea Menard, Father Greg Boyle; Dr. James Finley; Rukmini Chaitanya, Grandmaster Mantak Chia; Dr. William Bloom; Rev. Dr. Robyn Henderson-Espinoza, Mike Morrell; Andrew Harvey, Raven Sinclaire, Colette Lafia; Tenley Wallace, Carl McColman; Matthew Fox, Rev. Ana Jones, Mirabai Starr.

When invited to co-host the Mystics Summit for The Shift Network with Mike Morrell, I thought, What a wonderful way to be a student, learn more about spirituality, make new friends, strengthen existing friendships, and have dialogue with those who want the world to be a kinder place. Here’s what I learned.

Since the zoom camera is ultra sensitive, wonderful drivers before each session reminded: “Please don’t talk while the other person is talking, because it switches the camera to you.” Before my 5-4-3-2-1 countdown to start, I’d add my own reassurance to the conversation partner that I’d be listening, albeit quietly, during our time together: “Please know I’m listening very deeply to all you say. I’d rather not switch between mute and unmute, so I’ll resist my Cuban and Southern habits to interject while you talk with ‘Yes, I see,’ ‘Uh-huh,’ ‘How interesting.’ I’ll simply wait for you to pause before I talk again, letting you have the floor so our conversation can unfold organically.”

Turns out, that’s the best way to have a conversation. Chockful of down-to-earth and sometimes surprising stories and always sharing wisdom, these conversations highlighting each person I interviewed and their good work and teaching were also extraordinarily holy and deeply nourishing. Listening is an amazing way to be human. That’s the main thing I learned or rather re-learned.

Here are glimpses into these conversations, in (almost) chronological order:

They are (almost) chronological because my first deep bow is to the amazing inaugural host of the 2021 Mystics Summit, the incomparable Mirabai Starr, whose interview happened to be the final one scheduled. An award-winning author, Mirabai talks about her Wild Mercy: Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics. Wild Mercy is such a joy to read, or you can listen to her read it (a treat!). Mirabai has also received critical acclaim for her revolutionary new translations of John of the Cross’ Dark Night of the Soul and Teresa of Avila’s The Interior Castle.

An interspiritual teacher with an amazing gift for cultivating community and for making all feel welcome, Mirabai is a teacher’s teacher, an author’s author, a translator’s translator, and a host’s host. I watched a dozen or more of her brilliant, wise 2021 Mystics Summit interviews in preparation for co-hosting this year’s Summit.

In our conversation, Mirabai wanted to discuss translation as a doorway into sacred presence so we did. She also shares her wisdom about the Divine Feminine, how mystics of the past are accessible to you in your life right now, and how you do NOT have to be perfect to qualify as a living mystic yourself. You’ll also hear how Mirabai still owns and plays the flute she got while a student in Spain.

Rabbi Rami Shapiro is author of over 36 books, including Minyan, Ten Principles for Living a Life of Integrity; The Divine Feminine in Biblical Wisdom Literature, sharing his encounters with Chochma/Sophia; and Holy Rascals, which is another wise book of his describing what he calls a “zero-sum worldview rooted in a Strict Father God theology in which God dominates men, men dominate women, the wealthy dominate the poor and middle class, and humans dominate nature.” Rabbi Rami was so kind in the green room as we checked sound and light levels. Then he said at one point in our conversation, “I’m not really all that interested in God the Father,” and we were friends for life.

In our conversation he describes well our biggest challenges today and how we can go “beyond Big Religion,” which he describes as “organized religion focused on patriarchy, power, and control,” and he shares the Perennial Wisdom at the mystic heart of most all religion as key to our collective sustainable future. These include: All life manifests a dynamic non-dual Aliveness called by many names; we humans are born able to wake up in, with, and as this Aliveness; waking up calls us to the Golden Rule of caring for all other creatures; and this service to being a blessing (think: contributing to the common good of ALL creatures) is our highest calling.

Rabbi Rami shared a very simple exercise to help us embody the compassion of the Divine Mother and that will have you looking at a simple ant in never the same way again. After our conversation we talked about a roly-poly I’d tried and succeeded in not stepping on during my walk that morning, and Rami is the kind of kind person who is genuinely interested in such stories. I sent Rabbi Rami a thank you note after, and a few weeks on, in the mail from Tennessee came a red envelope and inside a cheerful Snoopy card with the kindest note.

In fact, Rabbi Rami is so kind that you start to really imagine that religion can be embodied kindness, a language of living-out being compassionate, or, as he says, “Religions are like languages: no language is true or false; all languages are of human origin; each language reflects and shapes the civilization that speaks it; there are things you can say in one language that you cannot say or say as well in another; and the more languages you speak, the more nuanced your understanding of life becomes.”

That same day Andrea Menard entered the zoom room from Nova Scotia where she is filming the Robyn-Carr-based Sullivan’s Crossing (which will make fans of Virgin River happy). Andrea—known in the Sacred realm as Grandmother Wind—reminds us to slow down, respect, and acknowledge, for example, the traditional territory of the Mi’kmaq (in Nova Scotia), the official knowledge keepers of that territory.

In our conversation, she shared her wisdom as a Métis singer, songwriter, actress, TEDx speaker, facilitator of the rise of the Sacred Feminine, and founder of the Sacred Feminine Learning Lodge. Then she sang LIVE a beautiful bilingual water prayer song in Michif and English from her September-releasing album.

My first day of filming interviews ended with Father Greg Boyle and the warm burrito story. He said, “I’m still laughing three days on,” and I can say I’m still laughing weeks on, thoughtfully.

Next I got to interview Dr. James Finley, former Trappist monk at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, where Thomas Merton was his spiritual director. Jim Finley is also a Core Teacher at the Center for Action and Contemplation with Richard Rohr and others, and host of a “monastery in cyberspace,” as he calls it, his podcast, Turning to the Mystics.

Jim wanted to meet a couple of times beforehand via zoom, so we could have a real conversation. I know his work 100% and was thrilled he wanted to meet, and also petrified. The first time he sent me a zoom link an hour beforehand. The first thing he said when I got on, gobsmacked, was “Hey, let me show you the view.” Which put me at ease.

The second time we pre-met, I zoomed in to see Jim in his book-lined, warmly lit study, and he smiled without saying anything, and then held up a legal pad, wrote his phone number on it big, so I called him. “I’ve got to get someone out to look at my connection,” he said, “but I thought we could talk on the phone and see each other on zoom until it’s fixed, if that’s alright,” so we did.

At the end, he and I had such a laugh because since I’d been holding my phone with my left hand the whole time, I did a half-bow of reverent goodbye where the anjali mudra was my right palm pointing skyward and pressed against the imaginary one (occupied by holding my phone to my face so he could hear me explain this). He did one half-bow, one-palm anjali mudra right back to me, laughing, even though he had his cell phone on speaker, lying flat on the table, so he wasn’t holding it.

Jim is so calm, he reminds me of Brother Lawrence in that way. Both have a calmness that is a muscle, produced by invisible spiritual exercises over a lifetime. It’s a calmness all around them can enter.

In between these pre-meetings with Jim, he sent me his teaching memoir, releasing from Orbis in 2023. It’s titled Finding Our Way Along the Healing Path. I read it in a day. Gobbled its pdf up. CAN’T WAIT for it to come out.

In addition to being a raconteur in our conversation, sharing stories that make you feel you yourself have met Thomas Merton in Kentucky, Jim Finley talks so helpfully about how we can learn to recognize and cultivate the stance that offers the least resistance to being overtaken by mystical oneness with God or Love or Mystery, which he describes as a gift always there, available for the taking up. He speaks from profound experiences with trauma. His words resonate in deep ways since he knows and has healed from trauma, and as a clinical psychologist (retired) he has helped countless others healing from trauma. Now he works primarily with adult survivors of trauma who want their spirituality to be a resource in their healing.

As an adult survivor of trauma myself who wants spirituality to be a resource in my ongoing healing, I’m thankful for Dr. James Finley and his beyond-the-binary perspective. And for how he brings trauma in so it can be healed, be healing. Our conversation features Jim saying so many wonderfully human, wonderfully healing things that it rewards both listening and re-listening.

I am so grateful for Jim Finley. He is, as Mirabai Starr says, “a true mystic,” even a “renegade mystic,” and a kind mentor for all.

My next day of interviews took me to the Bahamas and to Thailand, so to speak, conversing with Rukmini Chaitanya and Grandmaster Mantak Chia. Conversing with Rukmini Chaitanya reminds how practice is so tied to our humanness. Rukmini has a PhD from UC Berkeley, a sunny spirit, and accessible teaching. A senior staff member of the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat Bahamas, she is personal assistant to Acharya/spiritual director Swami Swaroopananda. She shares how anxiety at Cal motivated her into yoga practice. With one of THE best recording rooms ever, yellows, blues, and oranges, with a peaceful, breezy Bahamas-feel, Rukmini teaches the Sivananda Yoga Tradition and Advaita Vedanta Philosophy in a wonderfully accessible way.

Grandmaster Mantak Chia was born to a Chinese family in Thailand and raised in a Christian family—he began studying the Buddhist path of mindfulness as a child, and in our conversation he shares stories from his growing up. He also tells the most important lesson taught him by his Taoist master, and teaches the Inner Smile Meditation. I appreciate that it was 7am for Mantak while it was 5pm for me. He got up early so we could have our conversation, and I appreciate his gracious willingness to describe for us the thousands-of-years-old practices still so incredibly relevant for our modern world.

Dr. William Bloom lives in England, and he was and is a joy to talk with. Dr. Bloom is a groundbreaking UK educator in the field of holistic wellbeing and director of the Spiritual Companions Trust. Though he is very down-to-earth, you immediately sense that, as The Independent says, he has “an encyclopaedic knowledge of meditation” and deep experience of it too. He shared his fascinating background story (which includes publishing his first novel at age 22), and check out his story of the blue sky.

William teaches how spiritual and mystic experiences are accessible and natural for everyone. Some of his books include Meditation Masterclass, The Power of Modern Spirituality, Feeling Safe, and The Encyclopedia of Mind, Body, Spirit. We met on the day news was breaking that Boris Johnson had resigned, which reminded me that in an age of political uncertainty, William’s sharing of timeless, practical wisdom has special relevance.

The next day of interviews, I was in the room with Rev. Dr. Robyn Henderson-Espinoza. Dr. Robyn is a Nashville-based, recently married (congrats, Robyn!) storyteller, professor, public theologian and ethicist, and founder of the Activist Theology Project. Dr. Robyn has a lovely poetic description for combining contemplation and action for a stronger community—a “murmuration of becoming.” Their imagination and vision for an ethical future are compelling, down-to-earth, doable. They have ideas for how we can be human, again, and I also got invited for a porch chat in Nashville, with iced tea or bourbon, my choice. Looking forward to that!

Then I was interviewed that same day by co-host Mike Morrell and got to talk about Brother Lawrence and my new translation of this timeless 17th-century Discalced Carmelite friar who transcends any tradition and has been in-print and beloved for centuries by all people, religious or not. My accessible, accurate translation is the first complete offering of this wisdom, the first by a woman of color, the first that includes all passages, and the first to use non-binary pronouns for the Divinity. I hope it will bring everyone peace and joy as it has done and does me.

After, I interviewed The Mystics Summit co-host Mike Morrell. Mike went to beautiful Berry College, the largest in the world at 27,000 green acres with beautiful eagles (eagle cam too) and wonderful teachers, in the same town where I used to teach. Mike is the collaborating author, with Father Richard Rohr, on The Divine Dance, founder of Wisdom Camp, and a founding organizer of the justice, arts, and spirituality festival Wild Goose in North Carolina. His helpful theological mulch metaphor, his creativity, and his stories are worth tuning in for, as well as his generosity of spirit.

Andrew Harvey astounded next. Internationally acclaimed poet, novelist, translator, mystical scholar, and spiritual teacher, author of over 20 books, and founder of the Institute for Sacred Activism, Andrew discusses AND READS FROM beautifully, the astounding work of the great Christian woman mystic, Hadewijch of Antwerp, exploring five of her greatest poems and meditations from his new book Love is Everything: 365 Poems and Meditations from Hadewijch of Antwerp. A 13th-century Beguine, Hadewijch was silenced for five centuries—her voice now returns through Andrew’s brilliant and moving translations, to inspire us all.

Raven Sinclaire is a writer, teacher, and student of Hermetic wisdom. Co-author of the best-selling anthology: Ready, Set, Live! she has an upcoming book: Old Truths/New Light, and is an internationally known workshop and retreat leader. Raven is also currently working on her Master’s degree at the University of Dundee. In our conversation, Raven shares with us stories of her own initiation into wisdom. She also speaks of Hypatia, one of my heroes. Talking with Raven, what most impressed me is how often we overlook the wisdom within, and how she has developed tools and teachings for recovering and engaging with it, and when her Old Truths/New Light Hermetic Wisdom Oracle Deck arrived, I’ve found it both beautiful and deeply helpful. As author Andrew Harvey says, “Raven is authentic, humble, experienced and inspired.”

Colette Lafia is a San Francisco-based writer, spiritual director, and international retreat leader who dropped in next. She has a gentle, joyful spirit. Her book The Divine Heart is a 2022 Nautilus Award winner, and I had the great joy of reading it earlier this year. Of this gem, author and interspiritual teacher Mirabai Starr says, “In this luminous book, spiritual guide Colette Lafia offers the fruits of her tenderly cultivated inner life to feed people of all genders who thirst for a direct encounter with the embodiment of love, which she recognizes as our own true nature.” Colette does spiritual direction both in person and virtually, and in our conversation Colette’s spiritual-directing wisdom shows as she shares down-to-earth ways to listen, grow, and transform as human beings. She draws from her own stories and experiences as a contemplative and gives you very practical steps to experience your life and all of life as a love story. I’m here for that. I also especially appreciate that Colette teaches a stance of self-acceptance. Her abundant, clear teachings are very practical for everyone who wants more abiding peace and joy in their lives.

Next Tenley Wallace danced into our conversation. Now in Oregon and once from the Bay Area, she and I share this geographical connection. To prepare for our interview, I watched a few of Tenley’s dances online, and they are incredible. Tenley describes herself as a midwife for women’s transformation through dance, yoga, and ancient yogini wisdom from India, Tibet, and Nepal. And even that just scratches the surface of what she’s done and is doing. Tenley is a translator of ancient wisdom, having studied intensively with yoginis, and she has created original embodiment practices for anyone wanting to live with more confidence, grace, and power. Please look up her videos on YouTube to see what I mean! She concludes our conversation with a brief, easy practice that anyone can do at any time to pause and reconnect with their true self.

My friend Carl McColman kindly came on that day after a long stretch of traveling and leading a retreat in New York. Carl is a spiritual director, retreat leader, and author of The Big Book of Christian Mysticism, and many others, including Eternal Heart: The Mystical Path to a Joyful Life and Unteachable Lessons: Why Wisdom Can’t Be Taught (and Why That’s Okay)—it must be “caught” instead.

An internationally known speaker and teacher on mystical spirituality and contemplative living, Carl also co-hosts with Cassidy Hall and Kevin Johnson, Encountering Silence, a podcast about, well, one of my favorite subjects: SILENCE. They listen to (and speak with) everyone there—Amy Frykholm, Nikki Grimes, The Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis, Dr. Beverly Lanzetta, Sister Joyce Rupp, Kevin Quashie, and Barbara Brown Taylor, to name just a few. You can tune in here: http://encounteringsilence.com/

In our conversation, my sage friend Carl talks of the inspiring and instructive life and wisdom of theologian Howard Thurman, how mysticism corrects the religion of dour moralism, and how it inspires social and communal transformation as well. We had a good conversation and hope you’ll join us!

My last day of interviews were with Matthew Fox, Rev. Ana Jones, and Mirabai Starr. If you wanted to go out with a bang, that’s how to do it.

Though he never uses these prefixes much, Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox makes a conversation resemble how the world feels after a parching summer meets rain—the steam that rises from the red earth like magic, the earthy smell of petrichor that fills your nose and body with its fragrance, and the feeling of lightness, like anything is possible, and you’re sure you just spotted a green shoot growing from that bare patch over there—that’s Matthew Fox.

What do I love about Matthew Fox? First, that he had slides of Hildegard’s colorful mandalas to talk about during our conversation: “Egg of the Universe,” “The Human as Microcosm of the Macrocosm,” “Cosmic Tree Cultivation,” and “All Beings Celebrate Creation.” He points out, by the way, in “Cosmic Tree Cultivation” the snake in the border and how Hildegard saw snakes as good, which is also my understanding of snakes, one reason I wear a ouroborous ring made of recycled white gold.

I started our conversation by holding up my dog-eared copy of Matthew’s Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen in tribute to his decades of being my and so many others’ mentor. Mirabai Starr describes him best: “There is not another man on the planet who has championed the sacred feminine with a fraction of the wisdom, scholarship, creative fire, and holy chutzpah as Matthew Fox.”

Via the lens of the Webb Telescope, Matthew asks us: “Might this sharing of the earliest galaxies and stars beaming into our living rooms awaken us to the sacredness of our 13.8 billion year journey?” He turns to “feminist theologian” Hildegard of Bingen, whom he also calls “the grandmother of the Rhineland mystics,” and “a Trojan horse in the Vatican,” because she centers creation and her love of Nature in her viriditas or greening theology, as does Matthew in his Creation Spirituality. (We remember that Pope Benedict silenced Matthew for a time for speaking out on behalf of the Divine Feminine and for Mother Earth.)

Matthew also discusses how the ancient Mesoamerican teaching recognizes the compassionate Divine Feminine: “To be human one must make room in one’s heart for the wonders of the universe.” That reminds me of Death Valley: Life Blooms on PBS, where we follow Baratunde Thurston and time-lapse photographer Harun Mehmedinovic, who talks of how important it is to see the stars, for the wonder of it, and how light pollution prevents us from that experience more and more. I got teary-eyed myself as Matthew described the Webb Telescope scientists getting teary-eyed seeing the awe-inspiring, awesome photographs.

Matthew and I had a laugh near the end after he’d been sharing lyrically about Genesis 1’s Original Blessing, Creation’s birthright of goodness and our interdependence on all creatures. He pointed out how much of theology starts unfortunately with Genesis 2 and an unhealthy Original Sin that has historically made for a narcissistic theology of self-loathing, one where we’ve forgotten the goodness and the sacred nature of Nature that we meant to honor and protect, and from that sacred focus, develop an economic system that works for all beings.

I followed up with something like: “I appreciate how you’ve spent—are devoting—your whole life trying to glue Chapter 1 back into Genesis.” He laughed, and we agreed that super glue might be needed.

My penultimate interview was with Rev. Ana Jones. (Ana is said to rhyme with “Amma.”) Rev. Ana Jones is an internationally renowned Interfaith Minister who speaks to ways that we can listen to the still small voice of intuition. Being with her, you can’t help but notice that she has a profound calmness and optimism. She brings into our conversation allusions to many religious writings that deepen her practices. Ana also shares insightful personal stories, and we see that what she teaches, she lives. Ana helps us better understand what intuition is and how to listen to it, teaches that we need everyone’s inner mystic and intuitive gifts to be honed for co-creating a better and brighter future, and reads a beautiful poem as a benediction. With Facebook communities of over 450,000 members, Ana’s inclusive, listening approach resonates with many and gives me hope.

I am thankful to have worked on this Mystics Summit with so many amazing people. And this is just half of it! Mike interviewed such wonderful souls, including Banafsheh Sayyad, Bushi Yamato Damashii, Alexander John Shaia, Taya Mâ Shere, Rebekah Berndt, Kabir Helminski, Hillary Raining, Tripp Fuller, Micky ScottBey Jones (she/her), Sophie Strand, Juliet Rania, Rabbi Jay Michaelson, Gareth Higgins, Therese Taylor-Stinson, Tada Hozumi, and others, whom I’m also looking forward to tuning into. May you all enjoy all of this wonderful feast!

These stories are a taste of the Mystics Summit sponsored by The Shift Network. It’s August 15-19, join for free here: https://shiftnetwork.infusionsoft.com/go/mts22a24522/a24522

Thank you! Peace to all,

Carmen

Conversation & Endorsements

Posted on | by Carmen Butcher

“Research is a conversation.”

Students and I discuss that in class. The concept often surprises them. One wrote, “I never thought of research as a conversation, but by this point, it is very clear to me that research is more than just looking stuff up. It’s about finding connections between different sources and ideas by comparing and contrasting them, and creating something of your own.”

Research can also be a deeper conversing, a communing with. In this way, I visited daily for over a year with Brother Lawrence. This kind down-to-earth mystic lived in seventeenth-century Paris as a Discalced Carmelite friar. The Discalced for “without shoes” means he wore sandals as a sign of simplicity and voluntary poverty. While I lived with Brother Lawrence during the scholarly serious and playfully creative act of translation, a true conversation with this humble man developed. I listened to his voice in his French words, first in his spiritual maxims, then in his surviving letters. These and his conversations with his good friend Joseph of Beaufort, who took good notes, are the happy center of Practice of the Presence.

Living with this calm friar and his wise words on contemplation was a deeply satisfying, silent conversation. How life-altering healthy conversations always are. Listening to the friar’s vibrant presence in his book made my own life significantly calmer, even (or especially) in the middle of how-life-happens-to-everyone-including-me.

This book was also a conversation with my kind first readers. I spent hours on the phone with them and hours pouring over their emails, listening, asking for clarification, and revising. Their questions improved the book tremendously. Grateful doesn’t begin to describe how thankful I am for their helpful dialogue.

Then I sent the manuscript out, hopefully asking for endorsements. Twenty-three said, “Yes.” Their input added another layer of conversation to the book. Even as they responded, their words profoundly affected me. Listening to their words also contributed to the manuscript during its last stages before publication. They gave me confidence about my work. They helped me see it anew, often in ways I had not been able to, because I was too close to it.

Many days I walked around in a kind of happy daze: “They read my book. They sent an endorsement.” Interrupting for many moments the Quaker chant or Mary Oliver poem or mantra I was attending to.

Conversation of all kinds is the backbone of my translation. It supported the creation also of this humble friar’s life and work, since he lived his whole life in sandals and a coarse tunic, never trying to publish during his lifetime. We only have his work because of the conversations between him and his friend Joseph of Beaufort, who published Brother Lawrence’s words a year after the friar’s death, when other friends asked for more of his letters, since they found them uplifting to read, and encouraging.

Conversation rewards attention. It’s from con-/com- “with, together,” and versare “turn, bend.” It’s easy to think of conversation mostly as words, but converse also means “move about with, live with, dwell with, keep company with.” Today we’d say, “Hang out.” Translating is a uniquely intimate act of “hanging out” with another human, conversing. Converse also means “turn around, transform,” the way kind friendship, “hanging out” with others, can change us for the better and happier, forever.

Here are the nearly two dozen endorsers and their words for my revolutionary translation of Brother Lawrence and his Practice of the Presence. In print for over three centuries, beloved by kind seekers and thinkers from varied backgrounds – religious, not-religious, and everything in-between and beyond those categories, this spiritual classic is available for pre-order now here.

“Acevedo Butcher’s careful translation recreates the volatile, war-filled, plague-ridden world of seventeenth-century France. She invites us into the monastery kitchen with Brother Lawrence as he cleans the pots and pans amidst literal turmoil outside the monastery doors – a similar situation to what I imagine many of us find ourselves in today! This comprehensive translation of letters, maxims, and last words revolves around the simple practice of the presence, which is simply, and at its most essential, an awareness of the presence of God. Acevedo Butcher beautifully captures what Brother Lawrence continually reminds us: There are no special words, devotions, or actions needed, just simplicity of thought and deed.”

—Father Richard Rohr, OFM, Center for Action and Contemplation

Every skilled translator knows only too well the looming meaning of the French phrase Traduire, c’est trahir—‘To translate is to betray.’ The phrase means that something essential in the original language is left out of the translation. The translator’s art requires two skills at once. She must indwell each language while at the same time listening deeply and waiting patiently. Carmen Acevedo Butcher, both delicate and precise as embroidery, is no traitor. With inspiring, poetic prose she provides us the first complete translation of all Brother Lawrence’s works. And she does this from a unique perspective. As a woman of color, she is sensitive to the need to look beneath the pot-scrubbing Brother Lawrence (he actually detested the work) to see the social constraints that bore upon the man, Nicolas Herman, who, in King Louis XIV’s France, was socially excluded for not being adequately French in quite the right way. Carmen Acevedo Butcher gives a living voice to a person who did not count in his one culture. Out of this place of not-counting, emerges a depth of spiritual wisdom that transcends the ages. Carmen Acevedo Butcher is uniquely positioned to give him a voice in a way no previous translator has. Her translation will be the new standard by which other translations will be measured.

—Martin Laird, OSA, is professor of early Christian studies at Villanova University; author of Into the Silent Land; A Sunlit Absence; and An Ocean of Light (all by Oxford University Press)

“Carmen Acevedo Butcher’s insightful and inclusive translation of Brother Lawrence’s classic, Practice of the Presence, is such a needed balm for our beleaguered souls. Its wisdom reminds us that the maelstrom of this present age is not unique. In this world we will have trouble, i.e., pandemics, environmental disasters, and severely strained social contracts, but they are transitory distractions. Acevedo Butcher’s spiritually attuned translation invites us to host presence, awaken hope, and immerse ourselves in love.”

—Rev. Dr. Barbara A. Holmes, president emerita, United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities; core faculty for the Center for Action and Contemplation

“The best translations of spiritual classics are not those that sound familiar but those that strike the ear in a whole new way, because they offer proof that the teachings are still alive and evolving in our own day.  Whether you love the teachings of Brother Lawrence or have never encountered them before, you can trust Carmen Acevedo Butcher to offer you a fresh hearing that is in tune with the lives we are living right now.” 

—Barbara Brown Taylor, author of An Altar in the World

“Imagine Mr. Rogers was a mystic. That will give you a sense of the warm spiritual heart of Brother Lawrence, brought to life for the twenty-first century in this vivid, timely new translation. In our age of distraction and despair, Brother Lawrence’s counsel to practice the presence of Love is not a method or a formula, but the gentle gift from a friend of the God who is our Friend. This is a book to cherish as God’s incessant invitation to draw near.”

—James K.A. Smith, author of You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit 

“To be present to God: this is the ‘method without method’ experimented by a humble Parisian religious of the seventeenth century. This new translation, faithful to the original text, allows us to rediscover a simple spiritual path accessible to all.”
—Denis Sureau, editor, theologian, author of Frère Laurent de la Résurrection: Le cordonnier de Dieu (Artège, 2020)

“What a bold, vibrant, and potent translation of this mystical masterpiece! As she did with the perennial wisdom jewel, Cloud of Unknowing, Carmen Acevedo Butcher once again breaks open the stilted and patriarchal language that encrusts our most life-giving spiritual treasures and makes the Practice of the Presence easy to grasp and impossible to resist. Its author, the humble seventeenth-century sage Brother Lawrence, reminds us that every task, no matter how ordinary, is a fresh opportunity for drawing near to the Friend. And that the more we take refuge in this intimacy, frequently repeating such phrases as ‘My God, I am all yours,’ or ‘God of love, I love you with all my heart,’ or ‘Love, create in me a new heart,’ the more often we find ourselves simply resting in the presence of Love Itself.”

—Mirabai Starr, translator of John of the Cross, Teresa of Ávila and Julian of Norwich, author of God of Love and Wild Mercy

“The greatest mystics, like Kabir and Rumi, have a simplicity and electric directness that both takes our breath away and points us to the true north of our essential divine identity and the radiance of the Divine Presence in and as everything. Brother Lawrence is one of these universal visionaries, and reminds us relentlessly, in his soberly ecstatic and humble way, that what we search for with such anxiety and longing is always alive in us, and that the divine presence soaks and invigorates all things at all times. In a time of such devastation and rabid confusion, Brother Lawrence’s testimony is of sublime help, and a source of radical encouragement to all seekers on all paths. In these wonderful, naked, luminous translations he lives afresh inviting us with every word into the reality he knows and embodies so simply and fully. Do not miss this book and give it to everyone you know.”

—Andrew Harvey, author of The Hope and Turn Me to Gold: 108 Translations of Kabir

“To live guided by true presence. To pray as an invitation to embodied authenticity. To orient heart and mind in the direction of kindness. This is the theology of Brother Lawrence brought alive in this beautiful translation of The Practice of Presence by Carmen Acevedo Butcher. Accessible and freshly relevant, the book is a bell of mindfulness to accompany readers in deeper contemplation, making it an important guide to self-understanding, spiritual exploration, and Unity. Pause as you read. Breathe. Practice presence. Allow this profoundly invitational book to settle into your heart.”

—Valerie Brown, JD, MA, PCC, Dharma teacher, Plum Village; faculty, Georgetown University, School of Continuing Studies; author of Hope Leans Forward

“A vibrant, urgent, and earthy translation of a timeless classic.”

—James Martin, SJ, author of Learning to Pray

“In this radiant new translation Carmen Acevedo Butcher puts her acclaimed skills as a translator fully in the service of her listening heart to deliver Brother Lawrence’s timeless teaching on simplicity and presence to a world desperately in need of it. More than a translation, this is a transmission, conveying not only Lawrence’s words, but the spirit of inclusivity and kindness from which he wrote them. It is her faithfulness to the fragrance of his presence that makes her translation so inviting, even as we watch her take a few risks to reach a whole new world of seekers. It was a joy to watch Carmen and Brother Lawrence making such sweet music together.”

—Cynthia Bourgeault, author of The Heart of Centering Prayer, The Meaning of Mary Magdalene

“How to live in the presence of God is of the essence of the Christian mystical tradition. Few mystical texts have presented a practical method for attaining God’s presence as effectively as the collection of letters, conversations, and biographical materials known as The Practice of the Presence of God, stemming from the Carmelite brother, Lawrence of the Resurrection (d. 1691). This gem of the Christian mystical tradition has now been made available in a striking new translation and study by Carmen Acevedo Butcher. It is a book to be treasured by all who are devoted to the inner life.”

—Bernard McGinn, Naomi Shenstone Donnelley Professor emeritus, Divinity School, University of Chicago

“Carmen Acevedo Butcher’s powerful translation of Brother Lawrence’s Spiritual Maxims, letters, and conversations opens our hearts to experience God through the lens of a humble seventeenth-century friar, one who had very little to say about institutional religion and very much to say about the presence of God in the everyday lives of ordinary people. At a time when institutionalized religion often fails us, this translation reminds us that we are constantly surrounded by the divine presence and that God is accessible to us at any moment of life and far beyond the confines of churches, temples, and synagogues. It is a timely translation that holds enormous possibility for the reformation of a religious faith that desperately needs it.”

—Rob Nash, associate dean for doctoral programs and professor of comparative religion and mission at the McAfee School of Theology of Mercer University, Atlanta, Georgia

“Carmen Acevedo Butcher brings scholarly expertise and abundant love to this fresh rendering of a classic work of Christian literature. Brother Lawrence’s spiritual insights are as timely now as they were when first written centuries ago, making this beautiful translation a much-needed gift to the world today. With its inclusion of helpful historical and biographical context, this edition deserves a place in every personal and public library.”

—Karen Swallow Prior, research professor of English and Christianity & Culture, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary; author of On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books

“Brother Lawrence, a seventeenth-century French monk, persists as a powerful force and resource in Christian tradition. His testimony, in letters and conversations, is marked by humility, vulnerability, simplicity, and a focus on love. In this welcome new edition Carmen Acevedo Butcher has made the work of Brother Lawrence freshly available in a most accessible and compelling way. In our world marked by speed, convenience, and hostility, no doubt Brother Lawrence is a persuasive antidote and alternative to a culture of alienation. We may be grateful to Acevedo Butcher for her careful, attentive work in this contemporary offer of ancient trustful wisdom.”

—Walter Brueggemann, Columbia Theological Seminary, author of Money and Possessions

“Presence, not often or easily practiced, is made, once more, available to us. Each of us can practice presence by embodying all that we inhabit. May we come closer to ourselves and to God by a newly found practice of presence. This book is one such tool to inhabit a profound presence.” 

—Robyn Henderson-Espinoza, PhD, author of Body Becoming: A Path to our Liberation 

“Brother Lawrence is not only a great Christian mystic, he’s also charming and accessible—a sage whose wisdom is thoroughly down-to-earth and relevant to today. Carmen Acevedo Butcher’s fresh, richly embodied, and at times surprising translation makes the words of this Carmelite contemplative truly come alive.”
—Carl McColman, author of Eternal Heart and The Big Book of Christian Mysticism

“Carmen Acevedo Butcher listens across the centuries and finds a companion for all of us in a disabled, veteran of war, shoe-mending, soup-making monk. Brother Lawrence’s ‘sacred, ordinary, and necessary’ way of prayer can help all of us to pause, and more importantly, to bring our minds back to love. This translation is a joyful conversation with Brother Lawrence, one in which we can all participate.”

—Kaya Oakes, author of The Defiant Middle

“In these pages, I sat across from a blue-collar saint whose temple is a kitchen. Brother Lawrence has bequeathed to us that rare wisdom that weds the celestial to the terrestrial. He teaches us how to punctuate the ordinary tasks of life with petition, thanksgiving, and the practice of standing in the presence of Jesus, even as he flips omelets for the Almighty. This splendid book, exquisitely written and scintillating with wisdom, will breathe divine life into the sacred ordinary of the Christian.”

—Chad Bird, Scholar in Residence at 1517

“As time goes on, new translations of classic works are desirable. Carmen Acevedo Butcher has provided one for our times. Her work reflects her love of Brother Lawrence and her familiarity with the Practice of the Presence of God. Her comprehensive version is quite extensive and full.”

—Father Salvatore Sciurba, OCD, Discalced Carmelite Friars, Monastery of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Washington, DC

“Many have an acquaintance with Brother Lawrence but Carmen Acevedo Butcher helps us to know him far better in this new translation. We not only experience a fresh, contemporary, and accessible translation of The Practice of the Presence of God but we also get a greater understanding of this legendary yet simple man who guides us on a path of contemplation of the greatest love of all.”

—Vincent Bacote, director of the Center for Applied Christian Ethics, and professor of theology, Wheaton College

“Carmen Acevedo Butcher has given us a careful and luminous translation of a spiritual classic. This great book still has the power to bring us into the Presence.”

—Don Brophy, author of One Hundred Great Catholic Books

“This is Presence come alive for a new generation, for our conflicted spirits. Reveals the most durable way of prayer not dependent on words I’ve ever found. Highly recommended!”

—Jon M. Sweeney, author of Nicholas Black Elk and Feed the Wolf