The time of business does not differ with me from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were on my knees.
Interpretation
Inner peace can be found in any activity, whether mundane or spiritual.
This quote by Brother Lawrence expresses the idea that spiritual connection and inner tranquility can be achieved in everyday tasks, such as cooking, just as it can during formal prayer. It highlights the importance of mindfulness and the ability to maintain a sense of calm amidst life's distractions and demands.
In practice
In a speech about finding balance in life.
In order to form a habit of conversing with GOD continually, and referring all we do to Him, we must at first apply to Him with some diligence: but that after a little care we should find His love inwardly excite us to it without any difficulty.
It is enough for me to pick up but a straw from the ground for the love of God.
A little lifting of the heart suffices; a little remembrance of God, one act of inward worship are prayers which, however short, are nevertheless acceptable to God.
If the vessel of our soul is still tossed with winds and storms, let us awake the Lord, who reposes in it, and He will quickly calm the sea.
We should fix ourselves firmly in the presence of God by conversing all the time with Him...we should feed our soul with a lofty conception of God and from that derive great joy in being his. We should put life in our faith. We should give ourselves utterly to God in pure abandonment, in temporal and spiritual matters alike, and find contentment in the doing of His will,whether he takes us through sufferings or consolations.
And it is not necessary to have great things to do. I turn my little omelette in the pan for the love of God.
Not to waste time on nonsense. Not to be taken in by conjurors and hoodoo artists with their talk about incantations and exorcism and all the rest of it. Not to be obsessed with quail-fighting or other crazes like that.
I have observed that the world has suffered far less from ignorance than from pretensions to knowledge. It is not skeptics or explorers but fanatics and ideologues who menace decency and progress. No agnostic ever burned anyone at the stake or tortured a pagan, a heretic, or an unbeliever.
The common man is not concerned about the passage of time, the man of talent is driven by it.
Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.
Nothing is more incumbent on the old than to know when they should get out of the way and relinquish to younger successors the honors they can no longer earn, and the duties they can no longer perform.
I'd done all the things I thought a person had to do in order to be successful and fulfilled, like getting a great education and becoming a lawyer, and yet there was zero spark in my life. But there was no light-bulb moment. It was gradual. In the early 1990s, I decided to experiment and try some new ways of living.
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