the Practice of Presence God: Complete Conversations, Letters, and Spiritual Maxims — A New Translation from French

One of the best-loved spiritual classics of all time - now complete, and freshly translated from the original French.Three centuries ago, a clumsy, unlettered lay brother spent his days in the kitchen of a Paris monastery - and there discovered one of the simplest and most enduring paths to God ever written down. Brother Lawrence had no method and no system. He had only a habit: to turn his heart, gently and continually, toward a God he believed was always near - at the stove no less than in the chapel.His teaching has guided and consoled readers of every tradition ever since. Its promise is as ordinary as it is astonishing: that the presence of God is not reserved for cloisters or mystics, but is open to anyone, in the middle of the most ordinary life.A complete edition, not an abridgment. Most popular versions carry only part of the classic text. This new translation restores the whole of it, in clear, modern English: - The four Conversations recorded by his friend Joseph de Beaufort- All sixteen Letters - his most personal counsel, closing with his serene deathbed letters- The Spiritual Maxims, his teaching in its most concentrated form- The Eulogy and Character of Brother Lawrence - the biographical portrait left out of nearly every English edition- A new introduction on his life, the Carmelite tradition, and the remarkable story of the book itselfFor lovers of the contemplative classics, for anyone seeking a deeper life of prayer in the midst of everyday work, and for those meeting Brother Lawrence for the first time - here is the whole book, as close to his own plain and warm voice as a fresh translation can bring it.