When I was in seventh grade, my friend Rebecca Gott and I worked hard at being mystics. (She moved away to Nederland, Colorado. I’ve looked for her ever since. If via the magic of 
the Internet you know her, please put us in touch.) All that aside, Rebecca and I read (or tried to read) many serious, spiritual books that year: The Cloud of Unknowing, The Imitation of Christ, and — the one, I think, we actually understood in parts, The Practice of the Presence of God. It’s Brother Lawrence’s telling of how he was assigned to work in the monastery kitchen. His ego rebelled and he had no peace until he was willing to wash the pots to the glory of God. That led him to write down what is now a classic, a way to consciously see the Divine in every simple act of daily life.
With all humility and with due respect to Brother Lawrence, these are my quick takes on the subject today:
Top 10 Ways to Practice the Presence of God
(1) Perform this task to the glory of God. That’s Brother Lawrence’s message: in what is before us right now, God can show up.
(2) Breathe. Another word for “inhalation” is “inspiration.” Each breath is a way not only to stay alive on earth, but be connected to heaven.
(3) Make contact. This is prayer, meditation, climbing a mountain, consulting a guru, or doing whatever it is that you do to make contact with the God of your understanding.
(4)
Open a spiritual book where the Spirit moves you. It’s not just the
I Ching that is meant to be
opened at random. Any scripture, or even a simple book of inspiration, can give you the gift of this moment if you open it at random and read what it has to say.
(5)
Use your voice. Sing, chant, affirm. Radio host
Steve Maraboli reminded me that in the Genesis story, God
said “Let there be light” three “days” before He created the sun. That’s the power of the Word, to bring light to darkness.
(6) Use your body. Do yoga, tai ch’i, dance. We don’t only meet God from the neck up.
(7) Love someone or something. God is Love. Love someone or something and see God.
(8) Practice gratitude. When everything is great, be grateful. When one thing is great, be grateful. When nothing seems great, find what you can be grateful for anyway. It’s there. If you had nothing to be grateful for, you couldn’t be alive any longer.
(9) Accept the inexplicable. Sometimes things happen that are so painful, so unjust, so inexplicable that there seems to be no purpose, no reason, and no God. Human intellect can’t help us here. And yet, when we can accept what is and keep on going, sometimes answers come from a part of us that is deeper and purer than the intellect. That’s the Presence of God, available even when we’re not believing.
(10) Surrender. This is big. Let go. Give up the fantasy of being in charge. The ultimate benefit of surrendering to God is more peace and more abundance than you could ever imagine. It doesn’t make sense until after you do it. After you do, nothing less can ever make sense again.
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