Practicing the Presence of God

One need not cry out very loudly; He is nearer to us than we think.” 

-Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God-

Bronchitis is, strictly speaking, a nasty disease. No matter how you look at it, the whole fact of nasty mucus coating your throat, lungs, and nose cannot be avoided. Days spent in bed, which should be happy times of required rest, are not happy at all, just dreadful and exhausting. After all, how are you supposed to sleep when you're coughing every twenty minutes? Along with bronchitis, another cold and cough have settled in, or perhaps they are just cousins visiting the bronchitis and will soon have to leave. Regardless, I am a bit worn out from all their familial merrymaking.

As a result of said bronchitis, I have now officially taught kindergarten and elementary students with no voice. It was a bit like practicing silence, though in this case it was under the duress of teaching 10 hours a day, not during one of those weekends at college when we all decided to practice some discipline like confession, silence, or fasting for a few hours or more. I always thought practicing silence was this beautiful discipline that monks practiced as a way to grow closer to God. High up in the mountains and deep in the woods, living day to day with the same group of men, contemplating the mysteries of God, I imagine that silence would have been a great way to really get some thinking done. Sometimes, though, I wonder what disciplines these monks might have come up with if they had one kindergarten child running around barefoot with scissors and another running around with glue and glitter while the rest are screaming and making all sorts of mayhem.

Back in college, spiritual disciplines sometimes seemed a bit pointless, like an exercise we did to prove to ourselves that we were spiritually "cool" and "developing our theological mindset", or something. We would have these long, deep conversations about the disciplines and our growing respect for the tradition of the church, and then within a week very few of us were actually practicing them anymore. I'm not saying I wasn't sincere in my practice of them at the time. I was. I did the whole silence thing, fasted on different days of the week, confessed problems to a spiritual mentor, and did think that I made some sort of spiritual headway. Yet, I think I missed some of the bigger picture, confined as I was to the figurative ivory tower of higher learning.

When I was teaching for three days with no voice, I was separated from the situation of fully teaching, but still had to make myself heard. With no way to communicate other than a few whispers every hour and writing instructions on the whiteboard, it was nearly impossible to maintain order and quiet without clapping really loudly, whistling, or banging my hand repeatedly on the podium. I have never been more frustrated in a single hour, morning, day, or week. Practicing silence under duress was the worst thing I have experienced in a long time.

I kept thinking about this book I read back in high school called Practicing the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence. This book was a source of both fierce admiration for the author and equally fierce self-hatred. Brother Lawrence found God in the most mundane of tasks, and I always felt like such a spiritual failure for not actively seeking to praise God while I was washing the dishes or folding laundry. Then, as I was teaching this past week, I gained some insight into the discipline of practicing God's presence. Before, I used to do it because it was something people and books and pastors said I should do. Now that I think of it, though, Brother Lawrence was practicing God's presence as a way to survive, to live, to be okay, rather than as a way to be spiritually more acceptable. I know this because that's what I've had to do.

God is with me every moment of every day. He walks with me to class, and we go in to the classroom together. I always ask Him to hold my hand. He does. When my back is turned to the kids as I erase the whiteboard, feeling frustrated and ready to be done, He reminds me that He is there right next to me, and that all of this is going to work out somehow. I ask Him, "How?" on a daily, if not hourly basis, but He does not respond. He is simply there, giving me strength and comfort through His presence. I listen to Him. This is the only way that I can survive.

I think that's what I was missing during those weekend studies of disciplines. They did give me a lot of ideas about how practices are done, but they were merely a sip of the wine. Now I have taken a drink of the wine, and it is so bitter, but so sweet.