If we add up all the time we have spent in our life getting things over with, it may turn out to be half our lives. The monastic attitude is to begin deliberately and to do anything we do with an even, stately pace and with wholehearted attention. This is how master artisans, weavers, experienced farmers, and other sage laborers work. That way even difficult tasks can be done leisurely ande with joy, for their own sake. And then they become life-giving.... We pray that God may guide our actions. When we do our work in this way, then everything becomes a prayer
All things are possible to those who believe, yet more to those who hope, more still to those who love, and most of all to those who practice and persevere in these three virtues.
~ from PRACTICING THE PRESENCE by Brother Lawrence
The time of busyness does not with me differ from the time of prayer, and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while serving persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees in prayer.
~ from THE PRACTICE OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD by Brother Lawrence
I have quitted all forms of devotion and set prayers but those to which my state obliges me. And I make it my business only to persevere in the Holy Presence, wherein I keep myself by a simple attention, and a general fond regard to God, which I may call an actual presence of God; or, to speak better, an habitual, silent, and secret conversation of the soul with God, which often causes me joys and raptures inwardly, and sometimes also outwardly, so great that I am forced to use means to moderate them and prevent their appearance to others.
~ from PRACTICE OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD by Brother Lawrence
