💬 TREE 644: Continually conversing with the universe

L A W R E N C E × J E F F
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So this kid decides that if there is a place for him he needs to learn his place. And the place to do that is a monastery where he can pray and do penance for being a clumsy great oaf. It doesn’t hurt that the Barefoot Carmelites seem like the right kind of blokes to hide him away from a world where he doesn’t fit. So he heads over to the monastery looking for protection and a good sorting out.

I don’t know if he had to pass an interview or if he needed a letter of recommendation (Take my servant, please! Yours desperately, M. Fieubert) but he got in. Inside, he didn’t get what he expected:

… thinking that he would there be made to smart for his awkwardness and the faults he should commit, and so he should sacrifice to God his life, with its pleasures: but that God had disappointed him, he having met with nothing but satisfaction in that state.

That’s the end of the story of the kid. Now we jump ahead 40+ satisfied years to Lawrence saying:

That we should establish ourselves in a sense of God's Presence, by continually conversing with Him. That it was a shameful thing to quit His conversation, to think of trifles and fooleries.

Here is the core of this L×J project:

What does it mean to continually converse with, I’m going to say, the universe?

What are ‘the trifles and fooleries’ that interrupt the conversation? (Too often, they are whatever they guy with the microphone thinks you ought not to be doing, as if being on stage automatically makes you right. I believe we can do better than that.)

I like the idea of a life filled with satisfaction. I hope this kid who saw a tree and became a famously contented member of a catering crew can help us move a little closer.

FFOREST friend and contributor to both TREE and FIELD GUIDE, Katerina Pavlakis aka The Intuitive Cook is now a podcaster. She’s promising ‘home-cooked intuitive wisdom that will awaken your culinary senses and inspire simple flavourful meals beyond rules and recipes.’ The first episode absolutely delivers on that promise. You can listen here or search ‘At Home with The Intuitive Cook’ wherever you get your podcasts.

Grow slowly
Jeff