I found this post whilst doing a bit of housekeeping in Google Drive. It's a bit old now I think, maybe three or four years, but it seemed like it was worth sharing. Enjoying life A couple of weeks ago Katie and I were out and about, foraging. A good couple of acres worth of free food exists along the cemetery path near our home and we collected enough blackberries to make two litres of blackberry gin and a dessert! I was wondering, though, why we were able to pick tasty, ripe, nutritious fruit from what was meant to be God's curse on the earth, a thorn bush. Surely a curse is void of positive, and should not be accompanied by signs of life and sustenance... Oh, wait, we're still alive! We find the account of God cursing humanity with toil, labour and thorns in the book of Genesis. But what's even more surprising than a fruit-bearing curse is found earlier in the plot. In Genesis chapter 3, God promises Adam and Eve that they will surely die if ...

Brother Lawrence was a French monk, born in 1611. You can read about him in translated copies of autobiographical work entitled The Practice of the Presence of God. It's well worth a read, being full of the beauty of a life lived wholly to the glory of God. Lawrence practised being in "constant conversation" with God and developed a consciousness that every single act that was done in the day, from cooking to picking up single strands of straw from the floor, was a potential act of worship if done with a correct attitude and mindset. It's a pretty thrilling encouragement towards holiness as a lifestyle, and probably warrants a few more posts after a re-read. One thing in particular that has always struck me about the book, however, is from the translator's introduction. In the midst of explaining Lawrence's journey into monastic life, the writer comments on the rather melancholy introduction the monk had to his new religion. Brother Lawrence, he notes, wa...