Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection

Brother Lawrence was a 17th-century French lay Carmelite, born Nicolas Herman, who after soldiering and service entered a Carmelite monastery in Paris as a humble lay brother, spending most of his life working in the kitchen and repairing sandals.

He left no formal treatise; his teaching survives through letters and recorded conversations gathered after his death as The Practice of the Presence of God. His method was strikingly simple: to maintain a continuous, loving attention to God in every moment and activity, however menial, so that washing dishes and formal prayer became equally occasions of communion.

He reported that this habitual turning of attention produced a steady interior peace independent of circumstance. Brother Lawrence is a key ancestor of the “everyday presence” stream that runs from devotional Christianity into modern mindfulness and New Thought.

His core practice—repeatedly returning attention to the present in a chosen orientation—is structurally identical to attentional training in secular mindfulness and to the “be present” teaching popularized by figures like Eckhart Tolle.

The New Thought writer Joel Goldsmith built an entire approach around the phrase “practicing the presence,” drawn directly from Lawrence. His emphasis that ordinary life itself is the field of practice (no special technique, posture, or withdrawal required) makes him a touchstone for accessible, integrated spirituality and for the idea that sustained inner orientation changes lived experience.