ABSTRACT
I am not sure that the ‘practice of the presence of God’ is a very natural Orthodox term, though the idea, central to Brother Laurence’s book with that same title (from what I can remember of it), of living so that, whether in the kitchen or kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament, the sense of God’s presence is palpable, certainly is. The phrase, ‘the practice of the presence of God’, suggests to my ears at least, some kind of technique, and right at the beginning of our study day, as we embarked on a period of silence, Martin Laird suggested various techniques of keeping in the silence of prayer: he mentioned praying short prayers such as the Jesus Prayer, the use of a prayer-rope, attention to breathing – all practices associated with what has come to be called ‘hesychast prayer’, characteristic of Orthodox monasticism, though these practices have spread well beyond the cloister. I might have taken that cue, and talked about the Jesus Prayer, and the practices associated with it, or about icons, which have also become much used in the West over the last few decades as a focus for meditative prayer. However, if I had done that directly, I am not sure that I would have given you much of an Orthodox perspective, for within the practice of Orthodoxy, the Jesus Prayer, or icons, is not a detachable practice or devotional item; within Orthodoxy they fit into the whole pattern of Orthodox life. Detached, they can take on another meaning, not unrelated to what they mean in Orthodox practice, but not the same; indeed, it seems to me that this has happened. I don’t see this as a problem necessarily: what others take from Orthodox practice should be seen as a gift, and one doesn’t seek to control the use others make of gifts they have been given. Nevertheless, these practices had their place in their original context, a context in which the notion of the presence of God is conceived rather differently, so much so, that an expression such as ‘practice of the presence of God’ no longer seems very natural.
