Christian faculty and staff gathering on Zoom on May 6 - The first conversation with Brother Lawrence
The pace that launched a thousand (or more) sermon illustrations: On May 6, 1954, Roger Bannister became the first person to run a mile in less than four minutes. One illustration pointed out that Bannister was in second place but surged ahead to win when the leader looked back. The illustration linked that runner's mistake to Philippians 3:12-13: "I strive to lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus also laid hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have attained this. Instead I am single-minded: Forgetting the things that are behind and reaching out for the things that are ahead." Brother Lawrence was an example of single-mindedness and forgetting the things that are behind.
We'll discuss the First Conversation in Brother Lawrence's The Practice of the Presence of God. We'll seek advice from one who, while maintaining a degree of isolation in his order, never lacked for companionship with God.
You can find the work at no cost in the Christian Classics Ethereal Library. It's also available for free at Project Gutenberg and the Internet Archive among other locations.
On 5/6:
- 878. Alfred the Great defeated a Danish force at the Battle of Ethandun (Edington). After
accepting the Danish surrender rather than destroying the Danish force,
Alfred required the Danish king Guthrum and his force to be baptized as
Christians and then to return to East Anglia. Alfred went on to establish
centers of learning in England and translated Christian writings from
Latin into Anglo-Saxon.
- 1432. The altarpiece created by Flemish artist Jan van Eyck was
dedicated for St. John's Church in Ghent, Belgium.
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