Being Good: Responding to Our Faith

This book, Abba Laurence's last, was composed during the period May 2003?-?September 2005 as a series of small lessons about the interior life on a daily or weekly basis and sent via e-mail to a select group of friends. The reflections received enthusiastic responses from e-mail recipients who in turn forwarded them to others. Appended to this collection of reflections is a large, but incomplete, series of discussions concerning prayer beginning with chapter 149; Abba Laurence indicated in both series (Being Good and Chapters on Prayer) that they were interrelated and interdependent. The style of writing is down to earth, colloquial and full of analogies, metaphor and simile and has been left intact. The heart of his reflections is the result of a half century of monastic living, spiritual counseling and study. Though Abba Laurence was a scholar versed in the biblical languages of Hebrew and Greek as well as several modern languages, theology, liturgy, Scripture and the writings of the Church Fathers, his approach is conversational and direct. Anyone ever attending any of his workshops or retreats will be familiar with his down-home approach in the vernacular.