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Turning to the Mystics with James Finley

Bonus: Carmen Acevedo Butcher on Brother Lawrence

Turning to the Mystics with James Finley

Center for Action and Contemplation

Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.81.8K Ratings

🗓️ 27 October 2025

⏱️ 59 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On this special bonus episode, James Finley and Kirsten Oates interview Carmen Acevedo Butcher about her translation of Brother Lawrence's Practice of the Presence. Carmen Acevedo Butcher is an award-winning translator, teacher, poet, and workshop leader.  Her Cloud of Unknowing translation received a 46th Georgia Author of the Year Award, and Martin Laird calls her translation of Brother Lawrence’s Practice of the Presence “the new standard.” She holds degrees in Medieval Studies from the University of Georgia, was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of London, and teaches in the College Writing Programs at the University of California, Berkeley. Carmen is a core faculty member at the Center for Action and Contemplation. Resources: Turning to the Mystics is a podcast by the Center for Action and Contemplation. To learn more about James Finley, visit his faculty profile ⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠. The transcript for this episode can be found here. Find out more about Carmen here. Carmen's book can be ⁠⁠⁠found here⁠⁠⁠. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Connect with us: Have a question you'd like Jim or Kirsten to answer about this season? Email us: ⁠⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠⁠ Send us a voicemail: ⁠⁠⁠⁠cac.org/voicemail⁠⁠⁠⁠  We'll be accepting questions for our Listener Questions episode until November 7th, 2025. This podcast is made possible, thanks to the generosity of our donors. If you would love to support the ongoing work of the Center for Action and Contemplation and the continued work of our podcasts, you can donate at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://cac.org/support-cac/podcasts/⁠⁠⁠⁠ Thank you!

Transcript

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0:00.0

You're listening to a podcast by the Center for Action and Contemplation.

0:04.0

To learn more, visit cac.org.

0:08.2

Greetings. I'm Jim Finley.

0:11.2

And I'm Kirsten Oates.

0:13.2

Welcome to Turning to the Mystics.

0:27.3

Welcome, everyone, to Season 12 of Turning to the Mystics,

0:30.5

where we're turning to practice of the presence,

0:32.2

the teachings of Brother Lawrence.

0:37.2

And we're very excited because we have a special guest here today, Carmen Aservado Butcher, who's

0:39.2

the translator for the book we've been using Practice of the Presence. Before I welcome Carmen,

0:44.9

I'll just read a little bit of her bio so you can get a deeper connection to her.

0:50.4

Carmen Aservato Butcher is an award-winning translator, teacher, poet and workshop leader.

0:57.2

Her cloud of unknowing translation received a 46th Georgia author of the year award,

1:03.3

and Martin Laird calls her translation of Brother Lawrence's Practice of the Presence,

1:08.1

The New Standard, and we're certainly loving it on the podcast this

1:11.9

season. She holds degrees in medieval studies from the University of Georgia, was a full

1:18.1

bright scholar at the University of London, and teachers in the college writing programs at

1:23.5

the University of California, Berkeley. Carmen is also a faculty member

1:28.3

at the Center for Action and Contemplation.

1:31.2

You can find out more about Carmen on her website,

1:34.0

and we have a link to that in the show notes.

1:36.6

We're so thrilled to have Carmen with us today.

...

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