My Ancient Friend

Ancient Friends | Brother Lawrence and The Practice of the Presence of God

What if the kitchen sink is as holy as the cathedral?

In these episodes, Ben sits down with one of the most beloved and least complicated books in Christian history: The Practice of the Presence of God. Its author never set out to write a book at all. Brother Lawrence, born Nicolas Herman, was a 17th-century Carmelite lay brother who spent most of his monastic life scrubbing pots and repairing sandals in a Paris monastery. Yet people came from all over to ask him how he lived with such peace. After his death, Father Joseph de Beaufort gathered his conversations, letters, and maxims into the small volume first published in 1692, and it has been quietly reshaping Christians ever since.

Ben walks through the heart of Brother Lawrence’s teaching: that communion with God isn’t reserved for retreats, rituals, or rare mystical experiences, but can run like a steady current underneath an ordinary Tuesday. Along the way he explores:

• Continuous conversation: talking with God throughout the day the way you’d talk with a close friend
• Simplicity over spiritual gymnastics: why steady faith and love outlast intellectual striving and harsh self-discipline
• Distraction without despair: gently returning your attention to God when your mind wanders, without guilt or anxiety
• Surrender in every season: giving your will to God whether prayer feels rich or bone-dry

Ben also wrestles with what this looks like for a modern life full of inboxes, deadlines, workouts, and family: whether the practice is truly possible in a distracted age, where he finds himself struggling, and why a dishwasher from four centuries ago might be exactly the friend we need right now.

Whether you’re picking up the book for the first time or returning to an old companion, this episode is an invitation to turn the ordinary into an offering.

An Ancient Friend with Ben MacLeay — Mere Christianity, Part 4

In Part 4 of our journey through C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity, we finally arrive at the word we’ve been working toward all along: Faith.

Lewis tackles what faith actually means, why believing can be difficult, and how faith connects to the life we are called to live. But then he takes us even deeper—Beyond Personality, into the mystery of the Trinity and the nature of God Himself.

From Making and Begetting to the Three-Personal God, from Good Infection to Counting the Cost, Lewis asks some enormous questions:

What does God want to make of us?
Why does Christianity sometimes feel so difficult?
And what does it actually mean to become a “new man”?

This final section of Mere Christianity moves beyond simply becoming a better version of ourselves. Lewis points toward something much bigger: God transforming us into something new.

So, one more time, grab the book, pull up a chair, and come sit with an ancient friend.

Let’s talk about Faith, the Trinity, and becoming the people God created us to be.

An Ancient Friend with Ben MacLeay —

Mere Christianity, Part 3

In Part 3 of our journey through C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity, my ancient friend takes us somewhere deeply practical: how should a Christian actually live?

Before we get to Faith, Lewis spends an entire section unpacking Christian Behaviour—morality, virtue, relationships, sexuality, marriage, forgiveness, pride, charity, and hope.

And honestly, some of these chapters hit a little closer to home than I expected.

Lewis challenges the idea that Christianity is simply about believing the right things. If faith is real, it should eventually show up in the way we think, speak, love, forgive, work, and live.

So grab the book, pull up a chair, and come sit with an ancient friend for a while.

An Ancient Friend with Ben MacLeay —

Mere Christianity, Part 2

In Part 2 of our journey through C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity, we move from the idea of God to the heart of the Christian story.

Lewis explores the competing ways people understand God, then introduces Christianity’s radical claim: that God has invaded His creation in the person of Jesus Christ.

From The Invasion and The Shocking Alternative to The Perfect Penitent, Lewis wrestles with some of Christianity’s biggest questions:

Who is Jesus? Why did He come? What does His death accomplish? And what difference should it make in our lives?

Then we take our first step into Christian Behaviour, where Lewis begins asking an equally important question:

If Christianity is true, how should we actually live?

This is where belief starts becoming behavior—and where the journey gets increasingly personal.

Grab your copy, pull up a chair, and come sit with an ancient friend.

Let’s talk about God, Jesus, the Cross, and what it means to actually live like a Christian.

An Ancient Friend with Ben MacLeay —

Mere Christianity, Part 1

In Part 1 of our journey through C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity, we start with a surprisingly simple question:

How do we know there is such a thing as right and wrong?

Lewis begins with what he calls the Law of Human Nature—that strange, universal sense within us that some things ought to be done and some things ought not to be done.

But if there really is a moral law, where did it come from?

Lewis works through the objections, explores the reality behind this law, and ultimately asks what might be behind the Law itself.

And then he leaves us with an uncomfortable thought:

If there is a standard of right and wrong outside of ourselves, what does that mean for us?

Before we talk about Christianity, Jesus, faith, or the Church, Lewis wants us to wrestle with something much closer to home:

What if the voice telling us there is a right and wrong is pointing to something—or Someone—beyond ourselves?

Grab your copy, pull up a chair, and come sit with an ancient friend.

This is where the journey begins.

Ancient Friend with Ben MacLeay

Welcome to Ancient Friend with Ben MacLeay.

What if you could sit down for coffee with someone who lived hundreds, or even thousands, of years ago?

What would you ask them?

What would they think about the world we live in today? What would surprise them? What would make them laugh? And perhaps most importantly, what could we learn from the way they lived, thought, struggled, created, led, failed, and succeeded?

That's what we're going to explore here.

I'm Ben MacLeay, and I'm a little obsessed with old things, old books, old ideas, old buildings, old stories, and especially old people.

Not because everything from the past was better. It wasn't. But because the people who came before us had many of the same questions we do. They wrestled with money, power, ambition, relationships, faith, work, fear, failure, purpose, and what it means to live a good life.

So each episode, we're going to meet one of these ancient friends.

Some will be famous. Some you've probably never heard of. Some we'll admire. Others we'll disagree with. And a few might make us wonder, "What in the world were they thinking?"

But we'll sit with each of them long enough to ask a simple question:

What can this person teach us?

This isn't a history class. It's a conversation across time. So grab a cup of coffee, pull up a chair, and let's meet an ancient friend.