The Cloud of Unknowing and Other Works (Classic, Modern, Penguin)

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For Gallus, this transintellectual union encounters God "more deeply than the mind because it unites the soul to the whole plenitude of desire . . . by a proportion beyond understanding" (Lees, p. 284; my translation). The "negative dialectic of Dionysian theology as a whole does not dominate Gallus's works" and is everywhere qualified by "the positive devotional language" expressed in "loving aspirations to union" and "knowledge-in-love" (Lees, p. 286), as is the case with the Cloud. At the beginning of Chapter Sixty-eight, the triad of without/beneath, within/even, above, once more engages spatial directions which are gradually denied literal status, a method followed earlier with the word up (lines 1977 ff.). He says that although some advise the contemplative to gather his powers and wits entirely within himself (the whole mystical tradition seems to recommend this), the Cloud author quite surprisingly does not. Nor, by contrast, does he advise the contemplative to be outside of himself - nor above, nor behind, nor on one side, nor on another. "Where then," asks the reader? He would have the contemplative to be "nowhere" - "For whi noghwhere bodely is everywhere goostly" (line 2296-97).

In the cloud, “Thought cannot comprehend God. And so, I prefer to abandon all I can know, choosing rather to love him whom I cannot know. Though we cannot fully know him we can love him” (Chapter 6, Paragraph 2). In the later stages of the journey, of course, loving becomes its own kind of knowing—the deepest kind of knowing.A good declaring of certain doubts that may fall in this work, treated by question, in destroying of a man’s own curiosity, of cunning, and of natural wit, and in distinguishing of the degrees and the parts of active living and contemplative How that by virtue of this work a man is governed full wisely, and made full seemly as well in body as in soul That all writing and feeling of a man’s own being must needs be lost if the perfection of this work shall verily be felt in any soul in this life

That right as by the defailing of our bodily wits we begin more readily to come to knowing of ghostly things, so by the defailing of our ghostly wits we begin most readily to come to the knowledge of God, such as is possible by grace to be had here Sometimes God gives us a foretaste of eternity. Our senses are set on fire, and we overflow with sweetness of delight. Beginners in contemplative prayer are rushed. That causes them to misinterpret spiritual teachings. Far from excluding anyone from seeking to develop the contemplative dimensions of life, the father seems to imply that its development is essential for the fulfillment of human life:Bete evermore on this cloude of unknowyng that is bitwix thee and thi God with a scharpe darte of longing love.

Of the wonderful love that Christ had to man in person of all sinners truly turned and called to the grace of contemplation Some contemplatives experience those pleasant feelings regularly. Other contemplatives experience them rarely. The Book of Privy Counsel is much less well known. It covers some the same ground, but seems to be directed at a more experienced and mature practitioner of contemplative prayer. It seemed to me to be even clearer and more pointed. The latter part of this book was the part I appreciated most in the whole work. I was inwardly saying "yes, yes, yes" frequently while reading this part.The Cloud of Unknowing is a spiritual guide for Contemplative Prayer. It was written by an unknown author in the late Middle Ages. As I have said, what seems to me a distinctive characteristic of the Cloud is the way in which the author, in moving towards the spiritual goal of the apophatic way (i.e., the seeking of knowledge of God by way of negation or denial), makes extensive and paradoxical use of bodily imagery - even beyond the uses that John Burrow (p. 144) has noted. This procedure, a key example of the author's humanity and literary skill, not only delineates the possibilities for profound harmony between body and soul, but also renders comprehensible the otherwise prohibitively abstract stages of the apophatic way. That a man shall not take ensample of Saint Martin and of Saint Stephen, for to strain his imagination bodily upwards in the time of his prayer Simply sit relaxed and quiet. Center all your attention and desire on God, and let this be the sole concern of your mind and heart. If you want to gather all your desire into one simple word that the mind can easily retain, choose a short word rather than a long one, but choose one that is meaningful to you (such as “God” or “love”). Fix the word in your mind so that it will remain there, come what may. The father’s advice involves words of encouragement and the reminder that the darkness of the cloud of unknowing comes between the contemplator and the God one desires to reach; despite the darkness, one wills to reach out to God. Because it is not what you are nor what you have been that God looks at with his merciful eyes, but what you desire to be.