The Cloud of Unknowing

Painting by Ian Fisher (ianfisherart.com)

It has been wonderful to revisit this book recently, which I was first introduced to on a course led by John-Francis Friendship at the London Centre for Spiritual Direction,– an excellent venue for engaging with every aspect of Christian Spirituality with regular events and seminars and well worth looking up. The beautiful paintings throughout this post are by Ian Fisher.

There’s a reason why nearly seven hundred years after it was first written, The Cloud  is still considered a spiritual “classic” and each time a modern translation is released, can still be found on the best-sellers list. The author – anonymous by design - describes an innately complex subject (the unknowability of God) using simple language and images, the like of which you could imagine adorning the best and most engaging modern-day power-point presentation or You-Tube tutorial video!

Written by a priest (and therefore a man) sometime in the late 1300’s and probably from the East Midlands region of England, the seventy five short but dense chapters take the form of a dialogue (complete with asides and conversational digressions) between an experienced teacher or guide and a younger pupil who is a faithful Christian but eager to further develop the art of contemplation.

Dating from the period of the Black Death, the 100 Years War and the Peasants Revolt, The Cloud is one of many writings by Christian mystics who seemed to be prevalent at this time across Western Europe. The book is seen as the most complete surviving medieval example of what later became known as apophatic mysticism – which conceptualises God through a process of negation (an idea which has its roots in the scholastic movement that emerged from the medieval monasteries). At the heart of the book is the concept that God is unknowable in this life – and our desire for control – especially control or ownership of our knowledge (the need to dissect, understand and explain everything) is what ultimately gets in the way of knowing Him.

“He may well be loved, but not thought. By love he can be caught and held, but by thinking never.” (Chapter 6)

The only way we can come close to knowing God is through a practice of single-mindedly longing for his love and – and here comes one of the powerful symbols in the book - putting everything else we know and have experienced into a ‘cloud of forgetting’. Downloading our earthly knowledge into this cloud of our own making is essential if we are to upload our longing towards the divine cloud – of Unknowing – without distraction.

“Your whole life now must be one of longing, if you are to achieve perfection. And this longing must be in the depths of your will, put there by God, with your consent. But a word of warning: he is a jealous lover, and will brook no rival; he will not work in your will if he has not sole charge; he does not ask for help, he asks for you.” (Chapter 2)

The author offers suggestions on practices of prayer (using a single word, which must not be analysed or broken down) such as “Love”, repeated as a form of mantra, to help us empty our minds and focus on God. The Cloud has been seen as the basis for the practice of what Trappist monks called Centring Prayer. Others find a link between this Christian text and its teaching on contemplation and the meditative practices of Zen Buddhism and Hindu gurus.

“Fix this word fast to your heart, so it is always there, come what may….With this word you will hammer the cloud and the darkness above you. With this word you will suppress all thought under the cloud of forgetting.” (Chapter 7)

Our guide goes on to suggest that the prayer-word should be one syllable – just as someone shouts “Help” when trapped in burning building. If we desire to remove evil, use the word “Sin” when we desire goodness, use the word “God”.

“Don’t study these words, for you will never achieve your object so, or come to contemplation; it is never attained by study, but only by grace.” (Chapter 39)

To do this involves, for many, the hard work of un-learning. For most of us even once syllable words like “Sin” or “Love” are layered with imagery and meaning. We are asked to forget these and direct our focus and attention to God alone. Not to analyse anything. To embrace the holy mysteries. Not an easy task.

The Cloud offers a refreshing, holistic antidote to the reductionism that pervades our lives; in which so much of what we think and do is ‘siloed’ ‘packaged’ or ‘time-boxed’ into ‘measurable objectives’ – even in parts of the Church. While our guide is uber-strategic, he would not condemn today’s micro-managers. Throughout the book is a generous acceptance of the diversity of the particular calling of each and every one of God’s creatures – and a warning not to judge the vocation of others by our own experience or standards; to do so would itself be a distraction from God.

“You must not think of yourself any holier or any better because of the worthiness of your calling..” (Chapter 2)

Painting by Ian Fisher (ianfisherart.com)

Our guide acknowledges the limitations of human language which – just as all human thought – is tainted by sin and therefore a barrier to fully knowing God in this life. Perhaps it is unsurprising therefore that in places, the text appears on the surface to be contradictory; the great images and metaphors seem to overlap. For instance, we are called to place everything into the Cloud of Forgetting – even knowledge about ourselves – this is the only way to know our ‘true’ or authentic selves. A statement that seems less contradictory when we understand that our true selves are dependent on God and so it is only by focussing on Him alone that we can truly understand everything else.

“So crush all knowledge and experience of all forms of created things, and of yourself above all. For it is on your own self-knowledge and experience that knowledge and experience of everything else depend.” (Chapter 43)

Our guide prefers to leave the detail of our formation to God;

“If you ask me how you are to begin, I must pray Almighty God, of his grace and courtesy, to tell you himself. Indeed, it is good for you to realise that I cannot teach you…For this is the work of God alone..” (Chapter 34)

The humility of the teacher is evident throughout the book – as is his generosity, offering cheats or workarounds (in the translation I read called, rather wonderfully, “spiritual dodges”) to help his students overcome the challenges they face in attempting to reach a state of contemplation. For instance, when we are becoming distracted by other thoughts, look over our shoulder, where we will find God shrouded in the Cloud of Unknowing.

Painting by Ian Fisher (ianfisherart.com)

As a teacher, our guide strives towards wisdom but is highly critical of those who use knowledge to bolster their own pride – and reserves particular criticism for clergy in this regard:

“But reason becomes evil when pride inflates it, or much learning and book knowledge - as in some clergy, for example! It makes them anxious to be known not for their skill in things divine and devout, but as proud Scholars - of the devil! - and Masters - of vanity and lies! In all men and women, religious or secular, normal reason becomes evil when it makes them proud of their worldly attainments; when they cover position, possessions, pomps, and popularity in this present world.” (Chapter 8)

While committed to upholding the liturgy of the church and the teachings of the Church Fathers, our priest-guide is dismissive of acts of piety; fasting or praying at particular hours of the day;

“Were you to fast beyond all measure, or watch at great length, or rise at the crack of dawn, or sleep on boards and wear chains - yes, if it were lawful (and it is not!) for you to pluck out your eyes, cut out your tongue, stop your ears and nose, amputate your limbs, and afflict your body with all the pain you could possibly think of - this would not help you at all. The urge and impulse of sin would still be with you….Compared with this blind out-reaching of love…there is very little indeed that it can do without love.” (Chapter 12)

Another great image in the book is a sort of spiritual venn-diagram to explain the different approaches to living a Christian life, using Mary and Martha (Luke 10) as an example. Our guide explains that Mary is the model for the contemplative life and Martha the active life – but these two lives overlap; our calling is not binary. We are called to love God and our neighbour. A mark of the perfect contemplative is therefore someone who actively loves everyone without distinction;

“The perfect contemplative holds no man as such in special regard, be he kinsman, stranger, friend or foe. For all men alike are his brothers, and none strangers. He considers all men his friends and none his foes. To such an extent that even those who hurt and injure him he reckons to be real and special friends, and he is moved to wish for them as much good as he would wish for his very dearest friend.” (Chapter 24)

The Cloud of Unknowing is available in a variety of translations – in the Cloud – for free, on the web. Many of these seem to retain much of the original Middle English, which I found very hard to read. I picked up a modern English translation by Clifton Wolters, published by Penguin Classics in 1961 in a charity shop and found it to be much easier to engage with and from which the quotations above are taken. I commend it to you!

Links
Images - Paintings by Ian Fisher