{"id":18566,"date":"2020-01-29T11:31:25","date_gmt":"2020-01-29T16:31:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18566"},"modified":"2020-01-29T11:31:25","modified_gmt":"2020-01-29T16:31:25","slug":"the-cloud-of-unknowing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18566","title":{"rendered":"The Cloud of Unknowing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Knowing and Not Knowing<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Cloud of Unknowing<\/strong><br>\nWednesday, January 29, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VIMh6lS6VjE\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p><em>God, it seems, cannot really be known, but only related\nto. Or, as the mystics would assert, we know God by loving God, by trusting\nGod, by placing our hope in God. It is a non-possessive, non-objectified way of\nknowing. It is always I-Thou and never I-It, to use Martin Buber\u2019s wonderfully\ninsightful phrases. God allows us to know God only by loving God. God, in that\nsense, cannot be \u201cthought\u201d at all.&nbsp;[1]&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The\nanonymous, 14th-century author of\u202f<\/em><em>The\nCloud of Unknowing\u202f<\/em><em>conveys the\nfathomless mystery of God and that God can only be known by loving\npresence\u2014contemplation.\u202f<\/em><em>The\nCloud of Unknowing\u202f<\/em><em>is the\ninspiration for practices such as Centering Prayer and Christian&nbsp;meditation.\nToday I will share some of my favorite excerpts from Carmen Acevedo Butcher\u2019s\ntranslation of this Middle English text.&nbsp;The&nbsp;italicized words&nbsp;in\nbrackets&nbsp;are my own.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lift up your\nheart to God with a gentle stirring of love. . . .&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first time\nyou practice contemplation, you\u2019ll only experience a darkness, like a cloud of\nunknowing [<em>which now happily\nenvelops you<\/em>]. You won\u2019t know what this is [<em>and will have to learn how to live there\nby \u201cforgetting\u201d your previous methods of knowing<\/em>]. You\u2019ll only know\nthat in your will you feel a simple reaching out to God. You must also know\nthat this darkness and this cloud will always be between you and your God,\nwhatever you do. They will always keep you from seeing God&nbsp;clearly by the\nlight of understanding in your intellect and will block you from feeling God\nfully in the sweetness of love in your emotions. So, be sure you make your home\nin this darkness. Stay there&nbsp;as long as&nbsp;you can, crying out to God\nover and over again, because you love God. It\u2019s the closest you can get to God\nhere on earth, by waiting in this darkness and in this cloud. Work at this diligently,\nas I\u2019ve asked you to, and I know God\u2019s mercy will lead you there. . .\n.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>God is\nincomprehensible to the intellect. . . .&nbsp;Nobody\u2019s mind is powerful enough\nto grasp who God is. We can only know God by experiencing God\u2019s love. . .\n.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>God can be loved,\nbut not thought. [<em>John of the\nCross&nbsp;(1542\u20131591)&nbsp;and many other mystics say the same\nthing.&nbsp;Christians&nbsp;could have saved&nbsp;ourselves&nbsp;so much\nfighting and division if we had just taught this one truth!<\/em>]&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By love, God can\nbe embraced and held, but not by thinking. . . .&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>No matter how\nsacred, no thought can ever promise to help you in the work of contemplative\nprayer, because only love\u2014not knowledge\u2014can help us reach God. . .\n.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When we reach the end of\nwhat we know, that\u2019s where we find God. That\u2019s why St. Dionysius said that the\nbest, most divine knowledge of God is that which is known by\nnot-knowing.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Knowing and Not Knowing The Cloud of Unknowing Wednesday, January 29, 2020 God, it seems, cannot really be known, but only related to. Or, as the mystics would assert, we know God by loving God, by trusting God, by placing our hope in God. It is a non-possessive, non-objectified way of knowing. It is always [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18566"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18566"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18567,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18566\/revisions\/18567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}