Study Guide: The Cloud of Unknowing, Chapter 30

In this one-paragraph chapter Anonymous' continues teaching us about judging others and asks, "Who can criticize and counsel others about their faults?" Lest we casually assume that we have such a right to engage in judgments about others, Anonymous reminds us that, from his point of view, only two kids of people have the right "shoulder this responsibility in a loving, mature way." First, the right to judge others belongs those who have been given public authority by ordination to do so within the Church. That includes rightly ordained pastors and priests. It may also be the case, however, that the Holy Spirit may "privately" give someone such burdensome authority. In many Christian communities there are such people, usually

St. Silouan the Athonite,
A Russian staretz

senior in age and wisdom. The Russian Church, for example, deeply appreciates the witness and ministry of the "staretz," an elder (often a monastic) who functions as spiritual guide gifted with discernment.

Importantly, Anonymous is concerned that no one assume any self-declared position of judgment that might provide opportunities for unwarranted judgments of others.  His recommendation is that no one dare to speak unless he or she has somehow felt "the nudge of the Holy Spirit during contemplative prayer." Things may go terribly wrong if that warning is not heeded. It's best therefore to "judge yourself you want--that's between you and God or your spiritual director--but leave others alone."

For discussion:  Recently a well-known churchman said that "if someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?"  Might Anonymous agree with him or might Anonymous wish to go even further in being non-judgmental?

Study Guide: The Cloud of Unknowing, Chapter 29

Although we are always "contending with thoughts of others and situations wedging themselves between us and God" (as Anonymous says in the previous chapter), our Teacher tells us in this chapter "that [we] must practice contemplative prayer patiently; persist[ing], endur[ing] it pain, and judg[ing] no one." Being in bondage to sin makes things terribly difficult which, of course, is why repentance, receiving forgiveness, and stepping out in a new direction is critical. While moving into new life, Anonymous urges us to be very careful not to judge others. In everything, let God be the judge of things and people.  After all, in the final tally,

[on the one hand,] many of the 'nobodies' of this world, now despised and neglected as lowlifes and hardened sinners, will claim their right to sit beside God's saints in God's sight. On the other hand,  some who  now seem so holy, and who are honored as if they were angels, and who perhaps never did commute a deadly sin, may find themselves sitting beside hell's devils in complete misery. (70-71).

So don't be judgmental. "Yes, you can scrutinize a person's actions, weigh them in your mind, and determine whether the deeds themselves are good or evil, but you cannot judge the person" (71). 

So here's a question for consideration: Where in our daily lives do we enter a practice, that is, a place, time, and activity when we enter non-judgmental living? And with such a practice, might it be that our practice of letting go of judgments can work its way into being more truly non-judgdmental in all of life without giving up an ability to make wise and critical judgments when necessary?  

Study Guide: The Cloud of Unknowing, Chapter 28

In this three-paragraph chapter-- “How the persons who want to begin contemplation must first thoroughly cleanse their conscience of each sinful action, as taught by the Church”—Anonymous tells that if we want to pray contemplatively, then we need to “have a clean conscience.” We come to that “clean conscience” by repenting, that is, by deliberately re-orienting ourselves toward God. We acknowledge that we are captive to sin, turn to God for restoration, and commit ourselves boldly to the  contemplative life. It’s the “work of a lifetime, even if a person has never sinned in the worst of ways.”

Yes, we are indeed betwixt and between, living and feeling “this heavy cloud of unknowing between [ourselves] and God. Betwixt and between “we forever fight distraction.”

From Anonymous’ point of view, we (like our spiritual ancestors Adam and Eve) experience the tragedy of willful sinning. To move beyond such a tragedy, we enter a new life by way of confession as God graciously responds with forgiveness and love within the Church.

A question for discussion: How does your Church, your spiritual community, specifically provide for the cleansing your conscience?  During Sunday services?  By providing opportunities for private confession and absolution?  By services of healing and reconciliation?  How?  Where, when, and how often?

Study Guide: The Cloud of Unknowing, Chapter 27

In this one-paragraph chapter Anonymous tells us “who should engage in this [contemplative] work of grace?” (67)

More precisely, Anonymous unpacks this concern by tellings us who should practice contemplative prayer, when should that person do it? and how it should it be done. Contemplative prayer, he says, is for everyone whno “forsakes the world and the active life to dedicate [herself or himself] to the contemplative life.” It doesn’t make any difference—not a whit!—if such a person has or has not been a “chronic sinner.”

It should be noted, however, that while Anonymous in this chapter seems to say that someone inclined to contemplative prayer and living may wish to become a monk, nun, or hermit, he does not exclude people whose lives may be described as “active,” that is,

engaged in compassionate activity in the ordinary work-a-day world.  As you may remember, in his “Preface” he says that such people may be “stirred by God’s mysterious Spirit, allowing them to participate in contemplation at the highest level from time to time” (6). Anonymous might well have in mind the kind of Christian  from another well-known contemplative, Walter Hilton (ca. 1340-1396), wrote his “Mixed Life,” a letter sent to a devout lay of wealth and household responsibility, advising him not to give up nhis active life to become a contemplative, but to mix or combine the two. Such a possibility means that we may live contemplatively, maybe not as monastics or nuns or hermits but as ordinary people who are in love with God and want to “be” with him. 

Might it be that this understanding motivated Karl Rahner, an insightful Roman Catholic theologian, to say several years  ago that “the Christian of the future will be a mystic or will not exist"? 

Study Guide: The Cloud of Unknowing, Chapter 26

As Anonymous in Chapter 26’s summary tells us, what we experience in contemplative prayer is God’s grace at work: “That without special grace or a long commitment to ordinary grace, contemplative work is very hard, and how the soul absolutely requires grace for this work, while, grace, in turn, is God’s work alone” (65-66)

At this point Anonymous believes it is time to encourage us to “work hard” as we pray contemplatively. Yes, it is difficult, and the hard time we have doing it should not surprise us unless somehow God has blessed us in a special way or we’ve been doing it so long that it become a habit.

So why does contemplative prayer often seem difficult?  The difficulty lies simply in our “thoughts of every creature that God has ever made” (for example: What am I supposed to do this afternoon?  Wasn’t that person dreadful! Do I need a haircut?) In contemplative prayer we need to keep such thoughts (and many others!) “covered under the cloud of forgetting.” Keeping them down in hard work. Yes, God helps us “roll [our] sleeves up” for contemplative prayer, but we still have to do it ourselves. When God sets things in motion, we need to do our part.

So do it. Work hard at it, Anonymous urges.  Once you get into the rhythm of contemplative prayer, “you’ll feel the enormity and difficulties of this work ease.” In fact, “as your devotion grows, contemplation ceases being hard and instead becomes very restful and easy. It will hardly seem like work” (66).

Once in a while, Anonymous tells us that something quite wonderful may happen: “Sometimes God may send out a ray of divine light, piercing this cloud of unknowing between you and him and letting you see some of his ineffable mysteries” (66). Anonymous can’t describe either your experience or his own because often it’s “beyond words.”  The experience of simply being with God is so quietly profound that it creates and establishes its own validity within us. We may not be able to find the words to describe it.  At times we can only knowingly smile.

Study Guide: The Cloud of Unknowing, Chapter 25

In Chapter 25 Anonymous continues his clarification of the contemplative’s experience of love within contemplative prayer: “That the perfect soul never thinks about anyone in particular during contemplative prayer.”

In this five-paragraph chapter, our Spiritual Guide first assures us that amazing things happen when we come out of contemplative prayer, that is, when we “mingle with the world again, coming down from contemplation to converse with or pray for [our] neighbor.”  Contemplative prayer changes us.  Because we experience being with God intimately, that oneness changes our hearts, and such “oneing” carries us into an appreciative oneness with people.  We see and love slanderers as friends and strangers become like loved relatives.  At time we even become “more partical to [our] enemy than to [our] friend” (63).  By being sure not to either abandon contemplative prayer nor to stay in it too long, we learn to “shift gears” from contemplative prayer to mingling with people so we can genuinely care for others.

Our tendency to analyze others and put people into categories like “friend or enemy, relative or stranger” goes by the wayside.  Yes, we continue to feel closer to some people than to others; that’s natural and good.  After all, Jesus had deeper affections for several friends like John, Mary, and Peter. But when all is said and done, as contemplatives we come to “feel the same intimate love for everyone because [our] only reason to love is God” (64).  What happens in contemplative prayer with God affects what happens in life with people.

Experiencing wholeness, we “wish wholeness on everyone [we] know.”  Just as our blodies feel whole all the various parts of our body are healthy, so it is with our spiritual body; when our spiritual arms and lets are working with Christ, our head, then we “live and love in love” as St. Paul describes such life in I Corinthians 12, a passage that Butcher recommends we read (note 1, page 250):

12-13 You can easily enough see how this kind of thing works by looking no further than your own body. Your body has many parts—limbs, organs, cells—but no matter how many parts you can name, you’re still one body. It’s exactly the same with Christ. By means of his one Spirit, we all said good-bye to our partial and piecemeal lives. We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life in which he has the final say in everything. (This is what we proclaimed in word and action when we were baptized.) Each of us is now a part of his resurrection body, refreshed and sustained at one fountain—his Spirit—where we all come to drink. The old labels we once used to identify ourselves—labels like Jew or Greek, slave or free—are no longer useful. We need something larger, more comprehensive.

14-18 I want you to think about how all this makes you more significant, not less. A body isn’t just a single part blown up into something huge. It’s all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together. If Foot said, “I’m not elegant like Hand, embellished with rings; I guess I don’t belong to this body,” would that make it so? If Ear said, “I’m not beautiful like Eye, limpid and expressive; I don’t deserve a place on the head,” would you want to remove it from the body? If the body was all eye, how could it hear? If all ear, how could it smell? As it is, we see that God has carefully placed each part of the body right where he wanted it.

19-24 But I also want you to think about how this keeps your significance from getting blown up into self-importance. For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of. An enormous eye or a gigantic hand wouldn’t be a body, but a monster. What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on its own. Can you imagine Eye telling Hand, “Get lost; I don’t need you”? Or, Head telling Foot, “You’re fired; your job has been phased out”? As a matter of fact, in practice it works the other way—the “lower” the part, the more basic, and therefore necessary. You can live without an eye, for instance, but not without a stomach. When it’s a part of your own body you are concerned with, it makes no difference whether the part is visible or clothed, higher or lower. You give it dignity and honor just as it is, without comparisons. If anything, you have more concern for the lower parts than the higher. If you had to choose, wouldn’t you prefer good digestion to full-bodied hair?

As Anonymous closes this chapter, he reminds us how Jesus loved and loves.  Our Lord did not play favorites.  “He didn’t sacrifice himself only for his family, his friebnds, and the ones who loved him best, his closest friends.  He offered  himself to all humanity.”  The “little act of contemplation mysteriously” moves us in that direction, moving us to “humility and charity, as well as all the other virtues” (64).

Study Guide: The Cloud of Unknowing, Chapter 24

If you have ever wondered how a contemplative experiences love, Anonymous does his best to tell you with this chapter heading: “What love is, and how it is mysteriously and perfectly contained in the contemplative work of this book.”

In the first sentence, Anonymous says that our contemplative practice is simply a “little blind love tap beating against that dark cloud of unknowing” so that “all things are patted down, and all cares forgotten.” That tap, of course, is our tiny sacred word. Or as our Teacher says in the second paragraph, the wee sign of our “naked intent,” our “simple reaching out to God for himself.” In the third and last paragraph, we are reminded that while engaged in such  tapping, our contemplative reaching out in Centering Prayer,

Andrew P. Buglass
Self-Portrait

the mature contemplative has no special relationship with anyone in particular, whether family or stranger, friend or enemy, because everyone is family and no one is a stranger, and everyone is friend and no one is an enemy. The genuine love r of God takes this love even further. Those who cause contemplative pain or stress are considered their special friends, and contemplatives wish them every good thing, just as they do their closest friends.

In contemplative prayer we empty ourselves to be entirely and only with God.  While being with God in the cloud of unknowing, we are also at one with everyone whom God loves—all of his creation.  It is just as St. Paul describes such a reality in Colossians 3:

⁹You have taken off your old self with its practices ¹⁰and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator (NIV). ¹¹Words like Jewish and non-Jewish, religious and irreligious, insider and outsider, uncivilized and uncouth, slave and free, mean nothing. From now on everyone is defined by Christ, everyone is included in Christ (The Message).

In Centering Prayer there is no more seeing the world with intellectual, cultural, theological, political, religious, ethnic, or family filters. In contemplative prayer, we come to "see" as God sees us.