Study Guide: The Cloud of Unknowing, Chapter 32

In Chapter 31 Anonymous has encouraged anyone beginning contemplative prayer (what today is also known as "centering prayer") to be brave when first entering contemplative practice. Distractions come and must be stomped down with "love's energy," the use of a sacred word as Anonymous will describe the practice later. However, as bravely as the beginner may contend against the assault of ideas, feelings, and memories, she or he may need to use a trick or two up the sleeve to help things along:

When distracting thoughts press down on you, when they stand between you and God and stubbornly demand yours attention, pretend you don't even notice them.  Try looking over their shoulders, as if  you're searching for something else, and yours are.  That something else is God, hidden in a cloud of unknowing.  Do this, and I know the work of contemplation will start getting easier for you.

Using this tactic, beginning contemplatives simply act as though they are unaware that thoughts are pressing down upon them and they look beyond in the direction of God.  Here and elsewhere in this chapter, Anonymous may have been thinking of what he's read in the Letter to the Hebrews where we are encouraged to keep our eyes on Jesus and the finish line:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. (12.1-2)

The second tactic is an old combat maneuver that has worked for any number of soldiers: simply fall down and give up. They act like a cowards and surrender. By quitting the

fight and giving up, beginners also find that by surrendering to God they paradoxically win a skirmish, even a battle. At times it's the acceptance of one's spiritual poverty, powerlessness, and nothingness that wins the battle. Learning to be supple, we allow  ourselves to melty into water.  We become simply what we are--quite insignificant, very low in the scale of things, "a filthy wretch, worse than nothing," as Anonymous phrases it.

When we accept failure, the good news is that such humility "gets God's attention."  God is like a good earthly father, constantly looking out for his little ones, lost in the woods, whether they are "facing snarling wild boars or raging biting bears." Like a good father, God arrives "to avenge [us] against [our] enemies." In contemplative prayer he swoops in and snatches us up, dries our spiritual eyes, and saves each one of us as "his small child."

A personal note: At times it's my experience that the "snatching up" occurs most frequently near the end of my  time in Centering Prayer. After it becomes apparent that I've come to the end of things, that not another sending out of my sacred word is going to help, somehow I manage to give up and wave the white flag of surrender. I simply let go of trying. I fall down, barely aware of anything and for all intents and purpose, I allow myself to die. Such a surrender often bring peace as God swoops in and picks me up and carries me in his arms. There's no body present expect nearly-dead Andy in God's love.