Study Guide: The Cloud of Unknowing, Chapters 57-58

Chapter 57:  “How arrogant young disciples misunderstand up and then are tricked” (129-130).

Now that we’ve taken a good look at the digression wherein Anonymous warns us about being taken in by quack-contemplatives (showing us in contrast how a good spiritual guide presents herself), our teacher asks us to return to his previous concern which he left trailing in Chapter 51: the need not to take literally words like in and up.  So he begins Chapter 57 by suggesting that we “go back to our discussion of the word “up.” He last mentioned that word, along with the word "in" Chapter 51 as he reminded us:

When something is meant to be understood figuratively, we shouldn't take it literally. For example, look at the words in and up. These two words are often misunderstood by those setting out to be spiritually active as contemplative, and their distorted meanings create much error and illusion (116-120).

The word up looks innocent enough; it’s simply a preposition and doesn’t at first glance appear to be dangerous at all.  From one point of view, it’s not; in ordinary usage, it’s common to our way of talking.  We go up to the second floor, for example. When studying Greek to read the New Testament in its original language, you’ll need to memorize the meaning of prepositions as they are used by the Gospel writers, Paul, and others, and you’ll find that the Greek word for up (ana) is quite common.  It’s simply one of many preprositions that help you find where things are.  Here’s what such prepositions in Greek look like:

While the Greeks have their own words for various preposition, so do we English-speakers and writers.  And the word UP (Anonymous capitalizes it in his Middle English text), like any preposition, can be a problem especially when we examine it as contemplatives. Yes, we use the word often, especially in worship as, for example, when our pastor encourages us “lift up our hearts to God.”  Anonymous reminds us that some people he knows, when they hear these words, actually tilt their heads upward and start looking around.  God is somewhere up there, they suppose, just as this medieval woodcut makes plain:

The word up tempts us to look around, especially heavenward, to see if we can locate God.  After all, Jesus ascended and went up.  It makes good sense, therefore, to imagine that we should go up too.  Some contemplatives, especially beginners, Anonymous says, take the word up even further up.  They hear the word in a statement like “Let’s all be sure to dress up to look good” and conclude that good spirituality implies that even God likes to dress up and so, as Anonymous says,

they make God in the shape of their desires, covering him in expensive clothes and placing him on a throne, creating a mental image far more fantastic than any painting done of him on earth.  They also give angels human shapes and different kinds of musical instruments—most odd!

Anonymous is very suspicious of this way of imagining heavenly realities.  In fact, he suggests that the devil may be at work here, so much so that some Christians seem to think that good things fall from heaven like dew and so adopt bodily postures meant to catch the blessings that fall down from the skies. 

As Anonymous observes such people, he concludes that all too often “their souls are empty, lacking genuine devotion while their hearts are filled with self-worship and dishonesty of their weird spiritual ‘exercises.” Of course, those who pray this way may not see that Anonymous is on to something. “They think it’s all genuine and are fully convinced that they’re merely following the examples set my St. Martin, St. Stephen, and others, who were completely devoted to the ‘looking upward’ of contemplative love.”  After all, stories in the Bible depict believers like St. Stephen seeing God, “surrounded by angels and wearing his robe.  That’s why they say we should turn our eyes upward.”

         

Anonymous acknowledges that this is true enough and says that he “completely agree[s] that if we feel moved during worship, we should lift up our flesh-and-blood eyes and hands.” But he then continues, “[nevertheless,]  I believe just as strongly that when we do the work of the spirit, we don’t actually move up or down or from side to side or forward or backward.  Contemplative love has no up, down, left, right, front, or back.  We experience it spiritually, unlimited by physical dimensions.”

Chapter 58: “That we should not view the lives of St. Martin and St. Stephen as literal examples of how to strain our imagination upward during contemplation” (131-133).

Having mentioned Saints Martin [1] and Stephen [2] in Chapter 57, Anonymous in Chapter 58 continues his examination as to how expressions of “upness” [my word], must not be taken too literally.  Although he acknowledges that stories about these saints give one the impression that being dressed “up” a certain way is part of the narrative, nevertheless thoughtful consideration about historical realities makes it clear that “St. Martin’s robe was never really worn by Christ because he had no need to be protected from cold weather.”[3] 

For Anonymous such a story is not to be taken literally not only because the details are improbable, but also because such stories are also said to be visions, non-corporeal events much akin to dreams.  Reading them appeals to those who are in need of images for spiritual sustenance.  After all, Anonymous says, “if we humans were more spiritual, we wouldn’t need [such] visions.”  They are like PowerPoint presentations for the spiritually handicapped. 

Finally, we don’t want to read and understand the story of Jesus’ ascension into heaven too literally, imagining that if we try hard enough, we might “catch a glimpse of Jesus sitting or standing in heaven .”  Do we really need to know if he sits or stands or reclines?   Anonymous doesn’t think so.  “Instead, rest in this knowledge—in heaven, Jesus does as he likes, and his body exists in whatever way is best for him.  Whenever he shows himself to someone as reclining, standing, or sitting, this is only done to teach a spiritual truth, not to indicate how he really moves and acts in heaven.”

         When we use words, we need to be cautious about taking them too literally.  When we “stand by” someone, we don’t mean that we necessarily plant our two feet next to his body; rather, we mean that we’ll “be ready to help you.”  When Jesus stands by Stephen, such a use of language means that Jesus will comfort him even in martyrdom.  Jesus is “standing” by Stephen “with the strength of [his] divinity.”

Now there is a profound contemplative logic in all of this wariness even about the little word up.  Take another look at the “Graphic Scheme of the Greek Prepositions” on and notice that a preposition always requires an object, something like a box.  That object or box implies somebody in a relationship to it.  For example, if the box is a trolley car, I can have the following relationships to such an object:

·      I stood near the trolley car.

·      I sat on top of the trolley car.

·      I walked behind the trolley car.

·      I ran around the trolley car.

·      I crawled toward the trolley car.

·      I fell under the trolley car.

·      I jumped out of the trolley car.

·      I went in/to the trolley car.

·      I strolled up to the trolley car.

·      I sped down to the trolley car.

You get the point. Prepositions require both a subject (somebody) and an object (something). Prepositions imply distance, movement, and space. But as the Bible reminds us again and again, God transcends distance, movement, and space.  God is everywhere, all the time; and there is nowhere where God is not. So in a very real sense there is no pointing to God, no going to God (He’s not like a trolley car). From the contemplative point of view, God is known not by objectifying Him, but through “unknowing,” by means of “agnosia,”[4] through not-knowing—the whole point of The Cloud of Unknowing.

A few months ago someone wrote to Carl McColman, a teacher of contemplative prayer, practice, and life who lives in Atlanta.  Here’s what that person wrote to Carl:

Carl, I am a devoted reader of your posts and always find much food for thought there. Thank you for tackling the throny questions of the contemplative life in such an accessible way. Here’s my question that arose from a conversation with a skeptical friend: If the goal of the contemplative is union with God, does the individual begin to disappear and lose his or her unique self (personality, emotions) in pursuing this goal? I have my own theory but I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on this question when time allows.

And here’s Carl’s reply:

A few thoughts in response. First, I think we misdirect ourselves when we speak of the contemplative life having a “goal” (although, it’s human nature, we all do it). If anything, the “goal” of the contemplative life is not to find God, but to be found by God! We are already united to God, God is already present in our lives, God already lavishly loves us. There is nothing to do (or not do) to make this more or less real. If there is any point or goal to contemplation from a human point of view, it is a means of allowing ourselves to discover what is already there: to reveal what is hidden (remember, “mysticism” is related to “mystery,” that is to say, to the “hidden things” of God).

From the contemplative point of view we are and have always been one with God. St. Paul tells us emphatically that all of us live and move and have our being in God.   puts it this way: “God doesn’t play hide-and-seek with us.  He’s not remote; he is near.  We live and move in him, we can’t get away from him!” (Acts 17.28). Reminding us that it’s impossible to “locate” God because is He is “un-mapable,” Nicholas of Cusa,[5] put things this way:  “God is a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.”  And if God is “un-mapable,” he is also “un-timeable”  (without past or future) so that it may be said that “God is a now whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is always!”  In short, in a very real sense, we don’t need words, images, thoughts, and ideas to be with God.  We are already always with God. 

So don’t try to go “up” to God.  Simply love and be “one-ing”[6] with mystery of Whoever, Wherever, and Whenever He is.  All of this is why Anonymous says that we want to let the literal be a minimalist way of looking at the Divine and move beyond it to a greater reality, the Mystery to which the literal ironically often points: the One-ing.

Notes

[1]  Martin of Tours (316 – November 8, 397) was a Bishop of Tours whose shrine became a famous stopping-point for pilgrims on the road to Santiago de Compostela.  Around his name much legendary material accrued, and he has become one of the most familiar and recognizable Christian saints. 

[2]   For the story of St. Stephen, see Acts 7. 55ff.

[3]  When Anonymous speaks of St. Martin, he is referring to the following story:

[4]   From a-  without + gnōsis  knowledge.

[5]  Nicholas of Cusa, was a German philosopher, theologian, jurist, mathematician, and astronomer. One of the first German proponents of Renaissance humanism, he made spiritual and political contributions in European history. A notable example of which is his mystical or spiritual writings on “learned ignorance.”

[6]   Julian of Norwich calls our not-going-anywhere to be with God, our “Oneing.”  The word “oneing” is taken from the eighteenth chapter of Revelations of Divine Love (c. 1393). When she was 30 years old, and during a time of grave illness, Lady Julian experienced 16 revelations or “shewings” of “divine love.” She describes one experience as “a great oneing betwixt Christ and us . . . .”