The Cloud of Unknowing was written in the Middle Ages by an anonymous author, as a guide for his/her students (not particularly experienced in prayer) to resting in a blind feeling of being.
No emotions, no tears, no laughter, no anger or frustration.
No chatting with God, no asking, begging or even praising…
only nothing.
How can that be? To float in a love cloud of unknowing instead of trying my human darned-ness to understand and draw God into my circle instead of the other way around.
As I was walking yesterday afternoon I found myself thanking God for the beautiful weather, the trees, the green fields, the rain. My mind was going ten to the dozen, my body was briskly moving, my heart was pumping hard, I was not resting in a blind feeling of being.
I noticed a flock of birds gathered in a tree, they swooped off in formation, across the bull pasture, chirruping loudly, then back they came into another tree, already occupied by other birds and my human propensity to personify clunked into gear.
“This branch is mine! Excuse me!”
“Ooops, didn’t realise this leafy twig was already taken…sorry!”
Of course, they don’t say that, anymore than my cat is saying,
“Aren’t I beautiful?” as she sprawls in his pretty, upholstered chair,
or the moth fluttering at the light bulb is saying,
“I can’t see, I can’t see!”
Unknowing is a way to become at one with God by abandoning any pre-conceived notions I may have dragged along with me from childhood, through my teen years, and into adulthood.
Forget the bearded Father, the pierced Son, the flames of the Paraclete.
Gone too, the sighing, the groaning, the crying, the churning, the clenching, the pleading, the lying, the shouting, the talking,
This book suggests lifting up the racing thoughts, surrendering them to the realm of unknowing then, perhaps, I may glimpse the nature of God.
May…
a BIG thought.
I have come to accept that there is no way I can come close to knowing God.
As a personifier all I can do is bring God down to my human level.
All I can do is accept that I can’t know God and instead endeavour to be contentedly at one with an Omni-Presence in a cloud of unknowing.
To float on His presence
accept that I cannot know Him as He knows me
rest in the peace He gives me, the living water, the blood that washes me clean, the promise of eternity in His home.
I can be OK floating on that cloud of unknowing,
Trusting without Understanding.